Block A

When Andrea Avery was a kid, she and her siblings had to write persuasive essays when they wanted to watch TV (except PBS). The Avery kids could use profanity, but each F-word cost them a quarter. It worked: Andrea loves TV and writing and believes all words come at a cost and sometimes the cost is justified. A native of Rockville, MD, Andrea moved to Phoenix in 1995 to study piano, harpsichord, music theory and composition at Arizona State University. She went on to earn an MFA in fiction writing, also from ASU. After a stint working as a copyeditor and proofreader, Andrea followed her heart into the classroom: In addition to teaching 10th-grade English, Andrea teaches creative writing in ASU’s department of English and grammar in the journalism school, where she was named Outstanding Faculty Associate of the year in 2009. She was nominated for Best New American Voices 2005, and her work has been published in Ploughshares, Shade 2006: An Anthology of Poetry and Fiction, 52nd City magazine and Phoenix Magazine. She was recently named winner of Real Simple magazine’s second annual Life Lessons essay contest and her work was featured in the April 2010 issue. It is now online and can be read here.

Block B

Ashlea “Bringing Snarky Back” Deahl is an honorary Phoenix native, having lived in the Valley for most of her life. She received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the Walter Cronkite (rest in peace) School of Journalism at ASU, and has freelanced for such publications as The Cape Cod Times, The Boston Globe, Phoenix New Times, The Ritz-Carlton Magazine and several health-related publications. She is currently the editor-in-chief of PHOENIX magazine, which publishes a mash-up of things to do, people to know and places to eat, along with some truly great investigative journalism. Though she’s excited for the future of digital journalism, she considers herself a low-tech gal who treasures curling up on the couch with a good (paper) book or magazine. She also enjoys speaking on behalf of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and, like all aspiring writers, is currently working on a book, a screenplay and a series of short stories.

Block C

Before writing mysteries full time, Betty Webb was a journalist at the East Valley Tribune, interviewing everyone from U.S. presidents, astronauts who walked on the moon, and Nobel Prize winners, as well as the homeless, the dying, and polygamy runaways. The six Phoenix-set Lena Jones mysteries, based on stories she covered as a reporter, include DESERT LOST, voted One of the Top Five Mysteries of 2009, by the prestigious Library Journal; DESERT NOIR, called “A mystery with a social conscience,” by Publishers Weekly; and DESERT WIVES, which the New York Times called “Eye-popping,” and was optioned by Lifetime-TV for a TV movie and/or series. Her humorous Gunn Zoo series debuted with the critically acclaimed, THE ANTEATER OF DEATH, and will be followed up this August with THE KOALA OF DEATH. Betty taught Creative Writing at Phoenix College, and has been a long-time book reviewer at New York-based Mystery Scene magazine. She is a member of the National Federation of Press Women, Mystery Writers of America, and the Society of Southwestern Authors. She also volunteers at the Phoenix Zoo.

View Betty Webb’s website.

Block D

Most notably, Dallas Gold is a human male Phoenician. Also, a writer with a style horse-powered by a 1990s Ryan Seacrest-concept haircut, he’s the failed product of the women in his life. One Part Jon Bon Jovi enthusiast, three parts metaphysical philosopher, Dallas is most famous for coining the phrase “Nachos!” He graduated from ASU summa cum laude without speaking a word and went on to achieve 15 seconds of underwhelming notoriety on the highly acclaimed dating show My Dating Place, where he was paired, aptly, with a meth-addicted tassel twirler. He’s also a vegan and a not-so-remote viewer. You can find him anywhere people stare blankly. Current projects include The Las Vegas Diet: The only thing you sacrifice is your morals, which is a travel guide disguised as a diet book, and a short guide that takes Neil Strauss’ The Game and Fein and Schneider’s All the Rules to the next level.

Read Dallas Gold’s Yelp posts.

Block E

Dan Frey (pronounced ‘Fry’) is a playwright and screenwriter. He graduated with an MFA in Creative Writing from Arizona State University. His play Don Coyote was performed in 2008 at ASU and at the Region VIII American College Theatre Festival; it was also selected as runner-up for the national Rosa Parks Playwriting Award. His plays Frame by Frame and AM:I were also produced in Phoenix in 2009. He recently completed his first professional screenwriting job, and the resulting film is currently in pre-production.

