​

 

Mohammad Ali Mirzaei was born in Iran, Tehran (August 8th 1982). His BA is in the field of News Photography from University of Culture & Art Isfahan. His works have been featured in various festivals in Iran, including first place in the "National Festival of Iranian people," the fourth Festival of "Women and urban life," Winner of Best Collection in the “Festival Of Film & Photo Young Cinema," and chosen for the Fereshteh Prize (Tehran 2015). His photos have been published in Midway Journal, TAYO, Columbia Journal, Hawai’i Review, Oxford, The Missing Slate, Silk Road Review, and The Adroit Journal. He is a member of the artistic team Paradise Ocean Literary & Photography Team, with management by Seyed Morteza Hamidzadeh.

​

​

Daniel Blokh is a 15-year-old American writer of Russian-Jewish descent living in Birmingham, Alabama. He is the author of the memoir In Migration (BAM! Publishing 2016) and the micro-chapbook The Wading Room (Origami Poems Project 2016). His chapbook, Grimmening, is forthcoming from Diode Editions. His work has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing awards and the Foyle Young Poet awards and has appeared in DIALOGIST, Gigantic Sequins, Forage Poetry, Avis Magazine, Thin Air Magazine, and more. He works as an editor at Parallel Ink and a reader at The Adroit Journal. He should probably go play outside with his friends, but he's busy worrying about the results of his writing submissions.

 

​

Isabella “Isa” Borgeson is a queer, multiracial, Filipina American poet and teaching artist from Oakland, California who views her poetry as an extension of her activism and community organizing. In 2012, Isa won "Best Poem" of the College Union Poetry Slam Invitational (CUPSI), where she represented UC Berkeley for three years. Isa has received fellowships from Voices of Our Nation Art Foundation and the Poetry Incubator through Poetry Foundation and Crescendo Literary. In December 2015, she performed at the United Nations Climate Change negotiations in Paris for COP21, where she spoke about the impact of climate change on her Philippines homeland and other island nations. Isa's work has been featured on CNN, NBC, Inquirer, and The Guardian. Her passion and commitment toward social justice issues and teaching poetry as a tool for resistance keeps her grounded in her communities across the Pacific Ocean – a homeland from Oakland to Tanauan. (isaborgeson.com)

 

​

Kayleb Rae Candrilli is the author of What Runs Over, forthcoming with YesYes Books and winner of the 2016 Pamet River Prize. They are published or forthcoming in BOAAT Press, Puerto del Sol, Booth, Vinyl, Muzzle, Cream City Review, and others. Candrilli is a Best of the Net winner and a Pushcart Prize nominated poet. They serve as an assistant poetry editor for BOAAT Press and hold an MFA from the University of Alabama. Candrilli now lives in Philadelphia with their partner. You can read more of their work here.

​

 

Annabel Chosy is a high school student from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her work has been published in Stone Soup and received recognition from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.

​

​

Ethan Chua is a Chinese-Filipino spoken word poet and fiction writer. His work has been published in major Philippine newspapers, the Philippines Graphic magazine, DIALOGIST, and Blue Marble Review; his work is also forthcoming in Strange Horizons.

​

​

Nandi Comer received a joint MFA/MA in Poetry and African American and African Diaspora Studies at Indiana University. She has received fellowships from the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, Cave Canem, Vermont Studio Center, and Virginia Center for the Arts. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Crab Orchard Review, Green Mountains Review, Pluck!, Prairie Schooner, and Southern Indiana Review. She is a recipient of the 2016 Gemini Magazine Poetry Open Poetry Award winner and a 2016 Write A House Permanent Residency in Detroit award.

​

​

Helli Fang is a current freshman at Bard College. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Adroit Journal, Souvenir Lit, Wildness, Alexandria Quarterly, and more, and has been recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, Columbia College of Chicago, and Bennington College. She has also attended the Iowa Young Writer’s Workshop. When Helli is not writing, she enjoys playing the violin and climbing trees.

