Contributors
Gale Acuff has had hundreds of poems published in a dozen countries and has authored three books of poetry. His poems have appeared in New Feathers Anthology 2021, Ascent, Reed, Journal of Black Mountain College Studies, The Font, Chiron Review, Poem, Adirondack Review, Florida Review, Slant, Arkansas Review, Maryland Literary Review, North Dakota Quarterly, South Dakota Review, Roanoke Review, War, Literature & the Arts, and many other journals. He has also taught tertiary English courses in the US, PR China, and Palestine.
Gayana Artashesyan was born in 1970 in Moscow, Russia. She has lived and worked as a contemporary artist in Chicago, USA, since 2018.
Kendall Aufmuth earned her B.A. at the University at Albany, majoring in English and political science. She concentrates on poetry and psychoanalytic theory of literature, particularly focusing on the psychotherapeutic benefits of reading, and writing the mental illness memoir. Kendall has been published in various books and journals, and looks forward to her upcoming book, Just Another Story.
Noah Berlatsky tried being a poet some twenty years back and failed miserably. So he’s trying again. He won an honorable mention in the 2022 Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry contest, which was encouraging. He tweets too much at @nberlat.
Samba Prasad Biswas (b. 1982) is an Indian visual artist. He received an MFA degree in painting with a gold medal from the faculty of visual arts at Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata. In his paintings, Samba galvanizes colors and geometrical structures in vivid tones that dynamically profess rhythmic balance and harmony. His paintings are inspired by the architectural marvel of constructions, the symphony of Indian classical music, the patterns and color traditions of pluralistic Indian culture, and timeless moments of everyday life. Through his art, Samba loves to celebrate the many shades of life and nature in an energetic manner that awakens positivity among viewers. His artwork has been exhibited both nationally and internationally. The artistic translations of his observations have earned him several prolific awards and recognition in the country. His works are in several collections in India and abroad. Samba also writes essays on art and culture for magazines and teaches art at an institution in West Bengal, India.
Lana Bright (1964, Perm, USSR) is an Amsterdam-based visual artist and illustrator, best known for her socially engaged projects, paintings and publications. Her artistic practice revolves around the natural ability of humans to find hope for a better future through and by means of the arts. Lana began her artistic path as a children’s book illustrator (1994), and soon she received international recognition. Her children’s book projects Smetterling and Aber Boris! were published in Europe and Asia, including The Netherlands, Germany, Japan, China, and others. and translated into fourteen languages. Since the beginning of the 2000s, she turned her attention to realistic painting, exploring traditional oil techniques, studying renowned masterpieces, and practicing extensively. All that helped her to develop distinctive a language, in which she juxtaposes fine representation and rough brushstrokes, letting the material manifest itself. In her paintings, she often combines folkloristic and mythological themes, floral and animalistic motives. In 2010-2015, she created a series of works depicting female figures in Dutch traditional clothing, dynamically moving and blending in a flow of flowers. Since 2016, besides painting, she has been developing more socially engaged projects and moving toward participatory art. In 2018, during Art Summer Festival (Amsterdam), her project You&We DrawLab (Individuarium) brought together more than one hundred participants of different ages, origins, and ethnic backgrounds.
Lorraine Caputo is a documentary poet, translator, and travel writer. Her works appear in over three hundred journals on six continents and twenty collections of poetry–including On Galápagos Shores (dancing girl press, 2019) and Caribbean Interludes (Origami Poems Project, 2022). She also authors travel narratives, articles and guidebooks. Her writing has been honored by the Parliamentary Poet Laureate of Canada (2011) and nominated for the Best of the Net. Caputo has done literary readings from Alaska to the Patagonia. She journeys through Latin America, listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth. Follow her travels at www.facebook.com/lorrainecaputo.wanderer or https://latinamericawanderer.wordpress.com.
Garry Engkent is a Chinese-Canadian. He coauthored three texts: Groundwork: Writing Skills to Build On; Fiction/Non-Fiction: A Reader and Rhetoric; and Essay: Do’s and Don’ts. His fictional stories have appeared in Exile, Many-Mouthed Birds, Emerge, Ricepaper Magazine, New Feathers Anthology, and Dark Winter Literary Magazine. Most stories have a Chinese immigrant slant: “Why My Mother Can’t Speak English,” “Eggroll,” “Rabbit,” and “Fish.” His recent published forays into horror are “I, Zombie: A Different Point of View,” “Merci,” “We Aren’t Bad Guys,” and “Zombie Zone.”
