ilana manaster 

Ilana Manaster began her relationship with Voice of the City back in 2002, as a frequent contributor to Vaudeville Underground, where she created and performed a variety of different characters every month. In 2003, she and Dawn Marie Galtieri shaped the work she had done for Vaudeville into an evening of theater called Present Imperfect,in which Ilana played eleven different characters during a sixty minute performance. The show was produced by Dawn Marie Galtieri and Christopher Ellis at Glade Memorial Hall. After taking another one-person show, My Life as a Blonde to the New York Fringe Festival in 2004 and spending some time working as a standup comedian in and around New York City, Ilana shifted her focus from performance to writing fiction. She currently teaches composition at Columbia University and has recently finished her first novel,The Ruckus.

Ilana has an MFA in fiction from Columbia University. Her work has been seen in Chicago at the Rhinoceros Theatre Festival and at the 1926 Gallery. Her fiction has appeared in Soon Quarterly. In 2012 she completed a residency at Catwalk in Catskill, New York.
 

Chicago