Criminal Class Press is:
Wayne White: Editor in Chief
a.k.a. Kevin Whiteley earned his MFA at California College of the Arts and his BA at Columbia College Chicago. His writing has been featured in Reservoir.com, New Expressions, and he has ghost-written for photographer/model/singer Sarah Vanderhaar. Currently he’s working on the revisions to his forthcoming novel, “Chi-Town, My Town,” as well as embracing historical fiction with a work-in-progress entitled “Appeasement.”
Ricardo Cozzolino: Art Director
Ricardo Cozzolino grew up in the Chicagoland area, skateboarding and going to punk and hardcore shows. He has been creating art in some form or another ever since he can remember. Ricardo graduated from Columbia College Chicago with a BA, focusing on computer graphics. By trade, he is a video editor and has been working as such, starting in 1994 through today. Currently, Ricardo lives in Denver, wishing he skated more and still hoping to travel the world on someone else’s dime.
Johnnie Walker: Editor at Large
Johnnie Walker is a poet, a photographer, an educator, and a drifter. He has earned degrees from Columbia College Chicago (MFA Poetry ’05), Museum School of Fine Arts, Boston (Post-Bac ’03), and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (BFA ’98). He is the author of several chapbooks of poetry. His work, aside from Criminal Class Review, has appeared in the California College of the Arts’ Eleven-Eleven literary journal. He is currently finishing a fifteen-year-photographic documentary project chronicling his travels throughout the United States. He currently lives and works in his hometown, Saint Louis, MO.
Johnny No Bueno: Poetry Editor
A street-corner hooligan in his wonder years, Johnny’s love for poetry was instilled early on. Being his weapon of choice, No Bueno’s poetry harkens Rimbaud, Lerner, and Ginsberg, while infused with punk and echoing the horrors of the world. He will–one day–teach young degenerate, as he once was, the redemption song that is sung through a street poet’s pen. He is currently chasing a bachelor’s in English with a minor in creative writing, escalating to a doctorate level. In an attempt to make his mark on the world, Johnny is restless but is honored to make his start here, at Criminal Class Press.
Ru Gutierrez: Web/IT Support
Ru Gutierrez has been around, under, and over the block. He holds degrees in Liberal Arts and Humanities and in Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts. His varied vocations have included stints in Graphic Design, Music and Entertainment, Fine Arts, Fashion, and Film/Video. He enjoys fitness, art, creative technologies, collaborative creativity, Audio Production, and Sound Design. He currently resides in San Francisco, CA.
Greg Cozzolino: CFO
While Greg earned his stripes in the big city, it was too crazy for his complex brain to endure, so he escaped the madness and now resides in the suburbs of Chicagoland. He earned a BA in Mechanical Engineering from the Milwaukee School of Engineering. Currently, Greg owns an empty, three-bedroom home but schemes in the basement. Influenced musically by his brother Ricky, who showed our man “the ropes,” Greg played drums back in the day but became a soccer hooligan in college. He’s also a retired dodgeball player with too many amateur accolades to count.
Sarah Van Den Bosch: Managing Editor
Sarah Van Den Bosch received her BA in Fiction Writing from Columbia College Chicago. Her work has appeared in Bartelby Snopes and the now-defunct Aposiopieces. When she’s not writing she’s reading and reading and reading some more. It’s fair to say she’s fairly well-read.
Max Glaessner: Submissions Reader
Max Glaessner received his BA in Fiction Writing from Columbia College Chicago. Max is also the founder of the early Sexy Bald Men Reading Series and has been a featured reader/performer in many Chicago literary events including Reading Under the Influence, 2nd Story, and The Windy City Story Slam.
Justin Bostian: Copy Editor
Justin Bostian is a young writer living in Chicago, constantly grappling with authority issues and crippling insecurity. He is a student of the Fiction Writing department at Columbia College. He edits and produces Friction, a zine that publishes emerging writers with exceptional gumption, pep, and other such antiquated traits. He’s hard at work on a novel, several story collections, and a pile of manuscripts that are begging to be edited.
Erica Mancini: NYC Affiliate
Erica Mancini jumped ship from Chicago to New York where she’s immersed in the Gallatin program at NYU, majoring in Musicology and Sociology. Currently, she’s deep in research, putting together an analytical collection of the anthropological aspect of music and the cultures it echoes. To pay the bills, she can be found playing the accordion in the streets and subways.
Julie Littman: Contributor
By day, Julie Littman works for The Man as a business reporter in an office cubicle and barely sees the light of day. But in the cover of darkness, she escapes the drab world by reading murder mysteries, who-dun-its and stories that leave her guessing until the very end. She also enjoys literature about stories that aren’t widely known and pooh-poohs bestsellers that are turned into movies. Julie received her MFA at California College of the Arts and her BA in Literary Journalism at UC Irvine. She is currently working on a project about a story that was almost forgotten.
Caroline Schwartz: Head of Media Relations
Milwaukee born and bred, Caroline now resides in Chicago, where she blitzes the media for CCP while obtaining her BA in Fashion with an emphasis in Marketing and Public Relations at Columbia College Chicago. She hopes to later obtain an MBA in Marketing and one day marry a Kennedy.