Eric Raanan Fischman is an MFA graduate of Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. He has taught free writing workshops in Nederland, Boulder, and Longmont, and has had work in Bombay Gin, The Boulder Weekly, and Suspect Press, as well as in fundraising anthologies by Punch Drunk Press and South Broadway Ghost Society, benefiting the Mutiny Info Cafe and Denver Food Rescue. His first book, Mordy Gets Enlightened, was published through The Little Door in 2017.
Jonathan Fletcher, originally from San Antonio, Texas, currently resides in New York City, where he is pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing in poetry at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. He has been published in Arts Alive San Antonio, The BeZine, Clips and Pages, Door Is a Jar, DoubleSpeak, Flora Fiction, FlowerSong Press, Lone Stars, OneBlackBoyLikeThat Review, riverSedge, Synkroniciti, The Thing Itself,TEJASCOVIDO, Unlikely Stories Mark V, Voices de la Luna, and Waco WordFest. His work has also been featured at the Briscoe Western Art Museum.
Eric Garcia loves going hiking with his wife and family. As a Colorado native, he is able to enjoy the beauty that nature offers. His photography is taken in moments that take his breath away. Sharing these moments with his wife makes his photos that much more special. He believes the old adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”
D. Walsh Gilbert is the author of Ransom (Grayson Books), Once the Earth Had Two Moons (Cerasus Poetry), and imagine the small bones (Grayson Books), a full-length book of poems in communication with the art of fish and birds. A double Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has appeared in Gleam, The Lumiere Review, Black Fox Literary Magazine, and Thimble Literary Magazine, among others. She serves on the board of the nonprofit, Riverwood Poetry Series and as co-editor of Connecticut River Review.
A. N. Grace lives in Liverpool, England. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Queen's Quarterly, Young Magazine, Sein und Werden, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal and others.
Heather Haigh is a disabled, working-class writer from Yorkshire, who found the joy of writing late in life. Her words have been published by Reflex Press, Anansi Archive, Black Moon Magazine and others. She likes to make and wear silly hats. You can find her on social media at @HeatherBookNook. Website: https://haigh19c.wixsite.com/heatherbooknook
Ellen Harrold is an artist focused on the human connection to science and nature. She is currently completing a master’s degree in art, science, and visual thinking at Dundee University and has received a bachelor’s degree in fine art from the Institute of Art, Design, and Technology (IADT) in Dublin. A core aspect of her practice is the use of painting, drawing, text, and textiles to explore the connection between decay and renewal in the fundamental structure of the world around us. At the moment, she is focused on how scientific understanding was, and continues to be, understood through the lens of art and storytelling. She has taken part in IADT student shows such as New Translations in IMMA (2019), On Show in IADT (2022) and Propositions in IADT (2022).
Heikki Huotari attended a one-room school and spent summers on a forest-fire lookout tower. Since retiring from academia/mathematics, he has published poems in numerous journals and in five poetry collections. His manuscript, To Justify the Butterfly, won second prize, and publication, in the 2022 James Tate Chapbook Competition.
Elena Ivanova really started her art career in March 2022. She woke up after severe disease and realized that she was an artist. Since that day, she has taken part in eight exhibitions, including in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Paris. Although she had some painting experience, it was in the distant past. She had never considered herself an artist. Now, she is determined to pursue an artistic career. She lives and works in a Russian village, not far from Veliky Novgorod, but she uses every opportunity to make her voice heard and her art seen.
Sio Sandra Jaya was born in Bengkulu, in 1981, and currently resides in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. Her artwork takes a critical view of social, political, and cultural issues. In her work, she reflects on the unconsciousness of impact in the community, intentionally or unintentionally, involving subjects such as the body, buildings, and the surrounding environment. She works with small themes, as a form of self-reflection, from the journey of her life, childhood, and the lives and experiences of the people around her, which inspire the work.
