Issue 4 - Psyche in Cycles

Tatiani Rapatzikou is Assistant Professor at the department of American Literature and Culture. She holds an M.A. (1996) from Lancaster University in Contemporary Literary Studies and a Ph.D. (2001) in Contemporary American Literature from the University of East Anglia, Norwich, England. For her Ph.D. research she was funded by the Board of Greek State Scholarships Foundation (I.K.Y). Also, she received the Arthur Miller Centre Award (2000) and the BAAS Short Term Travel Award (2000) for her research in the U.S.A. and Canada. In summer 2009, she was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the M.I.T. Comparative Media Studies program, while in Spring 2012 she was a Visiting Research School at the Program in Literature at Duke University, U.S.. She teaches courses on 20th century American literature and poetry. Her research interests are in Contemporary American Literature and the New Media, Postmodern Fiction and Poetry, the Technological Uncanny, and Cyberculture/Cyberpunk.

Catherine Rogers is a playwright and performer who lives and works in New York City. Her plays are anthologized in Voices Made Flesh (U Wisconsin Press, 1993) and Spontaneous Combustion (Manhattan Theatre Source, 2003) and have been seen at Cleveland Public Theatre, Salvage Vanguard, the Women’s Project among many others. Her solo show The Sudden Death of Everyone showcased in New York at Dixon Place before touring to Athens, Thessaloniki, and Paros, Greece. Her prose poetry is published in Our Changing Journey to the End: Reshaping Death, Dying, and Grief in America (Praeger 2013), and her short fiction appears in the Gettysburg Review (Spring 2014). In Greece, in addition to Fulbright residencies, she lectured in the Days of American Culture (2010) and presented the Narrative Medicine workshop at the WELL-Med conference on well-being in medical practice (2014). Catherine holds the M.F.A. in Playwriting from the University of Texas, Austin, where she was a James A. Michener Fellow, and the M.S. in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University, New York, where she now teaches.

Writing is an undistinguishable part of my life. The way I think is always a narration of my own soul. I like to bask in the moment and lie there while ideas flow into new experiences. Writing for the Echoes magazine and following the course of narrative medicine has been an exceptional, new and wonderful challenge. My name is Philip Christofi and my precious dream is to become an author.

My name is Annie Sakellariou and I am a 22 year old student from Greece. I am trying to express my self in every possible way and I believe in the freedom of mind and personality. Writing, dancing and photography help me a lot in achieving this goal. Enjoy Echoes!

My name is Konstantina Daskalopoulou and I study in the School of English of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. Two of my great passions are travelling and reading literature. Since my puberty I have been enjoying writing some poetry to express my inner tensions, a habit that, unfortunately, as the years go by fades out, so the Creative Writing Workshop has been a great chance for me to revive this beautiful experience. I hope that it will be just the beginning.

I am Victoria Tzoannou and like many people of my generation, I am a bit of a gypsy soul and love to travel around with cheap airlines a few times a year. I lived in the green land of fairies and beer for one year, but the Mediterranean sun won me back. Drawing, writing and playing music usually take up a lot of my time. I love cats, kind and open-minded people, nature and new experiences!

I am Ignatios Charalampidis and I am currently an undergraduate student in the School of English at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. I am a fan of literature and, apart from reading, I cherish writing my own stories. Writing is a relatively new hobby of mine, but I already aspire to write a novel one day. The genres I am most interested in are sci-fi, mystery and fantasy.

My name is Marianna Hatzidimitriou. I study English Language and Literature at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. What I am most passionate about is travelling. I have about five books in my mind waiting to be written, so beware!

My name is Lizzy Pournara and I’m a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of American Literature, School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. An aspiring scholar and poet, my academic writing merges with creative endeavors, and my research interests focus on contemporary American poetry, digital literature, multimodality and creative writing. Narrative medicine has opened a whole new world for me, where doctor and patient’s narratives blend and fuse in an ingenious vortex. My poem The Ballad of the Body swirls into its whirl the account of some troubled body parts, whose ghostly testimony bears witness to narrative dispossession.

I'm Ruoxi Zhu, a postgraduate student majoring in European Literature at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. Writing has long been one of my major passions and I've dreamt to become a writer since my childhood. Writing somehow works as a healing process for me. However, it has long remained a private activity for me as well and it was not until recently that I was encouraged to present my works to the public. It is an amazing experience since during this process you can feel a new version of yourself growing inside and finally emerging in its full splendor. If you want to know the best thing that I've learnt from my creative writing experience, here it is: "Don't dream it, BE IT."

My name is Evgenia Kleidona and I am third-year undergraduate student in the School of English and a Research Assistant at the Institute of Modern Greek Studies. As always, I remain passionately drawn to both technology and fantasy, while my research interests currently revolve around Linguistics, Gender Studies, American Literature and Video Games. Since my previous participation in Echoes, my interest in creative writing has grown and deepened, as Narrative Medicine has opened up new horizons and pathways for self-reflection and self-exploration.

I’m Despina Papadopoulou born and raised in Thessaloniki, Greece. My interest in literature began from an early age and has grown further while studying English in the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. With a particular love for travelling, I draw inspiration from it which then imprints on paper.

Since writers -or wanna-be-writers for that matter- always use an abundance of big words, I will try to keep this bio note as short and simple as possible. My name is Anna Koronioti and my life revolves around writing, movies, photography, music and literature. I love learning new languages and petting animals. I drink coffee more than I drink water. I write from my heart whether it’s fictional or not. And that’s about it.

I’m Michalis Michalodimitrakis. There’s not much to write about my life so far. I am a dreamy writer, struggling with my graduate degree and recently graduated from School of English of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, during summer 2014. What you will read in this edition is part fiction and part fact as long as it stimulates your way of thinking. Oh … and always put some music on when you read or study; it makes the whole experience so much better.

I am Chunxiao Wei from Shanghai, China. I was educated for my B.A. and Ph.D. degrees at Fudan University in Shanghai. Recently I just finished an Erasmus post-doctoral program at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. I write academic papers on English literature; but my private literary taste is more creative than critical. I enjoy a good poem and a good laugh. Outside of work I am also an indie musician, and the lead singer/songwriter of a local band “Kelp”.