I’m Angelo, a comic, poet, and independent graphic designer living in Northeast Ohio blocks away from a parking spot.

My design work focusses on book design and publishing (sides—outsides and insides—of publications and printed objects). I am the Art Director and Sole Designer at Cleveland Review of Books.

Select clients include: 7 Stories Press, BorderLight Theatre Festival, Thirty West Publishing House, New American Press, Olney Magazine, Cleveland State University Poetry Center, Write Bloody US / UK, Malarkey Books, Variant Literature, Grieveland, and Literary Cleveland

Select press and mentions include: CSU Ohio, The Malarker, Broadway World, Spokane Public Radio, Strut In Her Shoes, Identity Theory, Cleveland Scene (Design), Cleveland Scene (Poetry)

I received a BA in Creative Writing from Cleveland State University, and over the years I’ve accumulated publishing experience in both the physical and digital worlds through lens of design and literature, from being an intern in the Cleveland State University Poetry Center in 2018 to guest editing Ghost City Press Micro-chapbook Summer Series in 2022. I’ve been a speaking artist for classes at Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland State University, and the University of Iowa. Recently with Maya Jewell Zeller, I was an artist collaborator on the Sound and Color panel at the 2024 AWP conference, where we spent a month writing and making in response to one another’s work.

My writing has been on, or featured in or around, Hobart & Hobart After Dark, X-R-A-Y, Afternoon Visitor, The Hunger, Wax Nine, poets.org, Sprung Formal, Cuyahoga County Public Library, among other literary places. I’ve written jokes for publications like Weekly Humorist, Points-in-Case, and the now defunct Pitch. My paintings and artwork have been shown in the Groundhog Show (a juried exhibit in Akron, OH) where they have been awarded honorable mentions and third-best-in-show, and in Kink Contemporary’s 10th volume of the group exhibition Bazaarbeque.

THE IMPROPER USE OF PLATES, a small book of poems I wrote, is out now from Ghost City Press. Zach Savich interviewed me about it, and the border of poetry and comedy and syntax and terror, on Heavy Feather Review: “My Dog Is That One”. Evan Williams wrote an inter/review about it where we chatted about a McDonald’s mansion on Cleveland Review of Books. My latest collection of hybrid work called BALL PIT BUCKET FILLED WITH BRIDGE WATER is now available from Ghost City Press. You can order that here if you would like to own it.

My one-person show REMARKABLY APPARENT ran for one weekend at convergence-continuum, a small theatre in Tremont, Ohio. There is no existing evidence of this play ever happening. I’ve done voiceover work for podcasts, notably The Storyworth Podcast (this episode wildly has received over 4.5 million view on Reels). I performed a tight eight minutes and thirty seconds of hilarious standup comedy in the THE SMALL GARDEN, a live variety show in the 2022 BorderLight Fringe Festival. I’m a comic yelling on stages that will allow it. I’ve been a finalist in Bill Squire’s Comedy Contest. Some other places I have performed are Imposters Theatre, Funny Farm, The Funny Stop, and been part of shows put on by Don’t Tell Comedy - Cleveland, Secret Society Comedy, Snowflake Comedy Club, Yo That’s funny, the Mike Polk Jr. Show at Pickwick and Frolic, Con Tu: A Variety Show, and My Cuzin Funny.

LinkedIn has recommended I become a Special Agent with the FBI consistently for three years. I’d much rather work with you.