K. B. Jensen’s new short story collection is Love and Other Monsters in the Dark. She has two novels, Painting with Fire, an artistic murder mystery with over 75,000 downloads, and A Storm of Stories, which veers literary and handles love, craziness, and impossibility. K. B. lives in Littleton, Colorado, with her family, and teaches downhill skiing. A former journalist, K. B. is a publishing consultant and writing camp director for My Word Publishing. Her work has appeared in Cherry Magazine, Progenitor and other publications. To sign up for K. B.’s newsletter and to read free excerpts of her books, visit www.kbjensenauthor.com.
Akari Komura is a Japanese composer-vocalist. Her breadth of work spans chamber ensemble, multimedia/electronic, dance, and vocal music. Her works have been presented at the Atlantic Music Festival, Composers Conference, Montreal Contemporary Music Lab, Nief-Norf, and soundSCAPE. She holds an M.M. in composition from the University of Michigan and a B.A. in vocal arts from the University of California, Irvine. Her major teachers include Evan Chambers, Roshanne Etezady, and Stephen Rush. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D in composition at the University of California San Diego. Website: akarikomura.com
Jang Guin Lim left working at a company to focus on his works of art. His interest is in flattening objects, not canvases. His work has been published on the cover of the September issue of Coup magazine, The Working Artist: II 2021 in the UK, and MVIBE magazine in Greece. He has participated in two art biennials and was awarded the honorable mention award at the California Art Show.
Eve F. W. Linn received her MFA in poetry from Lesley University. Her first chapbook, Model Home (2019), is available from River Glass Books. Her poems have appeared in Adanna Literary Journal, Cider Press Review, Crosswinds Poetry Journal, Lily Poetry Review, Nixes Mate Review, and Thimble Literary Magazine. She is a peer reviewer for Whale Road Review. She loves cats, strong coffee, and thunderstorms.
Carolyn Martin is a lover of gardening and snorkeling, feral cats and backyard birds, writing and photography. Her poems have appeared in more than 175 journals throughout North America, Australia, and the UK, and her fifth collection, The Catalog of Small Contentments, was released in August 2021. Currently, she is the book review editor for the Oregon Poetry Association and the poetry editor of Kosmos Quarterly: Journal for Global Transformation.Find out more at www.carolynmartinpoet.com.
Cameron Morse (he, him) is senior reviews editor at Harbor Review and the author of eight collections of poetry. His first collection, Fall Risk, won Glass Lyre Press’s 2018 Best Book Award. His book of unrhymed sonnets, Sonnetizer, is forthcoming from Kelsay Books. He holds an MFA from the University of Kansas City–Missouri and lives in Independence, Missouri, with his wife and three children. For more information, check out his Facebook page or website.
Damilola Omotoyinbo is a Nigerian creative writer. A fellow of the Ebedi International Writers’ Residency, an alumna of YALI and the SprinNG Writing Fellowship, Damilola won second place in the PIN poetry contest, got the Lolwe Classes scholarship and was longlisted for 2022 African Writers Awards. She has work published or forthcoming in Brittle Paper, Agbowó, Pepper Coast Lit, Afritondo, Better Than Starbucks, Praxis, Nigerian Tribune Newspaper and elsewhere. You can say hi to her on IG @ damilola_omotoyinbo or Twitter @creative_riter.
Ayhan Özer was born in Gaziantep in 1977. In 2013, he founded the Gaziantep University painting department. He still works as an associate professor there. He has participated in many national and international art events.
Wendy Palmer is an ex-social worker who lives on an island. Her work has appeared in Rosebud, New Millennium, Nimrod, Confluence, Sixfold, Lunch Ticket, Spillwords and Martha’s Vineyard Magazine. She is working on a novel about Charlotte Perkins Gilman, nineteenth-century radical feminist, described at the time as a genius, also described as hysterical and overly absorbed by the woman question.
Bobby Parrott has obviously been placed on this planet in error. In his own words, “The intentions of trees are a form of loneliness we climb like a ladder.” His poems wildly appear or are forthcoming in Tilted House, RHINO, Rumble Fish Quarterly, Atticus Review, The Hopper, Rabid Oak, Exacting Clam, Neologism, Whale Road Review, and elsewhere. Immersed in a forest-spun jacket of toy dirigibles, he dreams himself out of formlessness in the chartreuse meditation capsule known as Fort Collins, Colorado, where he lives with his partner Lucien, their houseplant Zebrina, and his hyper-quantum robotic assistant Nordstrom.
