Contributors
Abraham Aondoana is a writer, poet, and novelist. He is a recipient of the Idembeka Creative Writing Workshop 2026. His poem “How Do You Mourn 200 Ghosts in One Poem” was shortlisted for Interwoven Anthology (Renard Press). His works have been published in Kalahari Review, The Philly Chapbook Review, Raven Cage Zine, Poem Alone, Prosetrics Magazine, Rough Diamond Poetry, The Cat Poetry Anthology, IHTOV, The Literary Nest, Ink Sweat & Tears (UK), Rogue Agent, Ink in Thirds Magazine, Writing on the Wall, Alien Buddha, Blasphemous Journal, Rust Belt Review, Speculative Insights and elsewhere.
Azia Archer is a writer and artist living in Minnesota, USA. She is the author of Atoms and Evers (dancing girl press) and is currently querying her novel, Small Birds, a lyrical work of upmarket women’s fiction touched by magical realism. She is the editor-in-chief of the literary journal Root Smoke on Substack. You can find her online at aziaarcher.com or via @aziaarcher across social platforms.
Jan Donley is a visual artist and a writer. In 2024, Provincetown Magazine profiled Donley’s work: “Jan Donley–The Worrier Artist.” From 2015–2025, Donley’s work showed at Stewart Clifford Gallery. Her work has appeared in various juried shows, and her art videos have won Telly Awards.
Samuel Goldsmith (he/him) is a writer, musician, and photographer who lives in California. He writes so as to become a river, not a lake. His poetry has appeared in Gyroscope, Lost Blonde, Euphemism, and others.
Howie Good is a professor emeritus at SUNY New Paltz whose newest poetry collection, True Crime, is scheduled to be published by Sacred Parasite in early 2026.
Heather D. Haigh is a sight-impaired spoonie and working-class artist, photographer, and writer from Yorkshire. She has visual work published by Pithead Chapel, Sunlight Press, Midnight Fawn Review, Dulcet, Viridine and others. She can often be found gazing at the sea, napping, or knitting silly hats.
Katie Hughbanks (she/her) is a writer, photographer, and educator whose images have appeared in over seventy magazines across the U.S. and abroad. She is the author of two chapbooks–Blackbird Songs (Prolific Press, 2019) and It’s Time (Finishing Line Press, 2024). She teaches English and creative writing in Louisville, Kentucky.
Stephen Komarnyckyj's literary translations and poems have appeared in Index on Censorship, Modern Poetry in Translation, and many other journals. He is the holder of three PEN awards and a highly regarded English language poet whose work has been described as articulating “what it means to be human” (Sean Street). He runs Kalyna Language Press, which publishes his own poetry and translations, and has taught at The Poetry School and translated a series of Ukrainian poets and their blogs for The Poetry School site under the title Stanzas for Ukraine.
Jessica Kuilan is a Texas-based photographer drawn to the outdoors, wildlife, and desert landscapes. Inspired by open skies, desert trails, and the quiet presence of wildlife. Pursuing photography as a way to preserve the beauty they encounter. From striking cacti silhouettes to intimate animal portraits, each image reflects a love for exploration and the outdoors.
Ali Lazik is a Buffalo-based painter and creator of words. Traditionally trained in oil painting, Lazik awakens a lifelong love of mixed media and poetry through bold, frosting-like textures and colors and a scattering of symbolic language. While Lazik’s paintings simultaneously seduce and warmly invite viewers in, one must put the work in to decode truths of the playhouse paintings, exposing stories of body autonomy and health. Whether through figurative paintings, portraiture, or paintings of the best type of life there is–animals–Lazik showcases vitality and the fragility attached.
David Anson Lee is a physician, philosopher, and poet based in Houston, Texas, whose work explores memory, human connection, and the liminal spaces between perception and reality. He holds a background in medical science and philosophy, bringing a reflective and inquisitive lens to his writing. His poetry draws inspiration from both contemporary and classical literature, emphasizing vivid imagery and emotional depth. His poems are forthcoming in Mobius, Euonia Review, and Unbroken Journal. David is currently developing a collection of original poems examining time, identity, and place.
Jonathan Mahaffie is a pediatric speech language pathologist in the Pacific Northwest and writes about newfound fatherhood, his obsession with the blackberry, and inequities in the public schooling system. He was recently published by Dos Gatos Press and selected as 2025 Lakewold Gardens Poet.
Dibyasree Nandy is the author of A Labyrinth of Silent Voices: Epistles From the Mahabharata, Stardust: Haiku and Other Poems, Meteor Shower, Fireflies Beneath a Misty Moon, April Verses, Magic of the Eventyr, The Terrorist's Journal, An Upset Inkpot, Tabula Rasa, Fireworks Upon a Cold Sea, An Atelier of Despair, The Village of Wind, Winter Plum, Red Soil, The Slate Blue Eyed Hawk, Postcards of Forgotten Murders, and O Spring, Once-Beloved. Her individual works of poetry and prose have appeared in more than a hundred anthologies and literary magazines.
