Contributors

Kirsten Abel is a writer from Steilacoom, Washington. She has an MFA from Columbia University and currently lives in Seattle. Her work has appeared in the Berkeley Poetry Review, FIELD, Bennington Review, North American Review, and elsewhere.

Katy Aisenberg, PsyD, PhD works in Cambridge as a clinical psychologist. She has published a book of literary criticism, Ravishing Images about ekphrastic works. Her poetry is published widely in American journals. She has a forthcoming book of poems The Ether Dome. "The Invention of Ether" is the title poem from this collection. 

Alison Alstrom is a painter and writer living in San Francisco. You can find her on instagram at @heyheydouble_a.

Sean Cho A. is a research, editor and writer living in the midwest.

Diana Babineau is a biracial writer and editor based in Chicago. Her work has been published, anthologized and shortlisted by North American Review, Terrain.org and SmokeLong Quarterly. She has worked for In These Times, The Common and other magazines.

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Shanan Ballam is the author of Pretty Marrow and Inside the Animal: The Collected Red Riding Hood Poems.

Lucienne S. Bloch is the author of two novels, short stories, the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction, and a newly-published book of personal essays titled Whistling in the Dark.

Traci Brimhall is the author of 5 collections of poetry. Her poetry and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Guernica, Gulf Coast, and The New Republic. She serves as the Poet Laureate of Kansas.

Taylor Brorby is the author of Boys and Oil: Growing Up Gay in a Fractured Land, Crude, Coming Alive: Action and Civil Disobedience, and co-editor of Fracture: Essays, Poems, and Stories on Fracking in America. 

Hayan Charara is the author of four poetry books, most recently These Trees, Those Leaves, This Flower, That Fruit. He teaches at the University of Houston.

Cathryn Cofell is a Wisconsin poet with eight books including Stick Figure with Skirt, winner of the Main Street Rag Poetry Award. www.cathryncofell.com

Nicole Cooley is the author of six books, most recently Of Marriage (Alice James Books 2018) and Girl after Girl after Girl (LSU Press 2017), as well as the forthcoming Mother Water Ash (LSU Press 2024). Her poems have appeared most recently in Poetry, DIODE, and Scoundrel Time. She is the director of the MFA program in creative writing and literary translation at Queens College, City University of New York.

Paul Crenshaw is the author of three essay collections: This One Will Hurt You, This We'll Defend, and Melt With Me, which is forthcoming in October from The Ohio State University Press. Follow him on Twitter @PaulCrenstorm

Sarah Cypher is the author of The Skin and Its Girl (Ballantine 2023) and holds an MFA from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, where she was a Rona Jaffe Creative Writing Fellow in Fiction. She grew up in a Lebanese Christian family near Pittsburgh and lives in Texas with her wife.

Kwame Dawes is the author of numerous books of poetry and other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. His most recent collection UnHistory, was co-written with John Kinsella (Peepal Tree Press, UK 2022). Dawes is a George W. Holmes University Professor of English and Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner. He teaches in the Pacific MFA Program and is the Series Editor of the African Poetry Book Series, Director of the African Poetry Book Fund, and Artistic Director of the Calabash International Literary Festival. He is a Chancellor for the Academy of American Poets and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Kwame Dawes is the winner of the prestigious Windham/Campbell Award for Poetry and was a finalist for the 2022 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. In 2022 Dawes was awarded the Order of Distinction Commander class by the Government of Jamaica.

Darren C. Demaree is the author of nineteen poetry collections, most recently neverwell, (2023 from Harbor Editions).

Marc Dickinson’s work has appeared in Shenandoah, Cream City Review, North American Review, Greensboro Review, American Literary Review, Chattahoochee Review, Beloit Fiction Journal, South Dakota Review, as well as other journals. He lives in Iowa with his wife and two children, and teaches creative writing at Des Moines Area Community College. 

Frannie Dove is an author, playwright, screenwriter, and producer from Virginia. Her fiction is published in North American Review and Berkeley Fiction Review, and her children’s plays can be found on the Drama Notebook.

