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 Jacob Aiello
Jacob Aiello is a writer and tutor whose stories have previously been published in Ooligan Press, The Portland Review, and The Wordstock Festival’s “Wordstock Ten.” He has been a member of The Portland Fiction Project since 2007 and is a frequent contributor to the 1,000 Words Reading Series. He is now hard at work amassing a collection of short fiction consisting of far too many pronouns. He grew up in a small town in Northern California and experimented with Texas, but now happily resides in Portland, Oregon, where he plans to stay.
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 Jeremy Benjamin
Jeremy Benjamin—if you want to get his attention and can’t remember his name, he will respond to “Red,” and if that nickname escapes you, you can address him with an exclamation of “Hey, jerk-off!”—is a mutant reptile raised by an anthropomorphic rat in a New York City sewer, a vigilante trained in the exquisite art of bullshitting and making a mockery of the format of a web bio. A chivalrous, conscientious—and titillating—escapee from New England, his BCCC (blood-clam-chowder content) is still at 3.4, meaning he is now legal to operate a motor vehicle, and has been issued the special privilege of yelling curses at traffic lights—in his best Jack Nicholson impression, which is quite terrible—and dancing to bad remixes of 90’s Hip-Hop standards while operating said motor vehicle. Born September of 1981 on a stormy night, infant Jeremy was observed to stand up in his crib and voice satanic litanies in an arcane language (that has yet to be identified by the team of linguists at the Vatican Research Center assigned to his case), and being raised in captivity as a messiah of evil, he vowed to make Portland Oregon his stalking ground as a twenty-something. The Portland Fiction Project is Jeremy’s first strike at unraveling the collective sanity of bohemian audiences.
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 Matthew Corum
1. Matthew Corum works as a builder, writes at night, and takes naps whenever he can.
2. Matthew Corum believes in stories.
3. Matthew Corum is a descendant of lumberjacks and railroad engineers.
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 Kate Nordbye
Kate Nordbye currently exists only as a figment of her own imagination. Prior to this, Kate, being the most intimidating person she
knows, hired herself out to serve as a bodyguard (not stalker, as some have
insinuated) for the Portland Fiction Project. Faulty morality led her to steal
some of their greatest work and to submit it as her own to The Oregonian
Editorial Page. In an attempt to curtail this behavior, Kate was allowed to
join the Project and since then has been happily stealing her stories from
small children and the medically uninsured. In an alternative reality, Kate is
a writer, teacher, social worker, traveler, calligrapher, and has her orange
belt in Kung Fu.
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 Marian English
Thea was born in Eugene, OR and successfully infiltrated ‘normal society’ sometime in 1994. Ever since, she has been working secretly to further the influence of the Moderate Agenda. Those damned Moderates, they’re everywhere! Don’t listen to her so-called rationalism, her disgusting live-and-let-live rhetoric. It’s a trap to lure good, hard working extremists down the road to hell! Soon you’ll be talking to that nut across the street with his out there, wacko ideas at the other end of the spectrum—and then it’s only a matter of time before they convert you. Be warned: she seems harmless, even innocent with her self-deprecating humor and laid back presentation. Make no mistake; she is out to get you. All of you. She’s probably already in your head. Don’t worry, there are trained teams who can help you shake of the independent mindse—I mean brainwashing and bring you back into the fold of what this country is all about: Sit-coms, fast food, all-day 30%-off sales. Oh no, she’s here! Stay away from me! Aaaaaaggggghhhhhhh.
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 Alice Clark
“Alice Clark has an immense advantage over the other writers. To me, Alice is fiction. She lives and breathes fiction. After all, she’s fictional, herself. It’s difficult to compete with. It’s a step the other writers (including me) can’t, or maybe won’t, take. Nevertheless, it can be very intimidating to contend with.”
—Doug Dean
“I think Alice Clark is FBI. Or maybe CIA. Or she could be a serial killer, a sadistic cannibal, perhaps. Or maybe a masochistic cannibal. Or maybe a regular cannibal, who writes fiction. Alice Clark could also be your neighbor. All I know is, her stories chill me to the bone.”
—Jeremy Benjamin
“Some people said the stories were dark and some said they were powerful. They didn’t know what they were reading though, I think I made it all up.”
—Alice Clark
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 Nicole Krueger
Nicole Krueger has devoted her life to abusing the written
word. When she’s not recklessly pursuing the Next Great Metaphor, she pretends
to eke out a living as a book publicist and freelance writer. She is also a
blogger, web copywriter, bibliophile, and experimental time traveler. The
stories she has posted here, while written twenty years in the future, were not
first published until 1100 B.C.
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 Doug Dean - Editor
Doug divides his time between writing, occasionally performing improvised theater around town, working with the writers of The Portland Fiction Project, singing at Chopsticks II and elaborate delusions of grandeur. For eight years, he hosted the earliest Christmas party on Long Island (until a broken window in his mother’s house created the need for a new venue).
Some early short pieces writing can be found online at Yankee Pot Roast.
A mysterious yet self-effusing type, he can be found as well as lost, present in any given moment.
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| Alumni |
 Tim Josephs - Founding Member
Tim Josephs was born and raised in New Jersey and ventured out to Oregon several years ago seeking his fame and fortune (that and to flee the NJ mob boss who wanted his thumbs). After a series of unsatisfying jobs (yo-yo inspector and table tennis ball boy, to name a couple), Tim took up writing and soon realized he had a real knack for it, at least his Mom thought so. He is the author of several books, most notably The Wizarding Adventures of Larry Kotter [lawsuit pending] and Stalk this Way: Getting Your Ex to Fall Back in Love with You By Any Means Necessary. He currently lives with his fiancé and a tubby cat.