 

​

Jacqui Germain is a published poet, freelance writer and contributing Arts and Culture writer with ALIVE Magazine, based in St. Louis, MO. She is a 2016 Callaloo Fellow and author of “When the Ghosts Come Ashore,” published in 2016 through Button Poetry and Exploding Pinecone Press. She’s preformed on multiple national stages and been featured on Huffington Post, St. Louis Public Radio, and Ploughshares Journal as part of their Activist-Poet Spotlight Series. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Muzzle Magazine, The Offing, Connotation Press, Underblong Journal, Drunk in a Midnight Choir, and elsewhere, in addition to Sundress Publications’ 2015 Best of the Net Anthology and “Crossing the Divide,” an anthology of St. Louis poets, published in 2016 bv Vagabond Books. Her essays have been published in The New Inquiry, The Establishment, Salon, Feministing, Blavity, and elsewhere. Her writing focuses on historical and contemporary iterations of Black, brown and indigenous resistance, which she believes is deeply urgent work that both exists on the page and extends beyond it.

 

​

Rebecca Givens Rolland has recent fiction in North American Review, Green Hills Literary Lantern, and Cosmonauts Avenue. She won the Dana Award for Short Fiction and lives in Boston.

 

​

Matty Layne Glasgow is a pixie of a poet from Sugar Land, Texas. He is currently an MFA Candidate in Creative Writing & Environment at Iowa State University where he teaches social justice rhetorics and serves as the Poetry Editor for Flyway: Journal of Writing & Environment. Matty’s queer ‘lil ditties have appeared or are forthcoming from journals here and there, including Wildness Journal, Rust+Moth, Flyway, HIV Here & Now, and The New Verse News. He loves his purple yoga mat, black bean and beet burgers, and his partner, Iran.

​

​

Rachana Hegde collects words and other oddities. She is dissonant in the company of strangers. Her poetry has appeared in Lockjaw Magazine, Moonsick Magazine, Noble / Gas Qtrly, and Hypertrophic Literary, among others. You can find her reading or at www.rachanahegde.weebly.com.

 

​

Raven Leilani has been published in the New Haven Review, Granta, Columbia Literary Journal, Psychopomp Magazine, and Silk Road. Her work is forthcoming in New Delta Review, Ruminate Magazine, and Bat City Review. During the day, she works for a scientific journal. At night, she is working on her first novel.

 

​

Elisa Luna-Ady is a soft-eyed Chicana from southern California. She's the co-founder and managing editor of Kerosene Magazine. Her work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Cosmonauts Avenue, Noble / Gas Qtrly, Synaesthesia, and elsewhere. She's a designated California arts scholar, a 2017 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards National Silver Medalist, and a 2017 Best New Poets nominee. She tweets @astronomyhoe.

​

​

Briana Lynn is currently an MFA candidate in Cross-Disciplinary Literary Arts at Brown University. She works at the intersection of a literary and visual practice. She's worked as a contributing writer for Okayplayer and exhibited at Bronzeville Art Lofts, The Silver Room, and the Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts.

​

​

Vi Khi Nao is the author of a novel, Fish in Exile (Coffee House Press, 2016), and The Old Philosopher (Nightboat Books, 2016), a poetry collection. Vi’s work includes poetry, fiction, film, and cross-genre collaboration. She was the winner of 2014 Nightboat Poetry Prize and the 2016 Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Contest.

 

​

Grace Qing is a teenage writer passionate about Asian passivity, unseen barriers, and cultural identities, using words as a means to explore what it means to be human. As a junior from Monta Vista High School, she currently serves on the La Pluma literary magazine and as president of the Spoken Word Poetry club; these experiences allow her to intertwine poetry with human stories to reconstruct the broader societal narrative. Her work is published and forthcoming in the Young Alliance for Young Artists and Writers, Glass Poetry Press, The Woman Inc, and more.

 

​

Linette Reeman (they/them) is an Aries from the Jersey Shore who was once described as a "hot mess" by someone with a psych degree. A multiple Pushcart Prize and Bettering American Poetry nominee, they have been published in places like Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Public Pool, Black Napkin Press, Crab Fat Magazine, and others. Linette is obtaining a history degree from a university they currently don't see eye-to-eye with and is on the executive board of the Philadelphia Fuze Poetry Slam. Their first full-length, When We Both Spoke In Alters, is forthcoming from Rising Phoenix Press.

