Olúwatúnmiṣe Ọ̀tọ̀lórìn Akìgbógun writes in English and Yorùbá. He is a graduate of German Studies from the University of Ibadan. His writings are published or forthcoming in Efiko Magazine, Afrocritik, Tough Poets Review, Mbari Magazine, The Journal and The Culture Custodian. He is a 2025 Idembeka Writing Fellow.
Garrett Ashley is an Assistant Professor of English (Creative Writing) at Tuskegee University. He is the author of the story collection, Periphylla and Other Deep Ocean Attractions (Press 53, 2024) and the poetry collection Habitats (Loblolly Press, 2026). His work has appeared in The Normal School, Sonora Review, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Reed Magazine, DIAGRAM, and Moon City Review, among others, and has been mentioned in Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year series, nominated for a pushcart prize, and shortlisted for several book prizes.
Dr. Bogdan Bondarchuk holds a PhD in social philosophy and is an existential psychologist and artist based in Kyiv. Bondarchuk investigates inspired research of philosophy of language, psychology in art, and the powers of art that support psychology. The artist of picnic_player,Bondarchuk also has a Phantom Radio show on gasolineradio.com.
MICHAEL CHANG (they/them) is the author of THINGS A BRIGHT BOY CAN DO (Coach House, 2025) and HEROES (Temz Review/845 Press, 2026). They won the Poetry Project’s Brannan Prize and edited Lambda Literary’s Emerge anthology. Their work has appeared in AGNI, the American Poetry Review, the Greensboro Review, Harvard Review, the Iowa Review, and POETRY. Their translation work (from the Italian) has been featured in the Cortland Review, Denver Quarterly, Washington Square Review, and other outlets. They judged Cream City Review‘s 2025 Prize in Poetry. In 2026, they serve as an AWP Writer-to-Writer Mentor. They live in Manhattan.
Shelbi Church is an MFA candidate at the University of Alabama, where she is an assistant editor for Black Warrior Review. Her writing has been supported by McCormack Writing Center (formerly Tin House) and can be found or is forthcoming in AGNI, Tahoma Literary Review, Southeast Review, West Trade Review, Yalobusha Review, and elsewhere. She lives and writes in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Michelle Crowell is an American writer and educator currently based in Nantes, France. Herwriting has been featured in Anti-Heroin Chic, Discretionary Love, and New2theScene. When Michelle isn’t writing, she is busy playing with Peanut, her Ewok-like tortoiseshell cat, whose fortitude would cause even the fiercest of Stormtroopers to hightail it back to the Death Star.
Cara Dees is the author of Exorcism Lessons in the Heartland, winner of the Barrow Street Book Prize. She holds a PhD from the University of Cincinnati and an MFA from Vanderbilt University. Her work appears or is forthcoming in publications such as The Atlantic, The Georgia Review, Harvard Review, The Hudson Review, Ploughshares, and POETRY Magazine.
Rebecca Ferlotti (she/her) is a writer, poetry instructor, and editor based in Ohio. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in Poetry South, The Bayou Review, ONE ART, and other journals. Rebecca’s work also has been supported by the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop. More at rebeccaferlotti.com.
Elizabeth Foulke is an Assistant Teaching Professor of English at The Pennsylvania State University, where she teaches creative writing and composition. Her personal essays appear in Third Coast, Slag Glass City, Little Patuxent Review, Solstice, and others. You can find more of her writing at elizabethfoulke.com.
Jason Fraley is a native West Virginian who lives, works, and periodically writes in Columbus, OH. Current and prior publications include Salamander Magazine, Barrow Street, Pithead Chapel, Quarter After Eight, Mid-American Review, and Okay Donkey.
Alyssa Gaines is an African-American writer. She received Harvard’s 2025 Edward Eager Memorial Prize for best creative writing in the juvenile field, and was a 2024 Emerging Art Writing Fellow at the Boston Art Review. In 2022 she was named the National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States and has been featured by the Library of Congress, NPR, Ms. Magazine, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and the Wall Street Journal. She has performed at the YPO Summit, the Kennedy Center, and Carnegie Hall, and is currently finishing her thesis in Social Studies & Art History while working on her debut collection of poetry.
