Michael Mirolla: As if writing novels wasn't challenging enough, Mirolla and business partner, Connie Guzzo MacParland have recently taken over Guernica Editions publishing house. Visit www.guernicaeditions.com Guernica Editions prides itself on publishing fine literature that deals with the pleasurable understanding of different cultures – do not expect to find stereotypes in their portfolio.
Mirolla has authored two novels, Berlin and The Boarder; two short story collections, The Formal Logic of Emotion and Hothouse Loves & Other Tales, and a poetry collection, Interstellar Distances/Distanze Interstellari.  His story, “A Theory of Discontinuous Existence,” was selected for The Journey Prize Anthology, while another story, “The Sand Flea,” was nominated for The Pushcart Prize. His prose and poetry has appeared in journals and anthologies in Canada, the U.S. and Britain, including: Event's "Peace and War" issue, Telling Differences: Short Stories From Quebec Writers, Tesseracts 2: Canadian Science Fiction, Anthology of Italian-Canadian Writers, and New Wave of Speculative Fiction Book 1. Three of his plays—Gargoyles, Snails, and A Revised Experiment—have received professional productions. Gargoyles won the Canadian One-Act Playwriting Competition.
He lives in Toronto and Montreal leading what he calls “a Highway 401-AutoRoute 20 existence.” Born in Molise, Italy, Michael Mirolla has an M.A. from the creative writing program at the University of British Columbia.

Jim Christy: Is the pseudonym for James Christinzio, a writer and visual artist who has published 27 books and exhibited his art internationally. His most recent poetry collection --  Marimba Forever – recently published by Guernica Editions.
Born in Richmond, Virginia on July 14, 1945, Jim Christy grew up in South Philadelphia, a tough area featured in his autobiographical novel Streethearts, and also featured in Sylvester Stallone's Rocky movies. "Boxing was in the air," he once recalls. In 1968 he moved north and became a Canadian citizen. As a reporter he has covered seven wars and wrote on travel and music. he has read his poetry, often with jazz and blues bands, throughout the world. The Australian broadcasting company compared Christy to Tom Waits “only cooler.”
Of Marimba Fever, the blurb reads: “Many of the poems can be regarded as small films: nourish, action, farce or slapstick; others call music to mind: a tenor saxophone improvising on a standard melody in the wee small hours just as the milk man is getting up and rubbing sleep from his eyes; a roadhouse honky-tonk hell-raiser; six gypsies with accordions and tubas on the back of a flatbed truck somewhere near Ploestki or a marimba orchestra in a tropical town square playing like they never want to stop while palm trees sway and lovers neck on the green benches.” Visit ABCBookWorld http://www.abcbookworld.com/view_author.php?id=581

    The reading takes place Saturday, April 9, 2011, 5:45 p.m. to 7:45 p.m., at the Cornelia St. Café, 29 Cornelia Street, NYC, (212-989-9319); www.corneliastreetcafe.com. The evening starts with Open Mic readings of five minutes each. IAWA is a 501(3)©not-for-profit corporation. Since 1991, the organization has given voice to writers through its Open Reading series at Cornelia St. Café every month. For membership information, visit www.iawa.net