Block F

He came out west to escape Chicago winters and study Western Humanities and Art Theory at ASU. Within days of graduating, Tyda became the managing editor of the globally distributed Ritz-Carlton Magazine. Assigning photo shoots around the world, editing pieces by best-selling authors, and living on deadlines, he caught the publishing bug. He’s since help launch countless publications and served as editor in chief for TrumpStyle magazine, Las Vegas Magazine, and Desert Living magazine. He’s freelanced for US Airways magazine, concierge.com, Hospitality Design, and countless niche titles. He’s excited for the future of journalism and is happy anyone with a Twitter account can distribute information, but he laments the doomed role of the editor/curator. “I’ve always enjoyed putting pieces together for great flow from cover to cover. I felt like a curator of the printed page. That art is dying and I’m sad about that. But it’s exciting to be a part of this evolution.” His most recent project is a food and video blog: EaterAZ.com.

Block G

Ed received an AB Degree, with honors, in Urban Studies from Brown University. His thesis on the benefits of city-sponsored festivals won the Gaston Prize. His advertising career, however, began in Chicago, in 1991, after he won a “Write if You Want Work” copywriting contest sponsored by JWT’s Chicago office. With a reputation as an excellent radio and brochure writer, he left the windy city two years later for a growing Boston agency, which has since become the giant Digitas agency. With invaluable experience in direct response advertising, Sweet went on to write in the online and off-line worlds for American Express, AT&T, American Century Investments, FedEx and others. He relocated to Phoenix in 2000 and freelances for numerous design firms and clients direct, as well as regular freelance work for Digitas. Sweet has also written or ghostwritten four books. His most recent work, Hard Work: Success Made Easy, was named “Best Business Book” at the 2005 San Diego Book Awards. In 2001, his feature film, How To Become Famous, made the festival circuit and is now online for all to see.

View Ed Sweet’s website.

Block H

I was born on January 26th, 1971 by a woman I have never met. I remember reading Borges for the first time, having his labyrinthine blindness work on my loneliness so deeply that I was left with complete solace in my writings. My adopted mother, Jennifer, committed suicide when I was 25. A few years later, after work, climbing a staircase, I collapsed with grief and in a moment Christ overwhelmed me. I am a poet. And I wasn’t given light to see what I would never say I saw.

View Jeffrey Brooker Fischer’s website.

Block I

Whether a speech for a CEO, a brochure about recycling, or a label for a can of beans, Jennifer writes words that must inspire, educate and motivate people to act.

Throughout her 20-year career, she’s honed skills as a copywriter and editor, corporate communications director, PR agency strategist, and communications consultant for tiny start-ups and Fortune 500 companies alike. She’s written and edited magazines, annual reports, newsletters, white papers, blog posts and web content. And about cans of beans.

Born and raised in the East, Jennifer moved to metro Phoenix 12 years ago and, with the possible exception of the entire months of July and August, has never looked back. Unlike many writers, she isn’t working on a novel. Rather, she loves helping others tell their story – for their business, their brand, or their childrens’ children. And since launching her freelance business, Edit by Design, in early 2007, she feels incredibly lucky to get to do just that.

View Jen Halloran’s website.

Block J

Bardin’s writing has appeared in The Arizona Republic, PHOENIX Magazine, Feng Shui (London), and The Ritz-Carlton Magazine, among others. His commercial work has been recognized with an American Business Award; publication in AR100 Black Book; and the Print Regional Design Annual. Bardin has also ghostwritten several books on subjects ranging from art and health to lifestyle change and business success.

View Joe Bardin’s website.

Block K

Phoenix native, ghostwriter Joey Robert Parks, possesses a knack for gleaning the most pertinent, authentic, and interesting aspects about a person.

His own writing voice – colorful and well-researched, frequently weaving together historical facts with an actual sensory experience – evaporates when he translates a client’s verbal conversation into a writing style that is instantly recognizable to even the client’s close friends. Slipping effortlessly between narrative voices naturally produces fruit in Parks’ other areas of expertise: feature profiles and fiction, editing and non-fiction, idea conception and innovation.

It’s not hard to understand why he’s been hired to ghostwrite more than a dozen books for clients such as: George Benson’s fashion designer and stylist; a millionaire mortgage broker; a multi-millionaire philanthropist; a woman diagnosed with terminal spinal cancer; a 39-year old recovering alcoholic; and even another ghostwriter.

Of all the characteristics wordsmith Parks embodies, two in particular, resonate throughout: an amazing enthusiasm that makes working with him fun and a skill that is very rare indeed – the ability to take complex ideas and communicate them to the reader in a way that makes perfect sense.

