Felix, Joel

LVNG is an independent journal that features poetry, fiction, essays, and art. The first issue of LVNG was published in the fall of 1990 at Kenyon College. Michael O'Leary and Jay Sullivan, the journal's founding editors, collected poetry and artwork from friends in both Detroit and Chicago. The two assembled eighty copies of the thirty-six page inaugural issue and circulated it among friends and colleagues. The name of the journal was taken from a favorite song of both editors, "The Lung" by Dinosaur Jr., and was also an abbreviation of Living and Loving.

Influenced by traditional gift-giving economies and communities, O'Leary and Sullivan were committed to the free distribution of LVNG. Peter O'Leary joined the founders as an editor and helped with the dissemination of LVNG into Detroit and Chicago cafes, bookstores, and record stores.

Beginning in 2001, LVNG was published by Flood Editions, a small non-profit press founded by Michael O'Leary and Devin Johnston. Available online and in communities across the country, LVNG's primary purpose is "to provide a location for the ideas and aspirations of a collection of writers." The journal's unorthodox and informal distribution method - placing copies of LVNG in buses and trains, grocery stores and doctor's offices - offered people an opportunity to read contemporary poetry without having to purchase a poetry magazine. Later joined by Peter O'Leary and Joel Felix, LVNG produced eleven issues, the last of which appeared in 2004.

Michael O'Leary received a B.A. (1993) in Greek and Latin from Kenyon College, which later awarded him membership to Phi Beta Kappa, and a B.S. in Civil Engineering (2004) and Ph.D. in Materials Engineering (2008) from the University of Illinois at Chicago. In 1993 he moved to Chicago, where he worked for Morningstar, a financial publishing company. He later became the Associate for External Relations in the Humanities Division at the University of Chicago. He was a writing consultant for the Franke Family Foundation where he co-authored a novelization of a family history published by The University of Chicago Press. With Jay Sullivan, and later joined by Peter O'Leary and Joel Felix, he co-founded LVNG, a free poetry, fiction, and art magazine focusing on Midwest authors and artists. He also served as an editor for Chicago Review and Kenyon Review. O'Leary works as an engineer in Chicago.

Peter O’Leary received a B.A. (1990) with honors in English Literature from the College at University of Chicago, and a M.A. (1994) in Divinity from the University of Chicago Divinity School, and a Ph.D (1999) in Divinity from the University of Chicago Divinity School specializing in Religion and Literature. In 1992, O’Leary met poet Ronald Johnson, who became his mentor until Johnson’s death in 1998. Johnson appointed O’Leary to be his literary executor. This charge resulted in two books: To Do As Adam Did: Selected Poems (Talisman House, 2000) and The Shrubberies, a collection of last poems (Flood Editions, 2001). In 1994, O’Leary traveled to Greece and visited the holy island of Patmos where Orthodox iconography was discovered. He also spent a year living in Vienna in 1997-1998. O’Leary resides in Chicago and is a teacher at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Jay Sullivan attended Kenyon College with Michael O'Leary. He is a lawyer in Boston.

From the guide to the LVNG. Records, 1989-2003, (Special Collections Research Center University of Chicago Library 1100 East 57th Street Chicago, Illinois 60637 U.S.A.)