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 Leah Wade - Founding Member
Leah is older than she likes to admit. She likes to think she is funny. She doesn’t know where her mentally unstable characters come from—they just seem to come out when her fingers hit the keyboard. She is proud of her racing trophies, her bar membership, and that she changed her own water pump last fall. She isn’t sure about her writing, but she is sure where she learned to love words—from her mom and Paige Elliot—her elementary school librarian. And she would be fully remiss if she failed to mention her editor extraordinaire Jacinta Kilber—who reminds Leah that you can’t write a murderer without a murder.
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Liz Varley - Founding Member
 Liz lives and works in Portland, where she spends most of her free time
writing, reading and trying to come to grips with the modern world. She
loves cheap wine, Italian food, snowstorms and orange cats. Somehow or
another, she would like to one day write a novel, sell millions of copies
and retire in Paris.
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 Lukas Sherman
Lukas Sherman was born in West Linn, Oregon and began his (over) education at Wheaton College in Illinois. He later attended Boston University and Concordia University (Portland), the latter of which was the dreariest academic experience of his life. Lukas has worked in various capacities, including crossing guard, at several schools, clerked at a book store, imprinted bibles, was a counselor at zoo camp, roofed for a summer, did groundskeeping at a golf course, and was a janitor. In his free time, Lukas enjoys books, music, film, hiking, drinking, creative facial hair, and church. He lives in S.E. Portland.
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Lisa Burstein
 Lisa Burstein received her MFA in Fiction from the Inland Northwest Center for Writers. She has attended workshops at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. Her novel “Novocaine Princess” is currently being shopped around while she works on her as-yet-untitled second novel. She enjoys fantasizing about becoming a publishing novelist, pretending she is a publishing novelist, and throwing spitballs at real published novelists.
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Matthew David Deschaine
 Matthew David Deschaine was born and raised in a
sleepy mill-town in northern New England. As a recent
transplant to Portland, Oregon, he enjoys getting lost
while looking at buildings, meeting lots of nice dogs
and pretending to be a local. Matt’s writing has
appeared in regional newspapers, architectural
magazines, and creative journals.
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Jim McCollum
 Favorite Hammer: Sledge
Sign of the Zodiac: Scorpio
Birthstone: I wish it was Jet
Cat vs. Dog Preference: Dog
Even or Odd Preference: Even
Symmetry or Asymmetry Preference: Asymmetrical
Number of white t-shirts: roughly 35
Clean to dirty white t-shirt ratio: 12/35
Waffle Preference: Belgian
Favorite meal of the day: Lunch
Favorite Box Fan Setting: 3
Analog vs. Digital Preference: Analog
Espresso Delivery Method Preference: Latte
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 Karina Sanchez
Karina grew-up in Santa Cruz, California and moved to Portland six years ago with her husband. She has always had a love of words and she can’t remember a time when she didn’t want to be a writer. She is, of course, also a voracious reader. Her favorites include most dead Russian authors and British science fiction writers. You can normally find her sitting in a coffee shop day-dreaming about the end of the world and hoping that she will be there to write about it.
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 Jason Moore
If you haven’t heard of Jason Moore, and you didn’t know that he has single-handedly resurrected the publishing industry with his stratospheric sales, I envy your naiveté. Remember the first time you injected heroin? Better. The first time you sang show tunes in the shower with both your lovers? Double better. Expect pleasures more visceral and numbing than sampling plates of strawberry cupcakes on a Sunday morning, or galloping after butterflies in fresh snow.
His second novel, I Ain’t What I Ain’t, never rose to the heights of his first, I Love You Canadian Free Healthcare Scum! It was perhaps a mistake to write solely in pig latin, but you can’t fault him for trying. I Love You Canadian Free Healthcare Scum! oozed onto the literary scene like a pleasant foot jell packaged in a hand-thrown porcelain urn painted with small birds, and no school child has ever been the same. As with most first novels, it was juvenile, nearly unreadable and undeveloped, but we found sticky globs of beauty occasionally splattered on the page, and we knew we were in the presence of a flowering savant.
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 Heather Nordeen
Heather Nordeen grew up in Vancouver, WA though she is currently in denial of once residing in this suburban hell hole. She eventually
moved to Portland and attended Portland State University where she
received her Miss America degree in Communications, however she was
able to keep her sanity by writing and occasionally leaving the country.
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 Kate Dillon
Kate Dillon fled to Portland after graduating from the University of Michigan in 2006. She somehow came away with a major in English and
minor in Spanish, though those have yet to work to her advantage in any practical money-making fashion. Kate wants to be a teacher, but has serious doubts as to whether anyone would let someone as crazy as her guide today’s youth. When she isn’t stealthily watching others (searching for story ideas, of course), you can find her cooking, cleaning, and sleeping, in that order. Kate has an affinity for large trucks and tractors, which stems from her small farming-town roots, and might steal yours if you’re not watching.
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 Spencer Cushing
Spencer Cushing—grew up in the flat, empty expanses of Wyoming and believes this caused his obsession with apocalyptic narratives. After a brief and unsuccessful tenure as a wannabe super-villain, he retired his Furby army and left high school and found his way to the NW. He studied writing, literature, and Shakespearian sex jokes at the University of Puget Sound. He believes the short story can make a bigger comeback than the Roller Derby and hopes that his own stories will one day waddle into the homes of millions like a corpulent kitty-cat to lay its fuzzy body into the laps of readers everywhere.
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