Jay Aelickis a birdwatcher, disc golfer, tarot reader, and sometimes even poet. Their work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Ligeia Magazine, the Blowing Rock Art and History Museum, sinking city, Okay Donkey, Common Ground Review, and elsewhere. They are 1/2 of the English Club Podcast, where they critique infamous books as if they had been submitted to a fiction workshop.

Nikki Barnhart is Interviews and Reviews editor and a third year MFA candidate in Fiction at OSU.

Benjamin Bartu is a poet & writer. He is the author of the chapbook Myriad Reflector (2023), runner-up for the Poetry Online Chapbook Contest. His poetry has been nominated for Best of the Net, and his writing has appeared in The Journal, nat.brut, Guesthouse, Adroit Journal, & elsewhere. He lives in Oakland, California.

Jai Hamid Bashir is a Pakistani-American artist with work published in American Poetry Review, POETRY, Arkansas International, Denver Quarterly, Black Warrior Review, and Guernica. She has earned numerous accolades, including an Academy of American Poets Prize, the Zócalo Public Square Poetry Prize, and The Linda Corrente Memorial Prize at Columbia University. Her work has also received multiple nominations for the Pushcart Prize and has been featured in The Best of the Net anthology. Jai is a graduate of The University of Utah and Columbia University and resides in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Gabrielle Bates is the author of the poetry collection Judas Goat (Tin House, 2023). Originally from Birmingham, Alabama, she currently lives in Seattle, where she works for Open Books: A Poem Emporium and co-hosts the podcast The Poet Salon. Her work has been featured in the New Yorker andPloughshares, among other publications. On Twitter (@GabrielleBates) and IG (@gabrielle_bates_)

Cameron Bocanegra is a queer Latina and Texan lucky enough to write for a living in the beautiful Austin, Texas.

Chen Chen is the author of Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency (BOA Editions), a best book of 2022 according to the Boston Globe, Electric Lit, and others. His debut, When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (BOA Editions), was long-listed for the 2017 National Book Award and won the 2018 Thom Gunn Award. He has received two Pushcart Prizes and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and United States Artists. He teaches for the low-residency MFA programs at New England College, Stonecoast, and Antioch.

Jona Colson’s poetry collection, Said Through Glass, won the 2018 Jean Feldman Poetry Prize from the Washington Writers’ Publishing House. He is also the co-editor of This Is What America Looks Like: Poetry and Fiction from D.C., Maryland, and Virginia (2021). His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, The Southern Review, The Massachusetts Review and elsewhere. His translations and interviews can be found in Prairie Schooner, Tupelo Quarterly, and The Writer’s Chronicle. He is a professor of ESL at Montgomery College and lives in Washington, DC.

Cynthia Schwartzberg Edlow‘s poetry collections include: Horn Section All Day Every Day, and The Day Judge Spencer Learned the Power of Metaphor, (Salmon, 2018 and 2012, respectively); chapbook, Old School Superhero Loves a Good Wristwatch (Dancing Girl, 2014). “>Her poetry has appeared or forthcoming in: Plume Poetry Anthologies Volumes 5 and 7; Drawn to Marvel Anthology: Poems From the Comic Books, Not a Muse Anthology, Even the Daybreak: 35 Years of Salmon Poetry; The American Journal of Poetry, American Literary Review, Barrow Street, Fourteen Hills, Gulf Coast, Hotel Amerika, Ilanot Review, Jet Fuel Review, Levure Litteraire, Live Encounters 11th Int’l. Anniversary Edition, Salamander, Smartish Pace, South Dakota Review, Texas Review, and Verse Daily, among other venues. She is at work on her third full length poetry collection.

Xander Gershberg(he/him) is a poet, editor, and educator. His poetry is found or forthcoming at FENCE, Plume, TAB Journal, Inverted Syntax, Great River Review, Poetry Online, and elsewhere. He serves as a poetry editor for MAYDAY and on Spout Press’s editorial collective. He holds an MFA from Virginia Tech.