Michael O’Connor was born in Broadhead Manor and grew up in the Ingram, Sheraden, McKees Rocks areas of Pittsburgh. He has an MFA in creative writing from the University of Pittsburgh and graduated there in the mid-eighties. While there, he tutored in the writing workshop for two years. He is a former kick boxer, hunter, traveler, and grandfather of six.
Gill O’Halloran’s a lido-loving Londoner. Her poetry collection This Seven-Year-Old Walks into a Bar was placed in the top twenty in 2009’s Small-Press Poetry Awards. Now focusing on flash fiction, her publications include Bath and Oxford Anthologies, Smokelong Quarterly, TrashCat Lit, Neither Fish Nor Foul, Frazzled Lit. Her 2025 wins include Editors’ Choice award for UK NFFD, WestWord, and Flash 500, and shortlist/finalist placing for LISP, Fish, and Cambridge awards. Find her @quickasaflash.bsky.social.
Gregory O’Neill, from Seattle, writes reflective, conversational poetry about the canny, uncanny, the seemingly sublime, the obscure within the mundane, and the emotional physics of absence. His writing appears or is forthcoming in The Laurel Review, Mantis Literary Journal, Jackdaw Press, Relief Quarterly, Route 7 Review, Paraselene, Eunoia, Cathexis, Larina’s Lit, Litbop, Bristol Noir, Jake, Last Leaves, Words Faire, Zoetic, Gabby & Min’s, Closed Eye Open, Half and One, and other venues.
Anne Reiner is a photographer, writer, and biostatistician. She is based in NYC. You can find her here: annereiner.com
Denise Sedman says the Disease of the Month Club is where she belongs. She has bipolar disorder and was recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and Sjogren’s autoimmune disease. Her work appears in many literary journals and anthologies. Her most recent chapbook, The Past Isn't Done with Me Yet, is available online and was published in 2023.
Innokenty Sharkov, born in Moscow in 1973, is a ceramic artist based in Samoš, Serbia. He graduated in 2004 from Stroganov Moscow State University of Arts and Industry (glass and ceramics) and completed his studies at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA Moscow) in 2008. He is the founder of Ivica Sveta, an independent art residency in Samoš. Since 2001, his work has been exhibited internationally, including Vasi e Visioni, OFF.Glaze Studio (Carugate, 2024); Under the Sky, Roots Gallery (Pisa, 2024); XVIII Premio Internacional de Cerámica Contemporánea (Zaragoza, 2023); and the 21st Angelina Alós International Biennial of Ceramics (Barcelona, 2023).
Ruth Schreiber is a multimedia visual artist and poet (ruthschreiber.com) and a long-term volunteer guide at the Israel Museum (imj.org.il), living and working in Jerusalem. Her art has been widely exhibited in public and private collections, and her poetry widely published. Her subjects tend to relate to family, life-cycle events, and the world around her. She tries to find the beautiful/interesting/unusual in daily life.
Beth Sherman’s writing has been published in more than two hundred literary magazines, including Flash Frog, GoneLawn, Tiny Molecules, 100 Word Story, Fictive Dream, and Bending Genres. She’s a submissions editor at Smokelong Quarterly and the winner of Smokelong’s 2024 Workshop prize. Her work is featured in Best Microfiction 2024 and 2026, as well as Best Small Fictions 2025. A multiple Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, she can be reached on X, Bluesky or Instagram @bsherm36.
Harmony Sutherland was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. She has a BFA in studio art from Murray State University. She gets her inspiration from graffiti and tattoo culture, with a mix of Tibetan Buddhism and Indonesian folklore.
Lynn Tait is an award-winning poet/photographer residing in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. Her poems have appeared in Prairie Fire, FreeFall, Vallum, CV2, Literary Review of Canada, Verse/Virtual, Muleskinner, Last Leaves, Anti-Heroin Chic, Up the Staircase Quarterly and in over one hundred North American anthologies. She is a member of the Ontario Poetry Society, the League of Canadian Poets, and The Writers Union of Canada. She published her debut poetry collection You Break It, You Buy It (Guernica Editions) in 2023.
Cliff Tisdell attended the School of Visual Arts and the Arts Student’s League. His art draws on various genres of painting, sculpture, cinema, literature, and illustration, and is in private collections in the United States, Europe, and Canada. Venues include the Edward Hopper House Museum, Carnegie Hall, Eric Fischl’s America Here and Now Project, the Chautauqua Institution, Ivan Karp’s OK Harris Gallery, and the Village Voice. His paintings have appeared in several literary journals, including Blackbird (VCU), Curlew New York, and Hayden’s Ferry (ASU). Mr. Tisdell has been delivering talks on the arts to libraries and arts organizations since 2017.