 

​

Brianna Rettig is a self-taught photographer from South Lake Tahoe, CA. Currently, she resides in New England. She studies people and what they leave behind.

 

​

Sara Ryan is a second-year poetry MFA candidate at Northern Michigan University and an associate poetry editor for Passages North. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and she was a finalist for Best of the Net 2016. Her work has been published in or is forthcoming from Storm Cellar, Tinderbox, Slice Magazine, New South, Third Coast, Fairy Tale Review, and others.

 

​

Courtney Sender's stories have won the Glimmer Train fiction open, the Mississippi Review fiction contest, the Boulevard emerging writers contest, the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival fiction contest, and the Lawrence Prize for best story in Michigan Quarterly Review. Her stories also appear in The Kenyon Review, AGNI, American Short Fiction, The Georgia Review, Crazyhorse, and others. A MacDowell Colony fellow, she studies religion and literature at Harvard Divinity School.

 

​

T. L. Sherwood is the Assistant Editor of r.kv.r.y Quarterly Literary Journal. At Literary Orphans, she serves as a fiction reader, book reviewer, and interviewer. Among other places, her work has appeared in New World Writing, Rosebud, Thema, The Good Men Project, and Jelly Fish Review. She is the 2016 winner of the Gover Prize and was a finalist for Queen’s Ferry 2016 Best Small Fictions. Online, she participates in Zoetrope's Virtual Studio and writes a blog called “Creekside Reflections” at https://tlsherwood.wordpress.com/.

 

​

Kristina Stallvik is a student and artist currently in her senior year of high school at The Putney School in southern Vermont. She works primarily with 35mm and medium format film, intaglio and linoleum block printmaking, and HD video. Kristina’s photography has won Scholastic Art and Writing awards for three consecutive years and she has interned at the International Center of Photography in New York City as a teaching assistant and darkroom equipment manager. Aside from visual art, she really enjoys gardening and hopes to work on organic farms all over the world.

 

​

Kirwyn Sutherland is a Clinical Research Professional and poet.  He has made two National Poetry Slam Teams in 2015(made the Semi-Finals) and 2016.  His work has been published in APIARY Magazine, Drunkinamidnightchoir, and Public Pool. Kirwyn recently served as Poetry editor for APIARY 8, the Soft Targets Issue, and is currently reviewing books for WusGood magazine. 

 

​

Stephanie Tom is a Chinese-American high school student living in New York. She writes and serves as an editor for both her school newspaper and literary magazine. Her writing has previously won Gold and Silver keys from the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, and her poetry has either appeared or is forthcoming in Rising Phoenix Review, Germ Magazine, and Tinderbox Poetry Journal, among other places. You can find her spilling her thoughts online at stom18.wordpress.com.

 

​

Bill Wolak has just published his fifteenth book of poetry entitled The Nakedness Defense with Ekstasis Press. His most recent translation with Mahmood Karimi-Hakak, Love Me More Than the Others: Selected Poetry of Iraj Mirza, was published by Cross-Cultural Communications in 2014. His collages have appeared recently in Naked in New Hope 2016 and The 2017 Seattle Erotic Art Festival. In 2016, he was a featured poet at The Mihai Eminescu International Poetry Festival in Craiova, Romania; Europa in Versi, Lake Como, Italy; The Pesaro International Poetry Festival, Pesaro, Italy, The Xichang-Qionghai Silk Road International Poetry Week, Xichang, China; and Ethnofest, Pristina, Kosovo. Mr. Wolak teaches Creative Writing at William Paterson University in New Jersey.

 

​

Richard Wu is a Eugene McDermott Scholar studying at the University of Texas at Dallas. He enjoys creating artwork in his spare time, and can also be found working on creative writing and music composition. Some other hobbies of his include (in no particular order): learning obscure words from foreign languages, raising katydids as pets, and celebrating offbeat holidays.

 

​