View Joey Robert Parks’ website.

Block L

John Lindauer III was born in California but spent most of his early life traveling with family. In the early 1970s, John traveled by caravan throughout Europe. There, he saw France under de Gaulle, Spain under Franco, and Yugoslavia under Tito. From these experiences, he learned that it is possible to transform the world with ideas. (Even bad ones.)

When the family returned to the United States, John Sr.’s academic career took the family to Alaska, where he became Chancellor of the University of Anchorage, Alaska. It is in Anchorage that John first developed his love of radio broadcasting. From age 15, he worked: first at the AM station operated by his mother, Jacqueline (KTNX), and later at the number one FM rock station (KWHL), where he became the 6 PM–midnight DJ while still in school.

In 1983, John left Alaska for college, where his love of radio grew into a love of all things, media. He studied Visual Arts at Harvard and received a Bachelor’s degree with honors in 1988. Having won a student academy award during his junior year, his choices were many and varied. He chose to stay in Cambridge and work with his Animation Instructor, Susan Pitt, on a project for the Hamburg Opera Company, The Libretto of Goethe’s Faust. The production was a multimedia extravaganza, employing nearly every type of visual media available at the time. This excited John because it explored communication on so many levels.

Late in 1988, John traveled to California to pursue a career in film and television. His work on Faust had connected him to Hollywood’s multimedia elite and, in 1989, landed him a job directing segments for CBS television’s Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. The show was a staple of the Eye Network throughout the early 1990s.

When Pee-Wee’s Playhouse finally disbanded, the producers followed multiple career paths – some remained in network television production, while others went into commercial production, music video production, or began to explore production for the Internet. John’s continued Pee-Wee friendships allowed him to explore all of these arenas. In television production, John has worked on Fox’s The Simpsons, as well as ABC’s The Critic. In commercial production, John has directed spots for numerous clients including: Viacom, McDonald’s, Sony, General Mills, RJR Nabisco, Toshiba, Frito-Lay, Samsung, Land Rover, Honda, and Lever Brothers. And, for the Internet, John has created multimedia experiences for Novellus, Kia, Ipix/Bamboo.com, and others.

In 1998, John formally joined Sony Pictures Imageworks as a commercial director. Although engaged in a variety of projects, John’s main thrust was to explore High-definition television. He forged a relationship between Sony Pictures Imageworks and the Sony High-Definition Center and created a specialized high-def media experience for the Sony Wonder Exhibits all over the world.

Since joining Believe Media in January 2001, Lindauer has directed commercials for AT&T, Kellogg’s, and Frosted Mini Chex among others. He also put the finishing touches on his effects-laden spec spot Flea Circus for the shipping company DHL, which earned recognition in Adweek’s, “The Best Work You May Never See” creative showcase. For his uniquely creative campaign for the Canadian Dairy Association, entitled “Dog Walker,” Lindauer won the bronze Lion at Cannes.

Block M

Jonathan Clark, founder of Business Writing Solutions, has written professionally since he was 14 years old. He began as a sports writer, but quickly moved first into public relations, then to publications editor for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). At 23, he became the youngest executive in NCAA history.

His marketing director calls him “the best writing trainer schlepping bags through the airport.” With ongoing client relationships including Southwest Airlines, NASA-Kennedy Space Center, RadioShack, Los Angeles County, FedEx, Goodrich Corp. and the U.S. Postal Service, it’s not hard to see why people call Jonathan “the nation’s business writing expert.” These organizations can choose anyone to teach writing classes. They choose Jonathan.

Jonathan has been training since 1982, teaching over 2,600 full days in all 50 states and nine Canadian provinces. His enthusiasm and passion for writing are contagious, and it’s not unusual for participants to call his program “the best seminar I’ve ever attended.” He believes “writing” and “fun” belong in the same sentence, and he will convince you of that, too!

He has produced an 8-disc CD version of his two-day seminar, Business Writing Solutions. He also wrote a successful book on time and priority management (as well as an audio version), How to Make the Most of Your Workday. Most recently, he authored a chapter in the book, Power Tools: the Fast Track to Success.

Jonathan has seen baseball games in 57 major league parks, including the new parks in New York and all 30 currently in use. He has also attended 261 different operas in ten countries, and has experienced the complete Wagner RING cycle eight times.