Elizabeth Heald’s writing has appeared in Five On The Fifth, The Fiction Pool, Timberline Review, and elsewhere. She earned honorable mention in Glimmer Train’s Very Short Fiction Contest and was nominated for a 2018 Pushcart Prize. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

Dave Housley is the author of four novels and four story collections, most recently the novel The Other Ones. He is one of the founding editors and all-around do-stuff people at Barrelhouse, and the primary organizer of the Barrelhouse conference Conversations and Connections: Practical Advice on Writing. He is the Director of Web Strategy at Penn State Outreach and Online Education. He can be found online at housleydave dot com.

Shane Inman’s work appears in The Forge, Bourbon Penn, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Mud Season Review, and elsewhere. He received his MFA in the southwest and lives in Philadelphia.

Faith Henley Padgett is a poet, educator, and maker. She currently teaches for the Museum of Children’s Art, and has previously taught for the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College and Milk Press of the Poetry Society of New York. She co-directed the 2021 Sarah Lawrence Poetry Festival, and her work has appeared in The Western Humanities Review, Hanging Loose, Permafrost, and Red Cedar Review, among others. After earning her MFA from Sarah Lawrence and BA from the University of Pennsylvania, Faith has relocated to San Francisco, unceded to the Muwekma, Ohlone, & Ramaytush people, where she gets inky running letterpresses and fiddling with type. 

Isaac Pressnell‘s poems have appeared in Best American Experimental Writing, Hotel Amerika, Indiana Review, Mid-American Review, Ninth Letter, Southern Indiana Review, and many other publications. He lives with his wife and daughter in Georgetown, TX where he works for the Texas Workforce Commission

Leanna Petronella’s debut poetry collection, The Imaginary Age, won the 2018 Pleiades Press Editors Prize. Her poetry appears in Beloit Poetry Journal, Third Coast, Birmingham Poetry Review, CutBank, Quarterly West, and other publications. Her nonfiction appears in Brevity and Hayden’s Ferry Review, and her fiction appears in Drunken Boat. She holds a PhD in English and Creative Writing from the University of Missouri and an MFA from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas. She lives in Austin, Texas. Visit her website at https://leannapetronella.com/

Arah Ko is a writer from Hawai’i and the author of Brine Orchid (YesYes Books 2025) and the chapbook Animal Logic (Bull City Press 2025). Her work is published or forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Ninth Letter, The Threepenny Review, New Ohio Review, Waxwing and elsewhere. Arah has been nominated for Best of Net and Best New Poets and received her M.F.A. in creative writing from the Ohio State University where she served on the staff of The Journal. Arah is currently on staff at Surging Tide Magazine. Catch her at arahko.com.

Cameron McLeod Martin is an essayist and poet living in Moscow, Idaho. Their work has previously appeared in Fence, Sonora Review, Afternoon Visitor, & Change, and elsewhere. They hope you have a wonderful day.

Kirsten is a Memphis native. She is a student at the University of Memphis. She has previously been published in the Red Cedar Review.

Mandy Shunnarah (they/them) is an Alabama-born Appalachian and Palestinian-American writer who now calls Columbus, Ohio, home. Their essays, poetry, and short stories have been published in The New York Times, Electric Literature, The Rumpus, and others. Their first book, Midwest Shreds: Skating Through America’s Heartland, is forthcoming from Belt Publishing. Read more at mandyshunnarah.com.

Jess Smith is the author of Lady Smith (forthcoming from University of Akron Press). Her work can be found in Prairie Schooner, The Cincinnati Review, 32 Poems, The Rumpus, and other journals. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Practice at Texas Tech University.

Madeline Augusta Turner‘s writing and work are centered around soil and hope. She is currently living and writing on a farm in central Ohio. Read more at madelineaugustaturner.com and say hello anytime on Instagram @madelineaugusta

Talia Weisz is the author of two chapbooks, Sisters in Another Life (Finishing Line Press) and When Flying Over Water (Plan B Press). Her work appears in Empty House Press, Atticus Review and The Manifest-Station. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Hannah Nahar is a writer, interdisciplinary artist, and educator currently based in Columbus, Ohio. Their work can be found in Mississippi Review, Electric Literature, Passages North, and elsewhere. Hannah is completing an MFA in Poetry at Ohio State, where they teach writing and edit The Journal.