Nancy [Alvarado] holds both a BA and an MFA in writing. She worked for nearly five years as a columnist for the Chula Vista Star-News, winning awards for Excellence in Journalism from the San Diego Press Club, the California Reading Association, and the Greater San Diego Reading Association. Her fiction has been previously published in Relief Journal, San Diego State University MFA Anthology, Santa Clara Review, A Year in Ink, and LatinoLA “Expresate!” She has won Honorable Mention twice in the Writer’s Digest Annual Short Story awards and 9th place in the Writer’s Digest Poetry Awards. She was a finalist in the 2020 San Diego Decameron Project.

Patricia Quintana Bidar is a writer and lifelong Californian, with family roots in New Mexico, Southern Arizona, and Utah. She is an alum of the U.C. Davis Graduate Writing Program, and also holds a BA in Filmmaking. Patricia’s work has been included in numerous anthologies including Flash Fiction America (W.W. Norton, 2023). Her stories have been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize, also garnering multiple nominations for Best American Short Stories, Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, and Best Microfictions. Visit Patricia at patriciaqbidar.com.

Hildie S. Block is a night owl, a writer, a teacher, and a little obsessed with the weather. Her day doesn't start until after one cup of coffee with a little NPR. She lives in Virginia with her family and her axolotl named Xipe! In the last year or so her work won the Washington Writer's Publishing House Holiday contest, and appeared in Gargoyle, HauntedMTL, BeZine, and CafeLit. When not writing, she's teaching, previously at George Washington and American Universities and currently leading workshops at the Writer's Center www.writer.org and on her own hildieblockworkshop.com.

Listen to Hildie read “Phaedra, Oil on Canvas” here.

Travis Dahlke is the author of "Milkshake" (Long Day Press) and "Mount Summer" (Out to Lunch Records). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Joyland, HAD, Juked, X-R-A-Y, and The Longleaf Review, among other journals and collections.

Tracy Dimond is a 2016 Baker Artist Award finalist. She is the author of four chapbooks, most recently: TO TRACY LIKE / TO LIKE / LIKE from akinoga press. She holds her MFA in Creative Writing & Publishing Arts from the University of Baltimore. Find her online at poetsthatsweat.com.

Listen to Tracy read “Longing is the Best Part” here.

Susan G. Duncan is a consultant with a performing and visual arts clientele, capping a career in arts administration. She served as executive director for San Francisco’s long-running musical comedy phenomenon Beach Blanket Babylon, the al fresco California Shakespeare Theater, and the Grammy-winning, all-male vocal ensemble Chanticleer. Her poetry has appeared in Orange Blossom Review, Soundings East, 3Elements Literary Review, and Yalobusha Review among others, as well as in anthologies by Sixteen Rivers Press and Red Claw Press.

Marco Etheridge is a writer of prose, an occasional playwright, and a part-time poet. He lives and writes in Vienna, Austria. His work has been featured in more than eighty reviews and journals across Canada, Australia, the UK, and the USA. U6 Stories: Vienna Underground Tales is Marco’s latest collection of short fiction. When he isn’t crafting stories, Marco is a contributing editor and layout grunt for a new ‘Zine called Hotch Potch. Author website: marcoetheridgefiction.com

GJ Gillespie is a collage artist living in a 1928 Tudor Revival farmhouse overlooking Oak Harbor on Whidbey Island (north of Seattle). In addition to natural beauty, he is inspired by art history -- especially mid century abstract expressionism. The “Northwest Mystics” who produced haunting images from this region 60 years ago are favorites. Winner of 20 awards, his art has appeared in 57 shows and numerous publications. When he is not making art, he runs his sketchbook company Leda Art Supply.

Lu Han is a Chinese-born writer currently living in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan. Lu’s fiction and memoir explores the stories of the undervoiced, with a particular focus on displacement and immigration. Her work is published or forthcoming in The Margins, Overachiever Magazine, Inheritance Magazine, Jarnal, and elsewhere. Find more at helloluhan.com.

Jessica Claire Haney (she/her) is a Northern Virginia-based writer, editor, and writing tutor. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in Washington Writers’ Publishing House, Delmarva Review, Beltway Poetry Review, Written in Arlington, Gargoyle Magazine, Porcupine Literary, Court Green, Earth’s Daughters, and the DC Women Writers anthologies Grace in Love, Abundant Grace, and Grace in Darkness. Her essays and articles have appeared in The Huffington Post, The Washington Post, Scary Mommy, Mothering, Washington FAMILY, Healthy Woman, and anthologies. In previous lives, Jessica was a high school English teacher, a community wellness advocate, and a parenting blogger. Instagram @jessicaclairehaney & Twitter @crunchychewy. JessicaClaireHaney.com

sumaiya hernández—dominican-born immigrant, from Queens—creates poetry coming from their heart onto pages which don’t break with the weight of words in english and spanish. sumaiya cultivates reveries from her multicultural background to tell the tale of a poet in love with the mystical side of life. proudly bi & genderqueer, they also erect many sensual poems. through poetry, sumaiya contemplates moments in life as they walk the path of spirituality as a Muslim in NYC.