Because he worked in sports and sports writing for more than 15 years, and because he has been a lifelong fan, you will also want to read Jonathan’s sports blog.  He plans to retell some of his favorite sports experiences, sharing them with readers who are interested in knowing them. He also writes an opera blog, mainly reviewing some of the productions he has seen recently.

View Jonathan Clark’s website.

Block N

Karen is a writer, editor and media consultant who came to Phoenix by way of New York. She’s originally from California and left her home state with a Bachelor’s degree from Berkeley in hand. After earning her master’s from NYU and interning at The New Yorker, she worked at Parents magazine, co-wrote an interactive play, and took silver in an international film festival for a documentary about cabbies. Shortly after arriving in Phoenix, Karen became executive editor of Arizona Foothills and Custom Homes magazines. She also served as managing editor of Design & Architecture and launched the Chicago edition of that publication. For the past eight years, she’s run her own company, KWink media, through which she’s helmed many projects, including the City of Glendale’s history book and “The Creative Community,” by renowned architect and Frank Lloyd Wright apprentice Vernon Swaback. Karen was also the founding editor of Inside Arizona (four regional travel publications produced with Arizona Highways and the Arizona Office of Tourism). For the past six years, Karen has worked extensively with KJZZ and KBAQ, Arizona’s NPR affiliates, overseeing special projects. She created and is editor in chief of the stations’ award-winning magazine, Wavelength. Additionally, she is a faculty associate at ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism.

View Karen Werner’s website.

Block O

After spending four years in the Bronx and six months in Paris to earn her undergraduate degree in Visual Arts, French and Catholic studies at Fordham University, Lauren Gilger turned around and threw herself into the master’s program at ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. In other words, after learning to love the Arts, Lauren decided to learn the art of storytelling – in multiple formats, media and languages. Lauren spent two years working as a volunteer organizer in the Bronx and three months writing (and eating) for the Chow Bella food blog at the Phoenix New Times. She spent much of her undergraduate career as an intern at various national and international media companies, including CBSNews.com, ABCNews.com and CNN – and quickly realized that there is more to journalism than paper and ink. Now, she is freelancing for the Phoenix New Times and is excited to pursue new avenues of media and to help shape the future of an industry that she thinks is far from dying.

Read Lauren Gilger’s page at the Phoenix New Times.

Block P

Len Gutman is president and founder of Open Door Communications, a full-service public relations and communications company based in Phoenix. Len is a member of both the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) and the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), and served as president of IABC Phoenix in 2003-04. Len earned his accreditation from IABC in 2002, a designation achieved by less than 5 percent of the organization’s 13,000 members worldwide. He is an alumnus of Valley Leadership, was named as one of the “Forty Under Forty” up-and-coming community leaders by the Phoenix Business Journal, and is an advisory board member for the American Lung Association of Arizona. Len is the author of Giving Time: Making A Difference in Your Community (Llumina Press, 2003) and is a longtime columnist and contributing writer for The Arizona Republic. His writing has also appeared in various publications including the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix, Ahwatukee Monthly and Raising Arizona Kids. Len has a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from San José State University and a master’s degree in English from Northern Arizona University.

View Len Gutman’s website.

Block Q

Malia Politzer is a journalist with a strong interest in international investigative journalism. Originally from San Jose, CA, she received her BA from Hampshire College, and MS from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She has published articles in the Wall Street Journal Asia, Far Eastern Economic Review, Foreign Policy magazine, Migration Policy Institute, Reason magazine, Glimpse magazine and the Phoenix New Times. She also has credits with NOW on PBS and Frontline. Malia speaks fluent Spanish and intermediate Mandarin, and has reported from China, South Korea and Mexico. She will shortly be moving to India to report for Mint, a newspaper affiliated with the Wall Street Journal.

Block R

Steve Price was born and raised in Hudson, New York. He holds a BA in English from Vassar College, an MFA in Creative Writing from ASU, and has published numerous poems and stories here and abroad. He has won the O’Malley Prize for Fiction and, most recently, The Burnside Review Poetry Chapbook Competition. A freelance copywriter by trade, Steve maintains a daily practice of writing and yoga, both of which he teaches at community colleges across the Valley.

Block S

Paul is an award-winning reporter and producer for Phoenix NPR News station KJZZ, 91.5FM.  A native of the Southwest, Paul has worked in radio and television news for more than 20 years.  As a reporter for Phoenix TV station KPHO in the mid 1990’s, Paul developed an appreciation for neighborhood and community leaders that remains today. “They are the lifeblood of any city or town, and are often the first to help others.”