Inna Petrusevica was born in 1982, in Daugavpils. She lives and works in Riga, Latvia. She earned a bachelor of social sciences in psychology from the University of Latvia. She has been painting all her life and painting professionally since 2021. In 2022, she participated in the international group exhibition Wings of Riga and a personal one-day exhibition, Without Invitation, at Viskali, Riga, and was a participant in the art action Our Planet Week. At the moment, she has been studying deeply on the topic of changes and predestination in human life. What is the role of chance and environment in its transformation? How meaningful can change be in a crumbling world?
Nadiia Rom was born in Poltava, Ukraine in 1977. She went to art school in Poltava and was a member of the architecture faculty at Poltava National University from 1998 to 2004, with a specialty in design of architectural environment. She began painting in 2007. To her, an artist is an orator, who uses color and shape instead of words. Her art is about how she feels this world, how she sees it, about everything that happens inside and outside her and her perception of it. That's her dialogue with canvas and through it with everybody who sees it.
Katherine DiBella Seluja is the author of Gather the Night (UNM Press, 2018), and co-author of We Are Meant to Carry Water (3A: A Taos Press, 2019). Recent work has appeared in Cutthroat, FENCE, and Thimble and has placed as a finalist in the 2022 Julia Peterkin Literary Awards poetry contest. Her third book, Point of Entry, is forthcoming from UNM Press in 2023. Katherine is a poetry editor at Unbroken Journal. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Jim Tilley has published three full-length collections of poetry (In Confidence, Cruising at Sixty to Seventy, Lessons from Summer Camp) and a novel (Against the Wind) with Red Hen Press. His short memoir, The Elegant Solution, was published as a Ploughshares Solo. He has won Sycamore Review’sWabash Prize for Poetry. Four of his poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Some of my work appears at my website jimtilley.net, including new poems that will be included in a new and selected poems collection accepted for publication in 2025.
Ruth Towne is a graduate of the Stonecoast MFA program. Her work has recently appeared in WOMEN. LIFE., a special issue of Beyond Words Literary Magazine, and Monsoons: A Collection of Poetry by Poet’s Choice Publishing. She has forthcoming publications with Black Spot Books, Inlandia Books, NiftyLit, and Drunk Monkeys.
Maizie Vatsaas is a poet of many cities, a lover of nature lyric, tensions of desire, and the Marxist dialectic. She is an undergraduate student at University of Baltimore, and 2022 awardee of Tinker Mountain Writer’s Workshop’s alumni scholarship at Hollins University. She has been published in Ourglass and Outrageous Fortune. Find her work in these journals and handmade chapbooks and zines.
Rebecca Watkins, an educator and writer, earned her M.F.A. in poetry and her M.S. Ed from the City University of New York. Besides being a public-school teacher, she has created and led poetry workshops for all ages. Rebecca has been published in Sin Fronteras, New Feather’s Anthology, Roanoke Review, The Red Mesa Review, Anderbo, and the SNReview, among other literary journals. Her first full-length poetry book, Sometimes, in These Places, was published by Unsolicited Press in 2017. More of her work can be found at www.rebeccawatkinswriter.com.
Renee Williams received a master of arts and sciences in English from Ohio University in 1991 and retired from teaching at Hocking College in 2019. She has presented at the National Council of Teachers of English, the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development, the Pennsylvania Association of Developmental Education, and the General Educators of Ohio. She was a staff writer for Guitar Digest, interviewing many guitarists, including Dan Fogelberg, Keith Urban, Buddy Guy, Pete Yorn, and others.
Since retiring, she has been working on her poetry and photography. Her poems will be featured in upcoming issues of Alien Buddha Press and are on the website Fevers of the Mind. Her photography can be seen in this year’s Corolla Wild Horse Fund calendar and on the cover of the 2023 calendar.
Odeta Xheka works across painting, collage, and digital media, but she often turns to writing as the most formidable way to capture the most intimate parts of her story in a way that’s both sensitive and cerebral.
Cynthia Yatchman is a Seattle-based artist and art instructor. A former ceramicist, she received her B.F.A. in painting (UW). She switched from 3D to 2D and has remained there ever since. She works primarily on paintings, prints, and collages. Her art is housed in numerous public and private collections. She has exhibited on both coasts, extensively in the Northwest, including shows at Seattle University, SPU, Shoreline Community College, the Tacoma and Seattle Convention Centers and the Pacific Science Center. She is an affiliate member of Gallery 110, a member of the Seattle Print Art Association and COCA.
