Biography of a Dirty Napkin

The Dirty Napkin was created in August 2007 by Christopher Goodrich and Jeremy C. Ellis. It seeks to publish the best Poetry, Fiction, and Letters in four issues a year. What are the best poems, stories, and letters, you ask? You tell us.

A Napkin's Mission

To create an active community of exceptional writers via an online literary magazine. The Dirty Napkin acknowledges that writing cannot be separate from the voice, breath, and the personality of the author; that should a piece of writing be separated from this literal voice, much power will be lost. Therefore, the Dirty Napkin seeks to include voice by having each author read their work online. The Dirty Napkin also seeks to create a community of artists by creating a reading series and salons. Stay tuned.

What is a "Dirty Napkin" anyway?

Have you ever felt the urgency to write while you were out, at a restaurant, say, and scribbled a thought down on a napkin? Have you ever told your friends to "hang on a sec" until you finished that thought? As writers, we do not know when the muse will slap us silly. Luckily, there are many napkins filling the world waiting for us to dirty them.

About the Editors

Jeremy C. Ellis
Managing Director, Co-Creator

Jeremy C. Ellis, like Nick from the Great Gatsby, grew up in the Middle West before moving to the Eastern Coast. However, he plans to avoid getting mixed up in his eccentric neighbor's business. He has participated in the arts in a variety of capacities for most of his life and hopes to keep it that way.

Christopher Goodrich
Poetry Editor, Co-Creator

Christopher Goodrich currently teaches English to inner city Philadelphians. He has also taught at New York University and Frostburg State College. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in the Worcester Review, the New York Quarterly, Karamu, Kestrel, 5am, Sycamore Review, Cimarron Review, Hotel Amerika, Diner, and Rattle among others. A chapbook, "By Reaching" was recently published by Finishing Line Press. He is a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize recipient and holds an MFA from New England College. His book, Nevertheless, Hello will be published by Steel Toe Books in April 2009. He hates raisins.

Abigail Keller
Fiction Editor

Abigail Keller writes and lives sometimes in Montana, right now in Oregon, and hopefully soon back in New Hampshire, where she's from. She's currently pursuing her MFA in fiction at the University of Montana. She enjoys cross-country skiing, drinking tea, and growing vegetables.

Tim Rhomberg
Letters Editor, Fiction Associate Editor

Tim Rhomberg is currently living a semi-adult married life, just north of Chicago. Previously, he served as a contributing editor to Millikin University's Collage and was a member of the Like a Fox Players. His other productions and creations featured large cardboard costumes and/or dislocated shoulders. There is hope that his two rabbits will soon reside in a shared dwelling, as their two cages are filling up that spot where the love seat is going to be.

Katie Schmid
Poetry Associate Editor

Katie Schmid lives and works in Chicago, a city which—as far as she can tell—can only be outstripped in loveliness by Eden itself, and that's just because Eden never has grand transportation foul-ups that make her late to work. She has previously served as the Editor of Collage, Millikin University's literary magazine. Current interests include self-published chapbooks/generally weird underground publications and finding ways to avoid small talk of every kind. Her feigned "general esophageal malady" shtick is getting pretty convincing.