Liz Abeling is a writer and cemetery administrator living in Pittsburgh, PA. She is the CNF editor of After Happy Hour Review and co-founder of the writing community Scribblehouse. You can find more of her work in Bat City Review, The Fiddlehead, Metonym, and others.
Kelli Russell Agodon is a bi/queer poet, writer, and editor from the Pacific Northwest whose next book, Accidental Devotions, will be published by Copper Canyon Press in 2026. Her newest collection, Dialogues with Rising Tides (Copper Canyon Press), was a Finalist in the Washington State Book Awards and shortlisted for the Eric Hoffer Book Award Grand Prize in Poetry. Kelli is the cofounder of Two Sylvias Press and she teaches at Pacific Lutheran University’s low-res MFA program, the Rainier Writing Workshop. She is also the co-host of the poetry series “Poems You Need” with Melissa Studdard. www.agodon.com / www.twosylviaspress.com / www.youtube.com/@PoemsYouNeed
Samuel Burt is a poet and artist from Grinnell, Iowa. The 2024 recipient of the Gwenn A. Nusbaum Scholarship from the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association and a 2022 winner of the AWP’s Intro Journals Project, Samuel’s poems have been featured in Salt Hill, Colorado Review, Arc Poetry Magazine, and many more print and digital journals. He holds a poetry MFA from Bowling Green State University, reads for Fahmidan Journal, and works at the Grinnell College Libraries.
MICHAEL CHANG (they/them) is the author of SYNTHETIC JUNGLE (Northwestern University Press, 2023), TOY SOLDIERS (Action, Spectacle, 2024) & THE HEARTBREAK ALBUM (Coach House Books, 2025). They edit poetry at Fence.
Allison Pitinii Davis is the author of Line Study of a Motel Clerk (Baobab Press, 2017), a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award and the Ohioana Book Award. Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry, the Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day Series, The New Republic, Oxford American, and elsewhere.
Katie Duane is a writer, artist, and educator. She currently resides in Buffalo, New York and teaches visual arts to high school students in the Buffalo Public Schools. Her writing has appeared in Terrain, Permafrost Magazine, and elsewhere.
Richard Fox has been a regular contributor of poetry and visual art to online and print literary journals. Swagger & Remorse, his first book of poetry, was published in 2007. A poet and visual artist, he holds a BFA in Photography from Temple University, Philadelphia. He is a former Chicago resident, who now lives in Salt Lake City, UT.
Quinn Franzen is an actor, poet, and new dad. Recent work is published or forthcoming in Pleiades, Fugue, Broadkill, No Dear, and Sonora Review. He is a Poetry Editor at Bear Review, and received his MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. Quinn’s acting work can be seen on TV, on and off Broadway, and in regional theaters across the country. He lives in Brooklyn.
Peter D. Gorman has lived in Maryland for many years but is returning to his native Ohio. His fiction has been published in Hayden’s Ferry Review, the Pinch, Raleigh Review, and Sycamore Review.
Gabrielle Grace Hogan (she/her) received her MFA from the University of Texas at Austin. Her recent work has been published by or is forthcoming in Salamander, Muzzle, The Cincinnati Review, and others, and has been supported by the Tin House Workshop and the Ragdale Foundation. She has published two chapbooks, Soft Obliteration (Ghost City Press 2020), and Love Me With the Fierce Horse Of Your Heart (Ursus Americanus Press 2023). She is a Team Writer for Autostraddle and an Assistant Poetry Editor for Foglifter. Find more information on her website, gabriellegracehogan.com. She lives in Dallas, Texas.
Dabin Jeong (they/them) is a poet and translator from Seoul, South Korea. Their works appeared or are forthcoming in The Rumpus, The Offing, Quarterly West, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Indiana Review, and Chogwa zine. You can find them on twitter @dabinjeong___ or on Instagram @verymanybins
Kristina Jipson’s Halve (Tupelo Press) was selected by Dan Beachy-Quick for a Berkshire Prize. She has published two chapbooks, How Void of Miracles (Hand Held Editions) and Lock, Means (Dancing Girl Press) and her fiction and poetry have appeared in Tin House, CRAFT, Chicago Review, American Letters & Commentary, DIAGRAM, Colorado Review and elsewhere. She writes and teaches in the emerald suburbs of Seattle.
Mickie Kennedy is a gay writer who resides in Baltimore County, Maryland. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in POETRY, The Threepenny Review, The Southern Review, The Sun and elsewhere. His first book of poetry Worth Burning will be published by Black Lawrence Press in February 2026. Follow him on Twitter/X @MickiePoet or his website mickiekennedy.com.
John Liles is a poet, science writer, and naturalist. He is the recipient of the 2024 Yale Younger Poets prize. Liles is a graduate of the MFA program at New York University and former artist-in-residence at the Oak Spring Garden Foundation. His chapbook, Following the dog down, was the recipient of the Omnidawn Chapbook Prize. He resides in Fort Bragg, CA, where he writes and works as the head naturalist at the Pacific Environmental Education Center.
Casio Melville currently resides in sunny San Diego, in a downtown studio apartment just big enough to contain his girlfriend and their assortment of retro gaming consoles. He makes a living developing apps and websites, although you can safely assume he’d always rather be writing. His work has been featured in Outlook Springs.
Cass Mensah is a chronically ill nonfiction writer based in Washington, D.C. Her work has appeared in Pinch Journal Online, Teen Vogue, and other publications. Most days, she can be found on her couch napping, or, at her local pottery studio making mediocre mugs. She is writing a braided memoir that explores her disabled body and her favorite horror films.
Laura Leigh Morris is the author of The Stone Catchers: A Novel (2024) and Jaws of Life: Stories (2018). She’s previously published short fiction in STORY Magazine, North American Review, The Florida Review, and other journals. She teaches creative writing and literature at Furman University in Greenville, SC. To learn more, visit www.lauraleighmorris.com.
Arnisha Royston is a Best of the Net and Pushcart Nominated poet from Los Angeles. She received a BA in English from UCLA and a MFA from San Diego State University. Arnisha is the current Tickner Writing Fellow at the Gilman School in Baltimore, Maryland. Arnisha’s poetry is intimate and urgent, with family, love, and Blackness at its center. Her poems can be found in literary journals such as Michigan Quarterly Review, North American Review, Rhino, and American Literary Review, to name a few.
Matthew Tuckner received his MFA in Creative Writing at NYU and is currently a PhD student in English/Creative Writing at University of Utah, where he edits Quarterly West. His debut collection of poems, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, is forthcoming from Four Way Books. His chapbook, Extinction Studies, is the winner of the 2023 Sixth Finch Chapbook Prize. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in AGNI, American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, The Nation, The Adroit Journal, and Best New Poets, among others.
Jeffrey Utzinger is the author of The Risk Involved, a collection of creative nonfiction essays. He has an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Texas State University, and a PhD in American Literature from Texas A&M University. He lives in Lockhart, Texas where he keeps chickens and a few thousand bees. www.jeffreyutzinger.com.
Michelle Zeitouny is a Lebanese writer currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at The Ohio State University. She still believes in the binding power of a pinky promise and spends her days in Columbus missing her cat back home.