Anna Joy Springer, is an artist, performer, and cross-genre writer who investigates the weird intersections of sacredness, perversity, feminist history, and interbeing. She is the author of The Vicious Red Relic, Love (Jaded Ibis, 2011), an illustrated fabulist memoir with soundscape, and The Birdwisher, A Murder Mystery for Very Old Young Adults (Birds of Lace, 2009). Her current research interests are:  A graphic text picture puzzle called Thieves’ Rebus, an operatic outer space puppet show memoir called Art In Heaven, and a collaborative essay on writers who use magic, ritual, and prophecy in contemporary experimental literary practice. An Associate Professor of Literature at UC San Diego and the Director of its MFA Program, she teaches experimental writing, feminist literature & graphic texts. She’s played in punk and dyke punk bands Blatz, The Gr’ups, and Cypher in the Snow and toured with Sister Spit.