Samantha Edmonds is the author of the chapbooks Pretty to Think So (Selcouth Station Press, 2019) and The Space Poet (Split/Lip Press, 2020). Her work appears in The New York Times, Ninth Letter, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. She’s currently a PhD candidate at the University of Missouri. Visit her online at www.samanthaedmonds.com 

Jacqueline Eis lives in Fort Collins, CO. Her short stories, poetry, and essays have appeared in many literary magazines, most recently in Beloit Fiction Journal, Flash Fiction Magazine, and Vol. 1 Brooklyn.

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Valerie Fioravanti is the author of the linked story collection Garbage Night at the Opera. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in many literary journals, including North American Review, Cimarron Review, and The Saturday Evening Post.

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Jordan E. Franklin is a poet from Brooklyn, NY. She is the author of the poetry collection when the signals come home (Switchback Books) and a poetry chapbook, boys in the electric age (Tolsun Books).

Wendy A. Gaudin is a writer, an American historian, and the proud descendant of Louisiana Creoles who migrated to California. Her nonfiction writing explores themes of race, ancestry, hybridity, memory, migration, family narratives, and Louisiana.

Christopher Gonzales has lived in Chicago, Mexico City, and Oberlin, Ohio, but has spent most of his life in upstate New York. He is now writing a book and raising a family in Ithaca, New York.

Richard Goodman is the author of French Dirt: The Story of a Garden in the South of France, A New York Memoir, and The Bicycle Diaries: One New Yorker's Journey Through 9-11.

Kimberly Groninga, Other Things that Grow (Final Thursday Press, 2010), teaches writing, literature, and theatre at the University of Northern Iowa. Her poetry and nonfiction have appeared in Atticus Review, Poetry East, The Café Review, Mid-American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. www.kimgroninga.com

Patrick Hicks is the author of The Commandant of Lubizec, In the Shadow of Dora, Across the Lake, Adoptable, and The Collector of Names, among others. His work has appeared on NPR, The PBS NewsHour, American Life in Poetry, and his first novel was selected for National Reading Group Month. He is the Writer-in-Residence at Augustana University as well as a faculty member in the MFA Program at the University of Nevada Reno at Lake Tahoe.

Mike Ingram's stories and essays have appeared in publications including The North American Review, EPOCH, and Phoebe. His first book, Notes from the Road (Awst Press, 2022), was a finalist for the Big Other Book Prize for Nonfiction. He lives in Philadelphia, where he teaches at Temple University, serves as the books editor for Barrelhouse, and co-hosts the Book Fight podcast.

George Kalamaras, former Poet Laureate of Indiana, is the author of 24 collections of poetry. He is Professor Emeritus of English at Purdue University Fort Wayne, where he taught for 32 years.

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Maya L. Kapoor is an award-winning science writer who covers climate change, biodiversity, and environmental justice. Maya has taught science writing, creative nonfiction, and journalism at North Carolina State University, where she previously ran the journalism minor. Maya is a steering committee member of The Uproot Project and a former board member of the Society of Environmental Journalists. She has a Master’s degree in biology and an MFA in creative writing. Find more of her work at mayalkapoor.com

Joseph Landi is a medical writer in New York City. His poems have appeared in North American Review, The Southern Review, South Carolina Review, Midwest Quarterly, Tampa Review, Southern Poetry Review, and other journals.

Neil Mathison is an essayist and short-story writer who lives in Seattle, Washington, and Friday Harbor, Washington. Neil’s author’s website link is http://www.neilmathison.net/ 

Maria Nazos is a Greek-American poet who was raised in Athens. Kaveh Akbar chose her work as one of the 2022 Palette Poetry Contest winners. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker and elsewhere.

Matthew Oglesby is a writer living in Atlanta, Georgia.