Gayana Artashesyan was born in 1970 in Moscow, Russia. She has lived and worked as a contemporary artist in Chicago, USA, since 2018.
Kendall Aufmuth earned her B.A. at the University at Albany, majoring in English and political science. She concentrates on poetry and psychoanalytic theory of literature, particularly focusing on the psychotherapeutic benefits of reading, and writing the mental illness memoir. Kendall has been published in various books and journals, and looks forward to her upcoming book, Just Another Story.
Noah Berlatsky tried being a poet some twenty years back and failed miserably. So he’s trying again. He won an honorable mention in the 2022 Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry contest, which was encouraging. He tweets too much at @nberlat.
Samba Prasad Biswas (b. 1982) is an Indian visual artist. He received an MFA degree in painting with a gold medal from the faculty of visual arts at Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata. In his paintings, Samba galvanizes colors and geometrical structures in vivid tones that dynamically profess rhythmic balance and harmony. His paintings are inspired by the architectural marvel of constructions, the symphony of Indian classical music, the patterns and color traditions of pluralistic Indian culture, and timeless moments of everyday life. Through his art, Samba loves to celebrate the many shades of life and nature in an energetic manner that awakens positivity among viewers. His artwork has been exhibited both nationally and internationally. The artistic translations of his observations have earned him several prolific awards and recognition in the country. His works are in several collections in India and abroad. Samba also writes essays on art and culture for magazines and teaches art at an institution in West Bengal, India.
Lana Bright (1964, Perm, USSR) is an Amsterdam-based visual artist and illustrator, best known for her socially engaged projects, paintings and publications. Her artistic practice revolves around the natural ability of humans to find hope for a better future through and by means of the arts. Lana began her artistic path as a children’s book illustrator (1994), and soon she received international recognition. Her children’s book projects Smetterling and Aber Boris! were published in Europe and Asia, including The Netherlands, Germany, Japan, China, and others. and translated into fourteen languages. Since the beginning of the 2000s, she turned her attention to realistic painting, exploring traditional oil techniques, studying renowned masterpieces, and practicing extensively. All that helped her to develop distinctive a language, in which she juxtaposes fine representation and rough brushstrokes, letting the material manifest itself. In her paintings, she often combines folkloristic and mythological themes, floral and animalistic motives. In 2010-2015, she created a series of works depicting female figures in Dutch traditional clothing, dynamically moving and blending in a flow of flowers. Since 2016, besides painting, she has been developing more socially engaged projects and moving toward participatory art. In 2018, during Art Summer Festival (Amsterdam), her project You&We DrawLab (Individuarium) brought together more than one hundred participants of different ages, origins, and ethnic backgrounds.
Lorraine Caputo is a documentary poet, translator, and travel writer. Her works appear in over three hundred journals on six continents and twenty collections of poetry–including On Galápagos Shores (dancing girl press, 2019) and Caribbean Interludes (Origami Poems Project, 2022). She also authors travel narratives, articles and guidebooks. Her writing has been honored by the Parliamentary Poet Laureate of Canada (2011) and nominated for the Best of the Net. Caputo has done literary readings from Alaska to the Patagonia. She journeys through Latin America, listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth. Follow her travels at www.facebook.com/lorrainecaputo.wanderer or https://latinamericawanderer.wordpress.com.
Garry Engkent is a Chinese-Canadian. He coauthored three texts: Groundwork: Writing Skills to Build On; Fiction/Non-Fiction: A Reader and Rhetoric; and Essay: Do’s and Don’ts. His fictional stories have appeared in Exile, Many-Mouthed Birds, Emerge, Ricepaper Magazine, New Feathers Anthology, and Dark Winter Literary Magazine. Most stories have a Chinese immigrant slant: “Why My Mother Can’t Speak English,” “Eggroll,” “Rabbit,” and “Fish.” His recent published forays into horror are “I, Zombie: A Different Point of View,” “Merci,” “We Aren’t Bad Guys,” and “Zombie Zone.”
