KtBniks
Killing the Buddha was founded in November of 2000 by Peter Manseau, Jeff Sharlet, and Jeremy Brothers. Utne Reader declared KtB one of the “fifteen websites that could shake the world.” Since then, it has won an Utne Independent Press Award, received various press and praise, and published Killing the Buddha: A Heretic’s Bible, which was named one of Publishers Weekly’s best religion books of 2004. Believer, Beware: First Person Dispatches from the Margins of Faith (Beacon Press, 2009) was declared “shocking, exhilarating, and never dull” by Library Journal.
KtB today is a community of writers, artists, and editors including but not limited to the following. Though you can write to us individually, the best way to reach KtB at large is through the online contact form.
Founding Editors
Jeff Sharlet was raised unreligious in as many churches, synagogues, and ashrams as his mother had friends. Now he puts his faith in books. He is coauthor, with Peter Manseau, of Killing the Buddha: A Heretic’s Bible (2004), co-editor of Believer, Beware: First-Person Dispatches from the Margins of Faith (2009), and author of The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power (2008). Jeff is also a contributing editor for Harper’s and Rolling Stone. He lives in Boston with his wife and daughter, both of whom he worships.
Peter Manseau has worked as a truck driver, house builder, and one of the world’s last Yiddish typesetters. He is coauthor, with Jeff Sharlet, of Killing the Buddha: A Heretic’s Bible (2004), and author of a memoir Vows: The Story of a Priest, a Nun, and their Son (2005), a novel, Songs for the Butcher’s Daughter (2008), and a travelogue, Rag and Bone (2009). He lives in Washington, DC with his wife and two daughters.
Senior Editors
Meera Subramanian writes about culture, faith and the environment for The New York Times, Audubon, Salon, Grist, Search, and others. She moved to New York to get her MA in journalism from NYU after another life spent as an environmental activist in the muddy woods of Oregon. Currently based in Brooklyn, she seeks out the wild world hidden within the urban landscape and spends an inordinate amount of time writing about birds. Visit her at meerasub.org.
Nathan Schneider has written about religion for The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Commonweal, The American Prospect, Seed, Religion Dispatches, AlterNet, Search, and elsewhere. Before running off to freelance, he picked up a master’s in religious studies at U.C. Santa Barbara, in addition to a bachelor’s in the same thing from Brown. But, doubling as the KtB webmaster, most of his useful skills came from the one year spent as a computer science major. He blogs at The Row Boat and Waging Nonviolence.
Associate Editors
Paul W. Morris was an editor at Viking Penguin and Tricycle: The Buddhist Review before becoming a freelance gun for hire. He’s killed time at Entertainment Weekly and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia staring into the abyss, but nothing stared back. His work has appeared in several anthologies and numerous magazines. He is currently the General Manager of Digital Media at BOMB Magazine, based in Brooklyn.
Ashley Makar is a writer who wanders genres while deep in Yale Divinity School, where she studies religion, literature and whatever metaphorical theology she can get her hands on. She has taught Middle Eastern literature and religion at Hofstra University and published essays in The Birmingham News, American Book Review, and Search. She repents not her trespasses through the Irish bogs of Connemara.
Alex Rose is a co-founding editor of Hotel St. George Press and the author of The Musical Illusionist and Other Tales. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Ploughshares, The Forward, The Believer, The Providence Journal, North American Review, The Reading Room, and on many web zines and popular blogs. His story, “Ostracon,” was included in the 2009 edition of Best American Short Stories.
Contributing Editors
Patton Dodd is the author of the memoir My Faith So Far. He is also a ghost writer, music and movie reviewer, doctoral student in religion and literature at Boston University, and husband. His writing has appeared in several newspapers and magazines. Currently he spends his days researching and watching Hollywood Bible epics, of which there are far, far too many.
Matthew Fishbane spent twelve years teaching high school English overseas in Colombia, Spain and Cambodia, before realizing that even on the other side of the world he couldn’t escape his mother’s Jersey Jewish roots. His writing has appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review, The New York Times, Salon, Outside, the Walrus, and others. He was recruited to enliven the audio dimension of Killing the Buddha. His work is archived at fishbane.com.
Erik Hanson was once the religion editor at AltaMira Press, but then he was laid off. He taught Math and English at a K-8 Quaker School but then he was laid off from there. He currently advises Anthropology majors at the University of Maryland, where he has not yet been laid off, although he is expecting furloughs.
Quince Mountain splits the year between New York and the Wisconsin Northwoods. He doesn’t recommend joining the military, but would consider sending his kids to church camp.
Laurel Snyder is a contributing editor to KtB, the editor of Half/Life: Jew-ish Tales from Interfaith Homes, and the author of a poetry collection, The Myth of the Simple Machines. She’s also written several books for children, including the forthcoming title, Baxter, the Pig Who Wanted to Be Kosher. She lives online at LaurelSnyder.com.
Jeff Wilson is an assistant professor of religious studies and East Asian studies at Renison University College in Waterloo, Ontario. His most recent books include: Mourning the Unborn Dead: A Buddhist Ritual Comes to America (Oxford University Press 2009) and Buddhism of the Heart: Reflections on Shin Buddhism and Inner Togetherness (Wisdom Publications 2009). His next book, with University of North Carolina Press, will examine Buddhism in the American South.
Editorial Intern
Garrett Baer was a cynic, an atheist, and an English major before experiencing a crisis of faith, at which point he dropped out of college to travel in India. He is now designing his own concentration in postmodern religious theory at NYU’s Gallatin School of Independent Study. For better or for worse, his crises of faith now only prompt trips to the bookstore.