Jove DiFiore Gleason is a 22-year-old poet, fiction, and non-fiction writer who has previously published works in The Allegany Review. He’s a recent grad from Washington College on the Eastern Shore of Maryland where he studied English literature and the Middle Ages.
K. Hari (she/her) is a physician and poet of Tamil descent who was born and raised in Columbus, OH. Her work makes inquiry into embodied heritage, inevitable harm, and poetic forms as healing. Her writing can be found in publications such as The Shore, The Plentitudes, The Margins, Kartika Review, and The Brooklyn Review, among others. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from New York University and is a practicing obstetrician-gynecologist.
Kelly Heyen writes speculative fiction in Nashville, Tennessee. Her work can also be found in The Stonecoast Review.
Julia Hou is a writer and software engineer based in Brooklyn. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Fourteen Hills, New Letters, Brevity, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. She is the recipient of a Vermont Studio Center fellowship, a two-time Pushcart nominee, and has received support for her fiction from Bread Loaf, Tin House, and The Kenyon Review.
Tyler Michael Jacobs is the author of The Weight of Drought (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2025) and Building Brownville (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2022). His words have appeared or are forthcoming in Quarterly West, Grist, Phoebe, Passages North, Variant Literature, Plainsongs, and elsewhere. His poems have also been featured on Nebraska Public Media’s Friday LIVE. He received his MFA from Bowling Green State University.
J.M.C. Kane is an autistic writer from England, though now claimed by New Orleans, who has spent most of his adult life trying to fit long stories into short boxes. He has worked as a paperboy, a contracting executive, and an amateur cataloguer of human regret—none of which he was formally trained for. He was formally trained as a lawyer, but he is, frankly, a better cataloguer. His fiction has appeared in almost three-dozen journals that appreciate compression—and his willingness to obey word counts.
Ryan Kittleman‘s work has been shown at the Crocker Art Museum, the Morris Graves Museum of Art, and the Channel Islands Maritime Museum. He’s also been published in The North American Review, Mayday Magazine and The Charleston Anvil. Originally from Upstate New York, Ryan now lives in Northern California.
Elaine Liu is a Homo sapiens who writes from the afterlives of transpacific history. Her poetry has been featured in EPOCH and appears or is forthcoming in The Journal, 45th Parallel, Sky Island Journal, Stone Poetry Quarterly, The Bellingham Review, Folio, and elsewhere. She is always grieving the lives lost in Unit 731.
Livia Meneghin (she/her) is the author of feathering and Honey in My Hair. She is Cofounder and Managing Editor at Two Cardinals Literary. At Sundress Publications, she serves as Assistant Chapbook Editor. Livia has been awarded recognition from the Academy of American Poets, Breakwater Review, The Room Magazine, the City of Boston, and elsewhere. Since earning her MFA in poetry, she teaches writing and literature at the collegiate level.
Henry Osborne specializes in stories that are weird, funny, and sometimes spooky. He has been published in Broken Pencil and several small literary journals, and is a member of subTerrain’s editorial collective.
Denis Pinchuk is a news agency reporter and filing editor, skilled in all aspects of reporting, sourcing, editing, filing and translating.
Riley Richards received an MFA in Poetry from Fairleigh-Dickinson University, taught Creative Writing and Political Writing at Uzhhorod National University in Uzhhorod, Ukraine, and is currently a PhD student at Florida State University. Riley’s writing has been published or is forthcoming in Fugue, After Happy Hour Review, Barrelhouse, and elsewhere.
Dmitriy Shandra is a poet from Ukraine, Kiev. His most recent poems have appeared in Poetry Northwest, Little Patuxent Review, Thirty West Publishing House and others. He is a paramedic of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Rowan Tate is a creative and curator of beauty. She reads nonfiction nature books, the backs of shampoo bottles, and sometimes minds.