Lauren C. Johnson attributes her upbringing in Florida, America’s weirdest state to her interest in the ecological and surreal. Her writing has appeared in the Swamp Ape Review, Maudlin House, Museum of Science Fiction, Oracle Fine Arts Review, and others. She is a member of The Ruby, a Bay Area collective for women and non-binary artists and creatives. Lauren regularly contributes reviews and interviews to The Racket Journal. She earned her MFA in creative writing at American University and lives in San Francisco, where she is a co-host of Babylon Salon, a quarterly Bay Area reading series, and Club Chicxulub, a sci-fi and fantasy performance series.

Listen to Lauren read “Chimera” here.

Armaan Kapur (he/him) is a writer and designer from New Delhi, India. His short prose has appeared or is forthcoming in Cutleaf Journal, Chestnut Review, The Reader Berlin, Apparition Lit, and Helter Skelter Magazine. He is currently pursuing two full-length projects: a debut novel about existentialism, and a collection of queer, speculative novellas. Find him at armaankapur.com.

Listen to Armaan read “Utopia/Utopia” here.

Kate Kastelein writes both fiction and non-fiction, and her work has been published in numerous publications including Shondaland, NonBinary Review, Riddled With Arrows, The Future Fire, anthologies by Medusa's Laugh and McFarland Press, and a number of regional outlets. She has an MFA from the University of Southern Maine Stonecoast Writers’ Program. Kate lives on the coast of Maine in an old, slightly haunted house with her husband and children.

A New Englander with old farming roots, Karen Kilcup is the Elizabeth Rosenthal Excellence Professor of American Literature, Environmental & Sustainability Studies, and Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies at UNC Greensboro. Her forthcoming poetry collection The Art of Restoration was awarded the 2021 Winter Goose Poetry Prize, and her chapbook manuscript Red Appetite received the 2022 Helen Kay Chapbook Poetry Prize.

Alexandra N. Kontes's work has appeared in various journals, some of which no longer exist. You can read more at esmeraldasnest.com.

Lori Lamothe’s fourth poetry collection, Tulip Fever, came out this fall from Kelsay Books. Her poems have appeared in Barren Magazine, The Literary Review, The Shore, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. She’s an assistant professor at Quinsigamond Community College and a (belated) MFA student at the University of Houston-Victoria.

Wendy K. Mages, a Professor at Mercy College, is a storyteller and educator who earned a master’s and a doctorate in Human Development and Psychology at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a master’s in Theatre at Northwestern University. As a complement to her research on the effect of the arts on learning and development, she performs original stories at storytelling events and festivals in the US and abroad. Her stories appear in literary publications, such as 3cents Magazine, Antithesis Journal Blog, Five Minutes, Funny Pearls, Harpy Hybrid Review, Hearth & Coffin, The Journal of Stories in Science, New Croton Review, Potato Soup Journal, Quibble, Route 7 Review, Sea to Sky Review, Star 82 Review, and Young Ravens Review. A triptych of her poems appears in Scenario. To learn more about her work, please visit mercy.edu/directory/wendy-mages.

Lyndsie Manusos's work has appeared in Barrelhouse, Necessary Fiction, Passages North, and other publications. She's an associate flash fiction editor for jmww, and her flash story, "The Following," published in Milk Candy Review, was nominated for a Pushcart. She lives in Indianapolis with my family, works as an indie bookseller, and writes for Book Riot and Publishers Weekly.

Avra Margariti is a queer author and poet from Greece. Avra’s work haunts publications such as Baffling Magazine, Wigleaf, Best Microfiction, and Best Small Fictions. You can find Avra on twitter (@avramargariti).

K.C. Mead-Brewer lives in Baltimore, MD. Fun fact: her rowhome used to be part of an orphanage in the early 1900s; no child-ghosts have been encountered yet, but one can hope. She is a graduate of Tin House's 2018 Winter Workshop for Short Fiction and of the 2018 Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers' Workshop. For more info, visit kcmeadbrewer.com.

Leah Mueller lives and writes in Bisbee, Arizona. She is the author of ten prose and poetry books. Her new book, The Destruction of Angels (Anxiety Press) was published in October 2022. Leah's work appears in Rattle, NonBinary Review, Midway Journal, Citron Review, The Spectacle, New Flash Fiction Review, Miracle Monocle, Outlook Springs, Atticus Review, Your Impossible Voice, etc. She is a 2023 nominee for both Pushcart and Best of the Net. Website: leahmueller.org.