Eric Raanan Fischman is an MFA graduate of Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. He has taught free writing workshops in Nederland, Boulder, and Longmont, and has had work in Bombay Gin, The Boulder Weekly, and Suspect Press, as well as in fundraising anthologies by Punch Drunk Press and South Broadway Ghost Society, benefiting the Mutiny Info Cafe and Denver Food Rescue. His first book, Mordy Gets Enlightened, was published through The Little Door in 2017.
Jonathan Fletcher, originally from San Antonio, Texas, currently resides in New York City, where he is pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing in poetry at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. He has been published in Arts Alive San Antonio, The BeZine, Clips and Pages, Door Is a Jar, DoubleSpeak, Flora Fiction, FlowerSong Press, Lone Stars, OneBlackBoyLikeThat Review, riverSedge, Synkroniciti, The Thing Itself,TEJASCOVIDO, Unlikely Stories Mark V, Voices de la Luna, and Waco WordFest. His work has also been featured at the Briscoe Western Art Museum.
Eric Garcia loves going hiking with his wife and family. As a Colorado native, he is able to enjoy the beauty that nature offers. His photography is taken in moments that take his breath away. Sharing these moments with his wife makes his photos that much more special. He believes the old adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”
D. Walsh Gilbert is the author of Ransom (Grayson Books), Once the Earth Had Two Moons (Cerasus Poetry), and imagine the small bones (Grayson Books), a full-length book of poems in communication with the art of fish and birds. A double Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has appeared in Gleam, The Lumiere Review, Black Fox Literary Magazine, and Thimble Literary Magazine, among others. She serves on the board of the nonprofit, Riverwood Poetry Series and as co-editor of Connecticut River Review.
A. N. Grace lives in Liverpool, England. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Queen's Quarterly, Young Magazine, Sein und Werden, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal and others.
Heather Haigh is a disabled, working-class writer from Yorkshire, who found the joy of writing late in life. Her words have been published by Reflex Press, Anansi Archive, Black Moon Magazine and others. She likes to make and wear silly hats. You can find her on social media at @HeatherBookNook. Website: https://haigh19c.wixsite.com/heatherbooknook
Ellen Harrold is an artist focused on the human connection to science and nature. She is currently completing a master’s degree in art, science, and visual thinking at Dundee University and has received a bachelor’s degree in fine art from the Institute of Art, Design, and Technology (IADT) in Dublin. A core aspect of her practice is the use of painting, drawing, text, and textiles to explore the connection between decay and renewal in the fundamental structure of the world around us. At the moment, she is focused on how scientific understanding was, and continues to be, understood through the lens of art and storytelling. She has taken part in IADT student shows such as New Translations in IMMA (2019), On Show in IADT (2022) and Propositions in IADT (2022).
Heikki Huotari attended a one-room school and spent summers on a forest-fire lookout tower. Since retiring from academia/mathematics, he has published poems in numerous journals and in five poetry collections. His manuscript, To Justify the Butterfly, won second prize, and publication, in the 2022 James Tate Chapbook Competition.
Elena Ivanova really started her art career in March 2022. She woke up after severe disease and realized that she was an artist. Since that day, she has taken part in eight exhibitions, including in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Paris. Although she had some painting experience, it was in the distant past. She had never considered herself an artist. Now, she is determined to pursue an artistic career. She lives and works in a Russian village, not far from Veliky Novgorod, but she uses every opportunity to make her voice heard and her art seen.
Sio Sandra Jaya was born in Bengkulu, in 1981, and currently resides in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. Her artwork takes a critical view of social, political, and cultural issues. In her work, she reflects on the unconsciousness of impact in the community, intentionally or unintentionally, involving subjects such as the body, buildings, and the surrounding environment. She works with small themes, as a form of self-reflection, from the journey of her life, childhood, and the lives and experiences of the people around her, which inspire the work.
K. B. Jensen’s new short story collection is Love and Other Monsters in the Dark. She has two novels, Painting with Fire, an artistic murder mystery with over 75,000 downloads, and A Storm of Stories, which veers literary and handles love, craziness, and impossibility. K. B. lives in Littleton, Colorado, with her family, and teaches downhill skiing. A former journalist, K. B. is a publishing consultant and writing camp director for My Word Publishing. Her work has appeared in Cherry Magazine, Progenitor and other publications. To sign up for K. B.’s newsletter and to read free excerpts of her books, visit www.kbjensenauthor.com.