View Paul Atkinson’s page on KJZZ.

Block T

For more than 60 years, Paul Messinger has devoted his time, energy, vision and historic perspective to Scottsdale and the area as a businessman and community leader. His passions include maintaining and promoting the city’s history, and chairing fundraising campaigns for the city’s most popular sculpture, “The Yearlings,” as well as “One With The Eagle” at the entrance to the Scottsdale Airpark. He regularly writes about the history of Scottsdale for the Scottsdale Republic, part of the daily newspaper The Arizona Republic. Through the years Messinger has been consistently involved in the community, both publicly and behind the scenes. Not a single-cause advocate, his interests range from good government to history to the environment.

After graduating from Scottsdale High in 1948, Paul attended Phoenix College and Arizona State University, graduating from San Francisco College of Mortuary Science. Paul married Cora Ross, a Scottsdale High classmate in 1950. During the early years of their marriage, Paul continued his studies and completed an internship for mortuary licensing in Arizona and California. After eight years of working in mortuaries in Arizona and California, Paul and Cora platted the northwest three acres of his family’s ranch into Scottsdale’s first mortuary.

Read some of Paul Messinger’s articles.

Block U

Sally Ball is the author of Annus Mirabilis, which received the Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize (NY: Barrow Street, 2005). Her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, Ploughshares, Slate, The Threepenny Review, The Yale Review, and other journals, as well as in the Best American Poetry anthology. Ball is the associate director of Four Way Books, an independent press based in New York City, and an assistant professor of English at ASU. In 2007 she was the Margaret Bridgman Fellow in Poetry at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.

Block V

For most of his career, Scott Hermanson has written literary criticism about skewed environmental perspectives, examining the American West, chaos theory in urban design, and Disney World. Now he’s writing a novel with his own skewed environmental perspective. His most recent short story was published in the inaugural issue of The Superstition Review. In 2004, he was named Faculty Member of the Year at Dana College, one of the smallest colleges in the nation. Feeling rather full of himself, he took a job at the largest university in the nation. He now teaches writing as an adjunct professor at Arizona State University.

View Scott Hermanson’s website.

“The Cartesian Point of Center”

Scott Hermanson talks about his fictional perspective of Block V with 26 Blocks creator Joey Robert Parks. 

Block W

Steven Beschloss has contributed from the U.S. and Europe to dozens of publications, including The New York Times, The New Republic, Parade Magazine, the Chicago Tribune, The Village Voice, The Wall Street Journal, American Way and National Geographic Traveler. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and awarded for his writing by the American Society of Journalists and Authors, Beschloss tackles subjects ranging from travel, arts and culture to urban and international affairs. In addition, Beschloss is an award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker whose fiction and documentary work has been seen and sold in more than 20 countries and translated into more than a dozen languages. A graduate of Haverford College and Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Beschloss is co-author of Adrift: Charting Our Course Back to a Great Nation (July 2011).

View Steven Beschloss website.

Block X

Songwriter, singer and guitarist of the New York-launched, Phoenix-based indie band Broken Poets. Now working on his fifth full-length modern music release, Tim is in many ways a throwback to an era when lyrics were king and fans craved songs that pierced the soul and could change the world. One critic said it best about the tunes McDonald brings to life with his Broken Poets partner, classically trained Russian pianist, keyboardist, Lana Antropova “Soulful poetry turned into song, rock and roll and introspection all in one.”

View Tim McDonald’s website.

Block Y

T. M. McNally is the author of six works of fiction, including the novels Until Your Heart Stops, a New York Times Notable Book; Almost Home, a St. Louis Post-Dispatch Best Book of the Year; and The Goat Bridge, a Booklist Editors’ Choice. He is also the author of the short story collections Low Flying Aircraft and Quick. He has received the Faulkner-Wisdom Gold Medal, the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, the Yale Review’s Smart Family Foundation Award, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Howard Foundation at Brown University. His most recent book, finalist for the Pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction, is a collection of stories—The Gateway.

Block Z

Phoenix architecture critic, Walk Lockley, was born in Texas, educated from the back seat of a 1972 Buick Riviera criss-crossing the continent, and thinks architecture is dangerous, sexy and a Big Deal. He’s appeared in Cosmopolitan and the Los Angeles Times, and writes frequently for Desert Living. Walt lives in Scottsdale. His work on disappearing mid-century modern in Phoenix, and other architectural curiosities, is on his web site.

View Walk Lockley’s website