Gurgen Barents (Gurgen S. Karapetyan) – Poet, prose writer, translator, journalist, and literary critic. Ph.D. of Philology. Member of the International Academy of Literature and Art and winner of many international literary awards. Author of more than 2000 publications, and several dozen translated books. Poems and translations were published in dozens of anthological collections of modern Armenian and Slavic poets. The works have been translated into English, Armenian, Bulgarian, German, Ukrainian, Slovak, Serbian, Polish, Persian, and other languages.

Don Brandis is a retired healthcare worker living quietly near Seattle writing poems. Some of his work has appeared in Amethyst Review, Leaping Clear, Blue Unicorn, Poetry Quarterly and elsewhere. His latest book of poems is Paper Birds (unsolicited Press 2021).

Ace Boggess is author of six books of poetry, including Escape Envy (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2021), I Have Lost the Art of Dreaming It So, and The Prisoners. His writing has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes and tries to stay out of trouble. His seventh collection, Tell Us How to Live, is forthcoming in 2024 from Fernwood Press.

Joyce Brinkman, Indiana Poet Laureate 2002-2008, believes in poetry as public art. She creates public-poetry projects involving her poetry and the poetry of others. Her poetry is on permanent display in a twenty-five foot stained glass window in an airport, in lighted glass artwork at a library and on a wall in the town square of Quezaltepeque, El Salvador. Joyce has received fellowships from the Mary Anderson Center for the Arts, the Vermont Studio, and the Indianapolis Arts Council. She is a graduate of Hanover College and lives in Zionsville, Indiana, with a cantankerous cat.

Joseph Darlington is a writer from the Peak District. His most recent novel is The Girl Beneath the Ice (Northodox, 2021), and he has recently published the non-fiction book The Experimentalists (Bloomsbury, 2022). He is co-editor of the Manchester Review of Books and can be found on Twitter at @Joe_Darlo.

Gen Greer (she/her) is a dog lover and sometimes writer. Her work has appeared in Queerlings, Rejection Letters, The Daily Drunk, Sledgehammer Lit, and elsewhere. Follow her on twitter @sylviaiamiamiam

Ayiyi Joel is a 19 year old budding poet from Edo state in Nigeria. He has works published/forthcoming on The Beatnik cowboy, Synchronized chaos, Carthatic lit mag, poemify, Rough Cut Press and elsewhere.

Jeff King is a lifelong native of Arab (AY-rab), Alabama. His life is an Euler Diagram consisting of military manufacturing, Alabama football fandom, and creative expression. When not focusing on one of those three, he can be found working on his old farmhouse or binge-watching YouTube videos. His poetry has been published in Uppagus, The Scarlet Leaf Review, Right Hand Pointing, Plum Tree Tavern, Shot Glass Journal, Vita Brevis, and others. His first chapbook is set for publication in October of 2023.

Amy Marques grew up between languages and places and learned, from an early age, the multiplicity of narratives. She penned children’s books, barely read medical papers, and numerous letters before turning to short fiction and visual poetry. She is a Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and Best of the Net nominee and has work published in journals and anthologies including Streetcake Magazine, MoonPark Review, Bending Genres, Gone Lawn, Ghost Parachute, Chicago Quarterly Review, and Reservoir Road Literary Review. You can read more at https://amybookwhisperer.wordpress.com.

Marchiano is a queer poet, community organizer and activist.

The Ivan de Monbrison is a furry little animal of about 5 inches long which can be found living in some cellars in Paris, France. It’s a vegetarian specie. The males tend to get bald with a pouch belly growing with age. Snoring loud at night seems to be another behavior of the males, the usefeluness of it still needed to be found, but could be a way to declare to the females that mating is over. With age some males seem to get more and more found of poetry while drooling around the city, drunk at night.

Ron Riekki’s books include Blood/Not Blood Then the Gates (Middle West Press, poetry), My Ancestors are Reindeer Herders and I Am Melting in Extinction (Loyola University Maryland’s Apprentice House Press, hybrid), Posttraumatic (Hoot ‘n’ Waddle, nonfiction), and U.P. (Ghost Road Press, fiction). Right now, Riekki’s listening to Emiliana Torrini’s “Gollum’s Song.”

Jane Sasser was born and raised on a farm in Fairview, NC. She grew up in a family of storytellers and began writing her own stories at the age of six. Her poetry has appeared in JAMA, North American Review, The Sun, and other publications. She has published three poetry chapbooks: What’s Underneath (Iris Press, 2020), Itinerant (Finishing Line, 2009), and Recollecting the Snow (March Street Press, 2008). After a career as an English teacher in Tennessee, she again lives in Fairview NC, with her husband and retired greyhounds.

Dominik Slusarczyk is an artist who makes everything from music to painting. He was educated at The University of Nottingham where he got a degree in biochemistry. He lives in Bristol, England. His poetry has been published in Dream Noir.  

Hannah Smith is an artist, writer, and current first-year Master’s student in the Speech-Language Pathology program at East Tennessee State University. Her poems have previously been featured in multiple volumes of ETSU’s literary journal, The Mockingbird. In her free time, Hannah enjoys thrifting, crafting, watching crime documentaries, playing Animal Crossing, and hanging out with her cats, Oliver and Billy. You can find more of her work @heavenstourniquet on Instagram.

Kelli Weldon was born and raised in Louisiana and now resides in Texas. She studied journalism and literature at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana, and served on the editorial board of its literary magazine, Argus. Find her poetry in publications including Frost Meadow Review, Eclectica Magazine, Duck Duck Mongoose Magazine, and Boats Against The Current. Instagram: @kelliwritespoems

Chris Wood lives in Tennessee with her husband and several fur babies. She is a member of the Chattanooga Writers’ Guild and her work has appeared in several journals and online publications, including Poetry Quarterly, Panapoly, and the American Diversity Report. Learn more at chriswoodwriter.com.

David Woodward lives just south of Montreal with his wife and son. To move more fully out of himself he moves to a space beyond walls; where there is less fear; where the weighted sense of love falls upon him under the moon’s watchful light.