Richard Thomas is a busy man.  He’s a husband and father of twins.  He’s a graphic designer.  He helps moderate a writing workshop at The Cult, one of the most popular author websites in the world.  He’s helped edit zines and magazines alike.  He’s pursuing his MFA in Fiction.  He’s part of a group of up-and-coming writers who each year help each other through the hardships of writing a novel.  And yeah, he’s also a writer whose debut novel, a neo-noir thriller called Transubstantiate, was published in July 2010, the flagship …

Sarah Shafey is a Renaissance Woman with a capital T. That ‘T’ could stand for ‘Talented.’ Or ‘Thirsty.’ Or ‘Transcendent.’ Each of the three ‘T’s are equally fitting; yet they only begin to describe her jacktress-of-many-trades persona. Sarah Shafey is a producer and engineer who runs her own recording studio called Squeaky Clean Records. She’s a deft interviewee; her “Shafey’s Palace” webisodes are as much entertaining as they are insightful. In many-a-photograph, she’s a chameleon whose ability to constantly reinvent herself will leave you breathless. She helps manage a creative …

The word independent– indie– gets tossed around a lot, sometimes without people knowing what exactly it means– or, rather, what they mean. Are we talking about the form of the art itself, or the avenue of its creation? We’re obsessive classifiers; compulsive cataloguers. I suppose it helps to label things as a way to keep our shelves (and lives) from being in total disarray, but sometimes we don’t do ourselves justice.
There is a sound sneaking through Jeffery Straker’s music that I had trouble identifying. While on the surface Step Right Up feels very much like a pop …

Jack Scoresby. Maybe the name doesn’t invoke in everyone the same respect and gratitude that it does in me – but that’s only because not everyone knows him. Yet.
I remember Jack emailed me a long time ago and told me he wanted to buy a print. And then emailed me back about a week later and said he couldn’t buy a print anymore because he spent all his money on his birthday party. I looked at the pictures from said party, complete with blow-up castle, lap dances and more alcohol …

Often, our only perception of an artist is the work he creates. As such, chances are you wouldn’t recognize Norm Breyfogle on the street— it’s fitting, in a way, considering the character with which he is most often associated.
Norm drew Batman for DC Comics for six years, from 1987 until 1993. This was a renaissance period for the character, and Breyfogle’s vision of Batman wasn’t quite like any before him— Breyfogle’s Batman was sleek, expressive and sinister, and he was the first artist that seemed truly conscious of the transformation …

“I won’t settle nope not a little bit.”
If it sounds like a proclamation it should, and it comes beautifully by way of Emma-Lee, Canadian singer-songwriter on “Where You Want To Be.” Since last time we heard from her she has managed to get exactly where she wants to be. Her debut album, Never Just A Dream, which was given 4/4 stars from the Toronto Star—and also fared quite nicely with Oxyfication—is a brilliant beginning-to-end coming-of-age listening experience that defies genre classification. For the better part of the two years leading …

Gordon Highland has done college radio, wedding videos, graphic design, short films, ad copy writing, photography, freelance work as a radio station engineer, commercial scripts, and home recording. He’s directed. He’s been in several bands, most recently the semi-acoustic duo Winebox. Rumor has it he’s been to the moon in a homemade rocket of his own design.
It might be tempting to say Gordon samples the arts as one might sample an hors d’oeuvres tray, but that sort of implies that there is no substance to the experience. On the contrary, …

Caleb Ross is sometimes mistaken for a person from a television show called The Tribe. And though he accepts the adulation of his occasionally confused fans with a grin, his true identity is one that is far more interesting and, if there is justice in the world, one they shall soon know: that of a talented young writer from the Kansas City area, specializing in a prose style that walks a surreal line between the subtle and the explicit. While evoking moments of calligraphic insight in his shorter work, he …

“Come for the breasts. Stay for the heart.”
That’s the tagline to Katie West’s website. Find yourself exploring the site one minute, and an hour later, eyes all bloodshot, mouth still ajar, you’ll see the tagline fitting. West, a photographer from Windsor, Canada is not only not afraid to show either—her breasts or her heart—she’s adept at intertwining the two with an ease that is equally admirable as it is poetic. Through an extensive—and impressive—collection of self-portraits (though not her sole focus, self-portraits are her specialty) you see a gamut of …

The great Kentucky author Joey Goebel wrote The Anomalies and the widely acclaimed Torture the Artist. He also is getting his career off the ground now in Europe, especially in the German-speaking countries*; hell! He even has planned two appearances in the lands where I hail from this fall… so, reason enough to ask a question or two to Mr. Goebel (by e-mail).

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ML: Joey, I know it’s been a while, but do you remember anything bizarre, or worth-telling in any way, what happened to you when you heard MacAdam/Cage actually …