Amanda J. Floresca (she/her) is a YA writer from Walterboro, South Carolina. She’s a biracial Filipina-American who enjoys writing about diverse and edgy characters in small town settings. Her short fiction has appeared in Short Story America and Owl Hollow Press. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Converse College and is currently a graduate student at the University of South Carolina, completing a Master’s degree in Library and Information Science. When she’s not doing homework or spending time with her children, she’s working on her debut novel. Find her on Instagram @ajflorescawrites

aureleo sans is a flamingo.  She is also a Colombian-American, non-binary, queer, formerly unhoused poet and writer with a disability, who resides in San Antonio, Texas. She is a VONA alumnus, a Periplus fellow, and a creative nonfiction associate editor at jmww. She was named the second-place winner of Fractured Lit's 2021 Micro Fiction Contest, a longlister for the 2021 CRAFT Short Fiction Prize longlist and a semi-finalist for the 2021 American Short Fiction Halifax Ranch Prize. Her work has been published in Passages North, HAD, Shenandoah, Electric Literature and elsewhere.  She is a 2022 Pushcart Prize nominee and a 2022 Best Microfiction nominee.  Find aureleo on Twitter @aureleos.

Crystal K. is a queer trans writer, chapbooks editor at Newfound, and author of the novel Goodnight. Their flash stories have appeared in Gertrude, Passages North, Peach Mag, [PANK], Hobart, ANMLY, and elsewhere. Lev has attended the Tin House Workshop and been nominated for Best of the Net. They write RPGs at Feverdream Games.

erin rachel is a writer of young adult and adult fiction. Her early love of science fiction and fantasy led to her fascination with the power we have to refashion our lives through expansive thinking and creativity. She is the founder of a social impact design studio that uses decolonized design practices to bring to life not-too-distant futures. She is currently working on a young adult speculative fiction novel. When she is not writing fiction, you can find her writing musicals, practicing design, or teaching at local colleges and through her studio. Learn more at byerinrachel.com or follow her on Instagram and Twitter @by_erinrachel  

Endria Isa Richardson is a black, malaysian, and gay american writer from Worcester, Massachusetts. Endria writes about ghosts, monsters (including the monster of white supremacy), and the catastrophic failure of systems that are supposed to keep us safe. Her essays have appeared most recently in Black Warrior Review, Alpinist, and Backpacker, and her speculative fiction is in Lightspeed, Clarkesworld, FIYAH, Nightmare, and other fantastic/al magazines. Her work has received notable mentions in the Best American Essays and Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy anthologies, and a runner-up award from the Black Warrior Review nonfiction contest. She is a graduate of the Viable Paradise and VONA workshops. In her past life, Endria was a prison abolitionist lawyer. She is currently at work on a collection of short stories, and a novel. You can see more of her work at www.endriarichardson.com.

Finola P. Davidson (she/her) writes YA horror and science fiction. She received her BA in English from Yale University and her PhD in English from the University of Notre Dame. She is represented by Carlisle Webber of Fuse Literary.

After completing her BA in English at Tuskegee University, Dr. Fredrika Atkins wanted to find a career that would allow her the leverage to make a difference while still pursuing her passion for writing.  Starting out in marketing while pursuing her Master’s in Integrated Marketing Communications in Chicago, Illinois at Roosevelt University in 2006 gave her the opportunity to do just that.   Fredrika has worked for non-profit and for-profit organizations before moving into Medicare Sales ten years ago.  While working full-time at WellCare, she also studied at Capella University in their Doctor of Business Administration, Strategy, and Innovation program, graduating in (2015).   Recently, Fredrika relocated to Oakland, California for a new position and opportunities that will afford her the space and platform to pursue her writing.  Fredrika’s experiences have allowed her to create innovative and fresh ways of writing about uncomfortable topics for young adults. Dr. Atkins is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and authored her first book, A Comparative Analysis of Factors Related to the Performance of Ethnic Majorities and Minority-Owned Small Businesses in Alabama, it was published in (2015 ) by  ProQuest-CSA, LLC ). Social Media Handles Facebook: Fredrika Atkins LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/fredrikaatkins Instagram: DocFreeFree

Heather Quinn (they/them) is an essayist and photographer living in Saint Paul with their husband and two children. A Minnesota native, they spent most of their childhood and early adulthood in Southern California, and their work frequently features the desert landscape around the Salton Sea in the southeastern corner of the state. They earned their MFA from Portland State University, and they were a 2019–2020 Loft Mentor Series fellow and a 2021 McKnight Artist Fellow. They are working on a memoir, This is How You Disappear, about the California desert and their father’s suicide. Find them on Instagram @heatherfquinn and at heatherfquinn.com.