Akari Komura is a Japanese composer-vocalist. Her breadth of work spans chamber ensemble, multimedia/electronic, dance, and vocal music. Her works have been presented at the Atlantic Music Festival, Composers Conference, Montreal Contemporary Music Lab, Nief-Norf, and soundSCAPE. She holds an M.M. in composition from the University of Michigan and a B.A. in vocal arts from the University of California, Irvine. Her major teachers include Evan Chambers, Roshanne Etezady, and Stephen Rush. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D in composition at the University of California San Diego. Website: akarikomura.com
Jang Guin Lim left working at a company to focus on his works of art. His interest is in flattening objects, not canvases. His work has been published on the cover of the September issue of Coup magazine, The Working Artist: II 2021 in the UK, and MVIBE magazine in Greece. He has participated in two art biennials and was awarded the honorable mention award at the California Art Show.
Eve F. W. Linn received her MFA in poetry from Lesley University. Her first chapbook, Model Home (2019), is available from River Glass Books. Her poems have appeared in Adanna Literary Journal, Cider Press Review, Crosswinds Poetry Journal, Lily Poetry Review, Nixes Mate Review, and Thimble Literary Magazine. She is a peer reviewer for Whale Road Review. She loves cats, strong coffee, and thunderstorms.
Carolyn Martin is a lover of gardening and snorkeling, feral cats and backyard birds, writing and photography. Her poems have appeared in more than 175 journals throughout North America, Australia, and the UK, and her fifth collection, The Catalog of Small Contentments, was released in August 2021. Currently, she is the book review editor for the Oregon Poetry Association and the poetry editor of Kosmos Quarterly: Journal for Global Transformation.Find out more at www.carolynmartinpoet.com.
Cameron Morse (he, him) is senior reviews editor at Harbor Review and the author of eight collections of poetry. His first collection, Fall Risk, won Glass Lyre Press’s 2018 Best Book Award. His book of unrhymed sonnets, Sonnetizer, is forthcoming from Kelsay Books. He holds an MFA from the University of Kansas City–Missouri and lives in Independence, Missouri, with his wife and three children. For more information, check out his Facebook page or website.
Damilola Omotoyinbo is a Nigerian creative writer. A fellow of the Ebedi International Writers’ Residency, an alumna of YALI and the SprinNG Writing Fellowship, Damilola won second place in the PIN poetry contest, got the Lolwe Classes scholarship and was longlisted for 2022 African Writers Awards. She has work published or forthcoming in Brittle Paper, Agbowó, Pepper Coast Lit, Afritondo, Better Than Starbucks, Praxis, Nigerian Tribune Newspaper and elsewhere. You can say hi to her on IG @ damilola_omotoyinbo or Twitter @creative_riter.
Ayhan Özer was born in Gaziantep in 1977. In 2013, he founded the Gaziantep University painting department. He still works as an associate professor there. He has participated in many national and international art events.
Wendy Palmer is an ex-social worker who lives on an island. Her work has appeared in Rosebud, New Millennium, Nimrod, Confluence, Sixfold, Lunch Ticket, Spillwords and Martha’s Vineyard Magazine. She is working on a novel about Charlotte Perkins Gilman, nineteenth-century radical feminist, described at the time as a genius, also described as hysterical and overly absorbed by the woman question.
Bobby Parrott has obviously been placed on this planet in error. In his own words, “The intentions of trees are a form of loneliness we climb like a ladder.” His poems wildly appear or are forthcoming in Tilted House, RHINO, Rumble Fish Quarterly, Atticus Review, The Hopper, Rabid Oak, Exacting Clam, Neologism, Whale Road Review, and elsewhere. Immersed in a forest-spun jacket of toy dirigibles, he dreams himself out of formlessness in the chartreuse meditation capsule known as Fort Collins, Colorado, where he lives with his partner Lucien, their houseplant Zebrina, and his hyper-quantum robotic assistant Nordstrom.