Emily Pinkerton lives and writes in the San Francisco Bay Area. She holds an MFA from San Francisco State University, and her writing has previously appeared in Pome, ZYZZYVA, Juked, BlazeVOX, Foglifter, and Berkeley Poetry Review among others. Emily is the author of three chapbooks: Natural Disasters (Hermeneutic Chaos Press, 2016), Bloom (Alley Cat Press, 2018) and Adaptations (Nomadic Press, 2018). Her full-length collection, All Hazards, was recently selected as a finalist for the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize. She has been awarded fellowships and residencies from Winter Tangerine, The Writers Grotto and Alley Cat Books in the USA, and from USF Verftet in Bergen, Norway. More of Emily's publications can be found at thisisemilypinkerton.tumblr.com, on twitter (@neongolden), or on instagram (@thisisemilypinkerton).

Amanda Russell is a poet and stay-at-home mom. Her chapbook, Barren Years, was published by Finishing Line Press (2019). Her poems have appeared in First Literary Review- East, EcoTheo Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, and the anthology Mightier: poets for social justice. For links to poems, upcoming events and more, please visit poetrussell.wordpress.com.

Listen to Amanda read “The Reader is Listening” here.

Tiffany A. Santos (she/they) is an internationally published and award-winning poet, speculative fiction author, creative nonfiction essayist, and blogger. Their poetry, essays, and short stories have been published in several literary journals including Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, Lavender Review, Southword Journal, and Dionne's Story Anthology. Forthcoming poems can be found in The Banyan Review. Her poem “Baptism” won Best Poem in the 2019 Backbone Mountain Review. Visit online at linktr.ee/cranberryjade.

Lucas Scheelk (they/them) is an autistic queer white Jew; they’re a Pushcart Prize nominated poet, a degree-less college-dropout, and the author of A PRAYER FOR A NON-RELIGIOUS AUTISTIC (Mason Jar Press, 2022). Their interests include: the poetry of Marilyn Monroe, creating Acrostic-Spine poems, Jewish folklore, tattoos, cannabis, etc. You can find Scheelk's writing at: Taco Bell Quarterly, Stone of Madness Press, Mollyhouse, queerlings, QDA: A Queer Disability Anthology, and Autonomous Press, among others.

Tiktok: @lucasscheelk

Twitter: @TC221Bee

Instagram: @lucasscheelk

Clare (Sears) is a queer writer, teacher, and professor of sociology and sexuality studies at San Francisco State University. Their non-fiction book Arresting Dress: Cross-Dressing, Law, and Fascination in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco (Duke University Press, 2014) was shortlisted for a Lambda Literary Award and their writing on queer cultures and histories has appeared in GLQ, WSQ, The Routledge History of Queer America, and The SAGE Encyclopedia of Trans Studies. They are currently writing a novel on queer and trans history, haunting, and memory set in 1870s San Francisco. Clare lives in San Francisco with their partner and two children.

Listen to Clare read “A Woman, Once” here.

Among other places, T. L. Sherwood’s work has appeared in New World Writing, Jellyfish Review, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, and Fictive Dream. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart and Best Microfictions. She lives in Springville, New York near Eighteen Mile Creek and blogs at: tlsherwood.com.

Listen to T.L. read “The Thinnest of Veneers” here.

Edward Michael Supranowicz is the grandson of Irish and Russian/Ukrainian immigrants. He grew up on a small farm in Appalachia. He has a grad background in painting and printmaking. Some of his artwork has recently or will soon appear in Fish Food, Streetlight, Another Chicago Magazine, Door Is A Jar, The Phoenix, and The Harvard Advocate. Edward is also a published poet.

Fusing an English degree and a STEM career, J.K. Ullrich’s stories blend science fiction and environmentalism. She won the Baltimore Science Fiction Society’s Amateur Writing Contest in 2018, and her debut novel Blue Karma won a LibraryJournal award for Best Science Fiction. Diagnosis with a genetic disorder in 2020 compelled J.K. to explore themes of disability in her newest book, the cyberpunk mystery Beat in Her Blood. When she’s not writing or working her full-time job, she pursues nature photography to archive Earth’s imperiled wonders. Keep up with her adventures on her website at wildtype.ink.

Listen to J.K. read “Rocket Man” here.

A.A. Weiss is the author of The Apologist, a novel, and Lenin's Asylum, a travel memoir. His essays and short stories have appeared in various journals and twice received special mention in the Pushcart Prize Anthology. A recipient of grants from the Bronx Council on the Arts and the Maryland State Arts Council, he lives and works in Washington, D.C. Please visit www.aaweiss.com.

Ann Weil writes at her home on the corner of Stratford and Avon in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and on a deck boat at Snipe’s Point Sandbar off Key West, Florida. She earned her doctorate at the University of Michigan and is a former special education teacher and professor. Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net and appears in Crab Creek Review, 3Elements Review, Whale Road Review, Shooter Literary Magazine, DMQ Review, and elsewhere. Her first chapbook, Lifecycle of a Beautiful Woman, will be published in April, 2023 by Yellow Arrow Publishing. Read more of Ann’s poetry at annweilpoetry.com.