Contributors
Andrew Condell doesn’t know as many things as he should. Luckily, he is married to a very smart and beautiful advice columnist who helps point him in the right direction. Born and raised in NYC, Andrew went to art school and now works in television. In his spare time Andrew tries to play country music on his ukulele, watch baseball and make funny videos. Andrew is always glad to give advice to anyone who asks and is especially happy now that someone has finally asked.
Art Allen is a straight man in his mid-20s and lives in Minneapolis with his fiancée and two cats. Art is a freelance writer for profit and a pro bono writer for fun. Art has a nearly 1:1 ratio of having his heart broken and having broken others’ hearts. He knows what’s up. Additional interesting tidbits about Art include the fact that he is the founder and organizer of the Minnesota Beard-Off and that he reached 50,000 words in his first National Novel Writing Month attempt in 2010.
David Jay is 45 and lives in northern New England with his wife of over 20 years. They enjoy spending time together and finding new causes and activities that help keep their (strictly monogamous) relationship fresh. David is a freelance technical communications specialist and also works part-time as a college physics professor. On those rare occasions when he is not working, he likes to play video games, listen to music, play guitar, or write and record music in his home studio. His ideal vacation is escaping “up north” into the woods for some tent camping and fly-fishing.
Dennis Hong isn’t a guru. Nor is he a self-help guide. He doesn’t have all the answers, and you won’t find a photo on the internet of him wearing a smug smile, a wave of radiantly conditioned hair, airbrush-perfect complexion, and gloating eyes that say, “you only wish your life were as awesome as mine.” (In reality, his eyes are usually saying, “we just hope we’re not blinking in this picture.”) Instead, Dennis believes we can all learn from each other by sharing our personal stories. So, when he’s not busy doling out his 20 cents all over the internet, he muses about life and love here.
Jarek grew up in Maine and is glad to be back. Growing up in a small conservative town with roughly the same population as a cross-town bus, he was eager to leave. He attended a small liberal arts college in upstate New York, where he was exposed to such left wing ideologies as feminism, environmentalism, and playing a guitar with no shirt on. He tried his hand in cooking for a few years, giving him great alternatives to EasyMac and French Onion dip straight from the can. He eventually moved back to his home state for a job in sales where he currently lives with his girlfriend, a one year-old Boxer with separation anxiety. They enjoy going to the beach, chasing squirrels, and destroying expensive things throughout the house. In his leisure, Jarek still enjoys cooking. He also likes outdoor activities and is an avid rock climber.
JMagic is a coffee lover, gin drinker, and avid runner. By day he works in the sometimes-stressful (wink, wink) television news business. By night you can find him with his nose stuffed in various political/current events publications or yelling at the television when any of the Atlanta sports teams aren’t performing up to par. He’s a big believer in simply treating people the right way and while he’s generally a fairly laid back, chilled out guy, drivers who forget to use their turn signals almost always get under his skin. Hailing from the great state of Georgia, he packs all the southern charm, but is missing the charming accent. However, what he lacks in speech patterns, he makes up for with a wide range of facial expressions and quick-witted comebacks.
Joe Wood (_jsw_) is a 44 year old married Boston-area resident who spends his days working as a software developer at MIT and his evenings commenting on sites that tend to cater to a very different demographic than his own. He does so in the futile hope that it might help him when his two young daughters grow up. In his spare time, he enjoys reading, renovating his house, playing with his kids and pets, and recreational coding. Although he’s spent half his life on the East Coast, he still considers himself a Midwesterner and speaks fluent Iowan.
Matthew Van Colton is a writer, director, performer and instructor who is a general time-waster. He makes his home in Chicago, where he is a singer, a member of Actor’s Equity, and a faculty member at Second City. He is the author of one play, Figments, which has seen exactly two staged-readings and zero performances. Outside of his creative life, Matt is a big, sporty queer. He used to sleep with women, but now he sleeps with men. He has been on countless first dates, quite a lot of second dates and has had many relationships with both sexes (most of which have lasted more than one night). Maybe it was growing up around two sisters or maybe he’s just lucky, but Matt truly loves women in all their beautiful, intelligent, neurotic and nurturing ways and finds himself the good gay friend and de facto date to an uncountable number of ladies. Meanwhile, he is still single and quite okay with that, or at least he’s pretending to be for now.