Kyle Carrero Lopez was born to Cuban parents in northern New Jersey. He co-founded LEGACY, a production collective by and for Black queer artists, and is the author of MUSCLE MEMORY, the chapbook winner of the 2020 [PANK] Books contest. His recent publications include Prolit, Best New Poets 2021, Poem-a-Day, and The Cincinnati Review. He holds an MFA in Poetry from NYU, where he was a Goldwater Fellow. Find him at kylecarrerolopez.com and on Twitter @kycarrerolopez.

Liam Morrissey was born and raised in Chicago. He has spent most of the past decade living in Los Angeles and working in film and television production. He is currently a second year MFA candidate in fiction at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop where he teaches courses on literature and creative writing.

Maggie Nye is a writer and editor living in Bloomington, Indiana, and a forthcoming MacDowell fellow. Her work has appeared in Passages North, Pleiades, and SmokeLong Quarterly, among other places. Her first, yet unpublished novel was a finalist in Red Hen Press, Autumn House Press, and Steel Toe Books contests. She is presently working on her second novel: a strange, radical re-writing of the Medusa myth.

Marta Balcewicz lives in Toronto. Her fiction appears in Catapult, Tin House online, Washington Square Review, and other places. Her debut novel, Big Shadow, is forthcoming from Book*hug Press in spring 2023. You can find her at martabalcewicz.com and on Instagram @wiczcraft. (Photo by Angela Lewis.)

Miriam Ho Nga Wai (she/her) is a writer, editor and architect from Hong Kong. She has lived across southeast Asia and western Europe, and now lives in a multi-generational household in Toronto. She is a co-editor of The Site Magazine (www.thesitemagazine.com), an award-winning journal of architecture, place-making and cultural criticism, and a fiction reader at Guernica. She is hard at work on a short story collection and a novel in the stolen hours before her child wakes up.

Rory Gilhoul (they/he) is a speculative fiction writer currently based in Texas. Born in Brooklyn to a Scottish and Egyptian family, Rory spent their early childhood in Edinburgh before moving back to the United States. In 2021 they completed a Master’s degree in Comparative Literature at Trinity College Dublin. Their academic research focuses on the nexus of folklore and public memory. Rory is a co-founder of Wayward Warren Collective, a forthcoming online literary publication specializing in creative nonfiction about the politics and aesthetics of “the weird.” You can find Rory on Twitter @gilhouligan.

Sam Heaps is a genderqueer writer, visual artist, and organizer, currently living in Philadelphia where they teach writing. They have published in Communion Arts Journal, Entropy, Taco Bell Quarterly, and many other brave journals and anthologies. They are a 2022 VCCA Fellow. Heaps' debut PROXIMITY is forthcoming from CLASH Books January 2023.

Sara Elkamel is a poet and journalist living between Cairo and NYC. She holds an MA in arts journalism from Columbia University and an MFA in poetry from New York University. Her poems have appeared in The Yale Review, MQR, Four Way Review, The Cincinnati Review, The Adroit Journal, Poet Lore, Poetry London, Best New Poets 2020, Best of the Net 2020, among others. She is the author of the chapbook “Field of No Justice” (African Poetry Book Fund & Akashic Books, 2021).

Shakeema Smalls is South Carolina.  Her work has been published in a variety of outlets including Blackberry: A Magazine, Tidal Basin Review, The Fem, The Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Radius Lit, Free Black Space, Vinyl Poetry and Prose, and Rigorous, among others.

Urvashi Bahuguna is a poet and essayist based in the Bay Area. She is the author of Terrarium (The (Great) Indian Poetry Collective) and No Straight Thing Was Ever Made (Penguin, 2021).