Andrei Codrescu was born in Sibiu, Transylvania, Romania, where in the 16th century they burned witches, in 1989 they shot students. In the teens of the 21st century the citizens didn't flinch when Europe's second biggest theatre festival set off fireworks at midnight. He emigrated to Detroit in 1966 where a revolution was in progress. Tanks of the 82nd airborne and National Guard rolled down Woodward Avenue and shot at anyone out after the 6pm curfew. Andrei moved to New York City in 1966, where he met poets. His first poetry in English, License to Carry a Gun, was published in 1970. He lived in San Francisco and in the Northern California town of Monte Rio. In 1983 Andrei Codrescu founded Exquisite Corpse: a Journal of Books & Ideas (1983-2016). He has taught literature and poetry at Johns Hopkins University, the University of Baltimore, and Louisiana State University. In 1983 (anno mirabilis), he wrote weekly for The Baltimore Sun and the City Paper, and started commentating regularly on NPR (National Public Radio.)