Polluto is in no way responsible for its own output and is compiled entirely by loose mental patients. Don't tell Pescadero where we are!

The Guilty Parties . . . (Contributors)

Forrest Aguirre's fiction has appeared in a variety of venues, including, most recently Asimov's and Farrago's Wainscot and is forthcoming in Clockwork Phoenix, Hatter Bones, and Avant-garde for the New Millenium. He won the World Fantasy Award for editing the Leviathan 3 anthology with former Polluto contributor Jeff VanderMeer.

Kelly Barnhill is a teacher, writer and mama, living in the frozen heart of North America. Her previous work has appeared in Postscripts, Weird Tales, Underground Voices and in Ann and Jeff Vandermeer's new anthology, Fast Ships Black Sails. Additionally, her first novel, a YA fantasy called The Boy Without a Face, is due to be released by Little Brown in the spring of 2010.

Philippa Bower won the fourth Linghams Short Story Competition in 2006 and lives in East Preston, UK. Demons live in her attic and trolls live on toadstools in her basement. Occasionally the two forces battle for control of the kitchen, but Philippa manages to weigh in with her rolling pin and restore equilibrium. This way she never does any chores herself.

Kristina Marie Darling is the author of several small press collections of poetry and nonfiction, including Fevers and Clocks (March Street Press, 2006), Traffic in Women (Dancing Girl Press, 2006), Night Music (BlazeVox Books, 2008), and, most recently, Strange Gospels (Maverick Duck Press, 2009).

Mark Howard Jones lives in Cardiff and has had dozens of stories published here, there and somewhere. His novella The Garden of Doubt on the Island of Shadows is now available from Manchester's ISMS Press.

Ren Holton is the alter ego of another, nicer, writer. Ren is the person people never invite to parties, but always speak to when they want a dubious favour. Despite this, Ren manages an almost autonomous existence and can be found within, but separate to, reality. Recent Ren Holton works have been published in SciFantastic, Deathgrip: Exit Laughing, Shadow Plays and at The Late Late Show, and are forthcoming in North of Infinity and Strange Pleasures #6.

Deb Hoag is the author of Crashin' the Real and has become something of a mascot at Polluto. Her second novel is the tale of what happens to Dracula when he visits Freud, and is due out next year from Dog Horn Publishing.

Rhys Hughes is a sordid genius. Or a word-playing savant. Or a strange little Welsh man who makes penises out of wine gums on beaches. His next collection, Mister Gum, is out now from some insane publisher willing to touch it. Erm, that is, us!

Kurt Kirchmeier is from Canada. He has a very strange name. Currently his identity has been stolen by a super-evolutionary chick from Alpha Centauri. Maybe one day he'll get it back.

Miles Klee lives and works in Hell's Kitchen, New York City, but grew up in the utter weirdness of New Jersey. He studied creative writing intensively under acclaimed authors Jim Shepard and Andrea Barrett. His fiction has been featured in McSweeney's Internet Tendency and Yankee Pot Roast and will appear in an upcoming issue of Birkensnake.

Mr Kuch's creative writing credits include Commonweal, North American Review, Slow Trains, Slant, Thema, Timber Creek Review, and other periodicals. He participated in a Mid-American Review Summer Fiction Workshop, and has taken several courses at the Writers Center, Bethesda, Maryland. As a computer systems consultant, he has travelled five continents and 35 countries. He lives in Falls Church, Virginia, with his wife and three cats.

Robert Lamb has been a very bad boy. Please excuse him.

Dave Migman scares us. A lot. His first novel, The Wolf Stepped Out, is perhaps due out for Halloween or next year or at the end of the world, but we're too terrified to read it.

William Peacock is the author of poetry and stories that have appeared or are forthcoming in Bat City Review, ESC! Magazine, Diet Soap, Swill, and elsewhere. As far as ultraviolence and alternate histories go, this bad boy has experienced it all. Indeed, he busted out of Jack Yeovil's Dark Future/Demon Download books some years ago. We're still trying to cram him back in, along with those members of the Diogenes Club to have escaped that same author's Anno Dracula books. See why you shouldn't complain about our late response times?

Jon Peck makes his home in the various coffeeshops of the Pacific Northwest, listening in on others' conversations. Read his musings at JonPeck.com and add to (or steal from) his speculative fiction idea-repository at TakeOneDaily.com.

Tomas Sanchez Prunier drinks too much moloko. Twisted bastard.

Steve Redwood is a satirist extraordinaire who buggered off Spain for his better health (and our own). Check out his collection Broken Symmetries, out now from Dog Horn Publishing.

J. Michael Shell's fiction has appeared in Southern Fried Weirdness '07, Bound For Evil (Dead Letter Press), Subatomic1, Space and Time, Tropic: The Sunday Magazine of the Miami Herald, Ballista, Skive, Sounds of the Night, Tabard Inn, The Benefactor, and the Not-One-Of-Us Magazine special collection (Going Going) Gone.

Helena Thompson is represented by United Agents. She writes widely and prolifically, including poetry and drama. She uses a stiletto to get what she wants and she peels oranges with it between heists.

Fred Ventorini completed a B.S. in English and Journalism at MacMurray College in 2002, and is currently in the midst of the M.F.A. program at Lindenwood University. His fiction has appeared in Sinister Tales, Truth Magazine, Writer's Post Journal, Susurrus, and Skyline Magazine.

Deborah Walker lives in London with her two lovely, yet distracting children. She has recently had acceptances from AlienSkin, Atomjack, Bards and Sages, 55 Stitches, Arkham Tales, Sonar 4, Golden Visions, Drunk and Lonely Men, Absent Willow Review, and Poe Little Thing.

Drew Rhys White is a 2007 graduate of the Clarion Writing Workshop at UC San Diego. This summer, two of his essays appeared in Geez magazine's 30 Sermons You'd Never Hear In Church. His story, "The Accomplished Birder's Guide to Overcoming Rejection," will appear in Jeff VanderMeer's Last Drink Bird Head anthology. In October, his play, Another Night With the Hendricksens, was featured in the Players Theatre Horror Festival in New York City.

Erik Williams has had short stories published at Apex Online, Dark Recesses Press, and GUD. Not a large list of accomplishments but his wife seems impressed.

Manifesto

We're looking for angry voices, new voices, voices that want to toy with the reader and teach them something new and exciting. Take us dark places, dirty places, and show us things to make us giggle, gasp or gag.

All submissions must have a countercultural element. By this we mean an enagagement with, challenging of or subverting of popular cultures and ideologies. Many submissions lack this important point. Remember: we are 'The Anti-Pop Culture Journal'. If you want to know what that means, pick up a copy and see how our mission statement and our themes come together. Read the editorial introduction. Read the stories. Read the poems. Look at the art. Read the columns. Then ask yourself, 'Can I really imagine myself alongside these works?' If you can, then submissions should be sent, as always, to editor@polluto.com.