Lauren Osborn is a PhD candidate in English at Oklahoma State University, and a graduate of the MFA program at Queen's University of Charlotte. You can read more of her work at www.laureneosborn.com

Alyssa J. Pelish lives and works in New York City. Her essays and fiction have appeared in The Paris Review, Harper’s, Slate, Conjunctions, Cabinet, New England Review, The Smart Set, The Baffler, FENCE, and North American Review, as well as having been featured on LitHub and the Granta blog. Her work has also been recognized by The Best American Short Stories 2018 and The Best American Essays 2020 and 2022. Her story collection House, Tree was a finalist for the 2022 Spokane Prize for Short Fiction.

C.E. Poverman is the author of: The Black Velvet Girl (Iowa School of Letters Award for Short Fiction). Skin (nominated for L.A. Times Book Prize). Stories in Pushcart and O'Henry. Novels: Solomon's Daughter, Susan, My Father in Dreams, On the Edge, and Love by Drowning.

Catherine Pritchard Childress lives in the shadow of Roan Mountain in East Tennessee. She teaches writing and literature at Lees-McRae College where she serves as Director of The Stephenson Center for Appalachia. She is the author of the poetry collection Other (Finishing Line Press, 2015) and Outside the Frame (Eastover Press, 2023).

Lee Ann Roripaugh (she/they) is a biracial Nisei, and the author of five volumes of poetry (most recently Tsunami vs. the Fukushima 50, Milkweed Editions, 2019), a chapbook (#stringofbeads, Diode Editions, 2023), and a collection of short stories (Reveal Codes, Moon City Press, 2023).

Sofia Samatar is the author of several works of fiction and nonfiction, including the World Fantasy Award-winning novel A Stranger in Olondria and The White Mosque: A Memoir, a PEN/Jean Stein Award finalist.

Scott Russell Sanders is the author of more than twenty books of fiction, essays, and personal narrative, including A Private History of Awe, Hunting for Hope, and The Way of Imagination. His latest book is Small Marvels: A Novel-in-Stories. 

Peggy Schimmelman is the poet laureate of Livermore, CA. Her work includes the poetry chapbooks Crazytown and Tick-Tock and the novels Insomniacs, Inc. and Whippoorwills. She is co-author of Long Stories Short and Two Truths and a Lie by Wild Vine Writers. Her poetry and short fiction have appeared in the North American Review, Naugatuck River Review, Peregrine, WinningWriters.com, the Aleola Journal of Poetry and Art, Pacific Review, Comstock Review, the Wild Musette, 100wordstories.org, and others.

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Brandon R. Schrand is the author of Psychiana Man: A Mail-Order Prophet, His Followers, and the Power of Belief in Hard Times (March 2021); Works Cited: An Alphabetical Odyssey of Mayhem & Misbehavior (2013), and The Enders Hotel: A Memoir, a 2008 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection.

Steven Schwartz is the author of seven books of fiction, including most recently, The Tenderest of Strings, novel. He lives in Fort Collins, Colorado and is the fiction editor for Colorado Review.

Gabriella Souza is a Portuguese-American writer whose work has appeared in North American Review, The Adroit Journal, The Rumpus, and New South, among others, and the Best Small Fictions 2022 anthology.

William Stobb is the author of six poetry collections, including the National Poetry Series selection, Nervous Systems. "Doom" appears in his 2019 collection, You Are Still Alive. Stobb works on the editorial staff of Conduit, and teaches creative writing at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

Jason Tandon is the author of five books of poetry, including This Far North, The Actual World, and Give over the Heckler and Everyone Gets Hurt, winner of the St. Lawrence Book Award from Black Lawrence Press. He is a master lecturer in the Arts & Sciences Writing Program at Boston University.

Adam Vines is professor of English and director of Creative Writing at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he is editor of Birmingham Poetry Review. He is the author of five collections of poetry.

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Hope Wabuke is the author of the poetry collection The Body Family as well as three chapbooks of poetry. Winner of fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts, Fulbright, and the Poetry Foundation, she is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Will Wellman is a writer and poet living in Nashville, TN. He is the co-founder of The EcoTheo Review.

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Brooke Juliet Wonders is an Associate Professor at the University of Northern Iowa and a founding editor of Grimoire Magazine.