Inna Petrusevica was born in 1982, in Daugavpils. She lives and works in Riga, Latvia. She earned a bachelor of social sciences in psychology from the University of Latvia. She has been painting all her life and painting professionally since 2021. In 2022, she participated in the international group exhibition Wings of Riga and a personal one-day exhibition, Without Invitation, at Viskali, Riga, and was a participant in the art action Our Planet Week. At the moment, she has been studying deeply on the topic of changes and predestination in human life. What is the role of chance and environment in its transformation? How meaningful can change be in a crumbling world?
Nadiia Rom was born in Poltava, Ukraine in 1977. She went to art school in Poltava and was a member of the architecture faculty at Poltava National University from 1998 to 2004, with a specialty in design of architectural environment. She began painting in 2007. To her, an artist is an orator, who uses color and shape instead of words. Her art is about how she feels this world, how she sees it, about everything that happens inside and outside her and her perception of it. That's her dialogue with canvas and through it with everybody who sees it.
Katherine DiBella Seluja is the author of Gather the Night (UNM Press, 2018), and co-author of We Are Meant to Carry Water (3A: A Taos Press, 2019). Recent work has appeared in Cutthroat, FENCE, and Thimble and has placed as a finalist in the 2022 Julia Peterkin Literary Awards poetry contest. Her third book, Point of Entry, is forthcoming from UNM Press in 2023. Katherine is a poetry editor at Unbroken Journal. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Jim Tilley has published three full-length collections of poetry (In Confidence, Cruising at Sixty to Seventy, Lessons from Summer Camp) and a novel (Against the Wind) with Red Hen Press. His short memoir, The Elegant Solution, was published as a Ploughshares Solo. He has won Sycamore Review’sWabash Prize for Poetry. Four of his poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Some of my work appears at my website jimtilley.net, including new poems that will be included in a new and selected poems collection accepted for publication in 2025.
Ruth Towne is a graduate of the Stonecoast MFA program. Her work has recently appeared in WOMEN. LIFE., a special issue of Beyond Words Literary Magazine, and Monsoons: A Collection of Poetry by Poet’s Choice Publishing. She has forthcoming publications with Black Spot Books, Inlandia Books, NiftyLit, and Drunk Monkeys.
Maizie Vatsaas is a poet of many cities, a lover of nature lyric, tensions of desire, and the Marxist dialectic. She is an undergraduate student at University of Baltimore, and 2022 awardee of Tinker Mountain Writer’s Workshop’s alumni scholarship at Hollins University. She has been published in Ourglass and Outrageous Fortune. Find her work in these journals and handmade chapbooks and zines.
Rebecca Watkins, an educator and writer, earned her M.F.A. in poetry and her M.S. Ed from the City University of New York. Besides being a public-school teacher, she has created and led poetry workshops for all ages. Rebecca has been published in Sin Fronteras, New Feather’s Anthology, Roanoke Review, The Red Mesa Review, Anderbo, and the SNReview, among other literary journals. Her first full-length poetry book, Sometimes, in These Places, was published by Unsolicited Press in 2017. More of her work can be found at www.rebeccawatkinswriter.com.
Renee Williams received a master of arts and sciences in English from Ohio University in 1991 and retired from teaching at Hocking College in 2019. She has presented at the National Council of Teachers of English, the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development, the Pennsylvania Association of Developmental Education, and the General Educators of Ohio. She was a staff writer for Guitar Digest, interviewing many guitarists, including Dan Fogelberg, Keith Urban, Buddy Guy, Pete Yorn, and others.
Since retiring, she has been working on her poetry and photography. Her poems will be featured in upcoming issues of Alien Buddha Press and are on the website Fevers of the Mind. Her photography can be seen in this year’s Corolla Wild Horse Fund calendar and on the cover of the 2023 calendar.
Odeta Xheka works across painting, collage, and digital media, but she often turns to writing as the most formidable way to capture the most intimate parts of her story in a way that’s both sensitive and cerebral.
Cynthia Yatchman is a Seattle-based artist and art instructor. A former ceramicist, she received her B.F.A. in painting (UW). She switched from 3D to 2D and has remained there ever since. She works primarily on paintings, prints, and collages. Her art is housed in numerous public and private collections. She has exhibited on both coasts, extensively in the Northwest, including shows at Seattle University, SPU, Shoreline Community College, the Tacoma and Seattle Convention Centers and the Pacific Science Center. She is an affiliate member of Gallery 110, a member of the Seattle Print Art Association and COCA.