Performers' Websites

As most of the performers who are featured at Alchemy or are regular participants of the open mic have their own websites, we decided to create this quick-access list. We cheer to all Alchemists who use this new outlet for their creativity! Keep it going!

• Ken Nash, Alchemy founder and chief bottle-washer, spent his youth following a long family tradition of working for the Mongolian State Circus. He toured extensively throughout Asia and Europe caring for the circus’s renowned performing elephants and albino crocodiles. To pass the time during long tours, he made up stories and sang to the animals. www.KenNash.com

• Taylor Mali is the most successful poetry slam strategist of all time, having lead six of his seven national poetry slam teams to the finals stage and winning the championship itself a record four times before anyone had even tied him at three. A native of New York City, Mali is the recently elected president of Poetry Slam, Inc. and was one of the original poets to appear on the HBO original series "Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry." He has performed and lectured for audiences all over the world. http://www.taylormali.com/

• Greg Evans read a sampling of the stories that have been published in The Cafe Irreal, of which he is a coeditor. The Cafe Irreal is an internet journal that has been online since June 1998. Presenting Kafkaesque fiction, it was born in and inspired by Prague and has attempted to provide a venue for irreal literature.

• Jim Freeman participated in the creation of Alchemy and has often contributed with his poetry during the open mic segments. This reading was a sampler from Jim's novels. To get a little taste, visit www.praguewriter.com

• Attill\a the Stockbroker. Sharp-tongued, high energy, social surrealist rebel poet and songwriter. His themes are topical, his words hard-hitting, his politics unashamedly radical, but Attila will make you roar with laughter as well as seethe with anger...

• Gaby Bila-Gunther’s reviews, profiles and nonfiction articles have appeared in many cultural magazines in Australia, Germany, and England. She has self published her own book of tram tales, Validate & Travel on a moving tram in Melbourne, Australia 2000. She is currently based in Berlin, Germany.

• Munayem Mayenin, although born, brought up and educated in Bangladesh made England his home for many years. He writes in English all genres of creative writing including philosophy and psychology. Mayenin’s first collection of English poems, Command the Moon, was published in London in 1993. http://www.munayemmayenin.com

• CitiZen One fixes and transports the audience. His live performances have been described as, "blissful, uplifting, and inspiring!" CitiZen One’s latest CD, "Subway Fire," has been described as "Addictive." Beatstreet (UK) says, "A beautiful voice, well recorded." With 4 CD’s under his belt and a 5th on the way, CitiZen One plans on "touring until the end of time." http://www.citizenonemusic.com

• Chelley McLear is a performance poet, born in England and now lives in Belfast, Ireland. She is part of the poetry group the Democratic Poetry Party, which meets on the first Friday of each month in Belfast. www.chelley.biz

• Marc Marcel is a consummate artist, his talents range from a wide selection of artistic gifts. He is a dynamic Poet, Writer, Speaker, and Actor. Marcel is the Author of two books, a novel Saint Thomas, and a book of poetry Unchained. www.marcmarcel.com

• Louis Armand is an artist and writer who has lived and worked in Prague since 1994. His reviews, critical essays, poetry, fiction and translations have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Sulfur, Meanjin, Frank, Poetry Review, Stand, Triquarterly, Culture Machine and Calyx: 30 Contemporary Poets, eds. Michael Brennan and Peter Minter (Sydney: Paper Bark Press, 2000). http://www.geocities.com/louis_armand/bio.html

• Simone Felice is a New York born author and word artist writing today in the related disciplines of fiction, poetry, and song. His work, both on the page and in performance, is charged with an honest, hypnotic quality that rises out of a masterful use of language, imagery and metaphor. http://simonefelice.ghod.org/engine/

• Richard Katrovas first came to Prague in the months preceding the Velvet Revolution and was witness to that historic event. A graduate of the esteemed Iowa Writer’s Workshop, Katrovas has taught at the University of New Orleans since 1983 and is the founding Academic Director of Western Michigan University’s Prague Summer Program. www.RichardKatrovas.com

• Clare Wigfall was born in Greenwich during the summer of 1976. She grew up in Berkeley, California, and London, and now lives in Prague. Faber author page The Loudest Sound and Nothing MySpace:

• Carrie Etter is originally from Normal, Illinois, Carrie Etter has lived in England since 2001 and is a lecturer in creative writing at Bath Spa University. Her poems have been widely published in such journals and anthologies as The Liberal, The New Republic, New Writing 14 (Granta, 2006), Poetry Review, Stand, The Times Literary Supplement, and many others. http://carrieetter.blogspot.com

• Lewis Crofts was born in 1977 in Blackburn, UK. After growing up in Somerset, he moved to Oxford to study Modern and Medieval Languages at St Catherine's College. In 2000, he went to live in Hanover, Germany, where he worked as a translator and teacher and tried to grow a handlebar moustache. A year later and still smooth-faced, he moved to Prague to take up a lecturing post at the British and American Studies Faculty of the Charles University.