Anna Ursyn, PhD, professor at the University of Northern Colorado, combines programming, software, and various media. She has published twelve books and several book chapters and has exhibited her work in over fifty single art shows/two hundred fine art exhibitions, including over a dozen times at the ACM SIGGRAPH Art Galleries and at the Louvre, Paris, NTT Museum in Tokyo (five thousand texts and two thousand images representing XX Century), and Virtual Media Network. Since 1987, she has been chair of the Symposium and Digital Art Gallery D-ART: International IEEE Conference on Information Visualisation (iV) London. Her artwork was selected to be sent to the Moon by NASA as a part of the MoonArk Project by Carnegie Mellon University. Her work has also appeared in traveling shows, including for Centre Pompidou, Paris. Her work in the ABAD exhibition is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She also has work in the permanent collection of Museé de la Poste in Paris, France, and the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC. Book series: Knowledge through the Arts, published by Taylor and Francis in 2026.To learn more, see her website at ursyn.com.
Giovanni Verga is a composer and sound artist working in electroacoustic music and sound installations. His work explores the relationship between sound, memory, and space, creating immersive environments that invite deep listening and emotional engagement.
He has developed multichannel installations and audiovisual projects presented in artistic and research contexts, focusing on spatial sound and perceptual experience. Verga also teaches sound design, and his research bridges artistic practice and sound studies in contemporary media and installation art.
Melissa Jordan Willis writes and draws to process her own struggles with the fractured communication that comes from loving people who have autism, heroin addiction, and schizophrenia. She earned her B.A. at the U.C.L.A. School of Fine Art in 1991, and continues to draw and collage daily.
John Zedolik is an adjunct English professor at Chatham University and Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. In 2019, he published his full-length collection, entitled Salient Points and Sharp Angles (WordTech Editions), and in 2021 he published his second collection, entitled When the Spirit Moves Me (Wipf & Stock), which is spiritually themed. In 2023, he published his third collection, Mother Mourning (Wipf & Stock), and in 2024 published his fourth collection, entitled The Ramifications (Wipf & Stock), which consists of five long, experimental poems. He published his fifth and sixth collections in 2025, entitled Lovers’ Progress and Triple Muse, respectively.
Azia Archer is a writer and artist living in Minnesota, USA. She is the author of Atoms and Evers (dancing girl press) and is currently querying her novel, Small Birds, a lyrical work of upmarket women’s fiction touched by magical realism. She is the editor-in-chief of the literary journal Root Smoke on Substack. You can find her online at aziaarcher.com or via @aziaarcher across social platforms.
Jan Donley is a visual artist and a writer. In 2024, Provincetown Magazine profiled Donley’s work: “Jan Donley–The Worrier Artist.” From 2015–2025, Donley’s work showed at Stewart Clifford Gallery. Her work has appeared in various juried shows, and her art videos have won Telly Awards.
Samuel Goldsmith (he/him) is a writer, musician, and photographer who lives in California. He writes so as to become a river, not a lake. His poetry has appeared in Gyroscope, Lost Blonde, Euphemism, and others.
Howie Good is a professor emeritus at SUNY New Paltz whose newest poetry collection, True Crime, is scheduled to be published by Sacred Parasite in early 2026.
Heather D. Haigh is a sight-impaired spoonie and working-class artist, photographer, and writer from Yorkshire. She has visual work published by Pithead Chapel, Sunlight Press, Midnight Fawn Review, Dulcet, Viridine and others. She can often be found gazing at the sea, napping, or knitting silly hats.
Katie Hughbanks (she/her) is a writer, photographer, and educator whose images have appeared in over seventy magazines across the U.S. and abroad. She is the author of two chapbooks–Blackbird Songs (Prolific Press, 2019) and It’s Time (Finishing Line Press, 2024). She teaches English and creative writing in Louisville, Kentucky.
Stephen Komarnyckyj's literary translations and poems have appeared in Index on Censorship, Modern Poetry in Translation, and many other journals. He is the holder of three PEN awards and a highly regarded English language poet whose work has been described as articulating “what it means to be human” (Sean Street). He runs Kalyna Language Press, which publishes his own poetry and translations, and has taught at The Poetry School and translated a series of Ukrainian poets and their blogs for The Poetry School site under the title Stanzas for Ukraine.
Jessica Kuilan is a Texas-based photographer drawn to the outdoors, wildlife, and desert landscapes. Inspired by open skies, desert trails, and the quiet presence of wildlife. Pursuing photography as a way to preserve the beauty they encounter. From striking cacti silhouettes to intimate animal portraits, each image reflects a love for exploration and the outdoors.
Ali Lazik is a Buffalo-based painter and creator of words. Traditionally trained in oil painting, Lazik awakens a lifelong love of mixed media and poetry through bold, frosting-like textures and colors and a scattering of symbolic language. While Lazik’s paintings simultaneously seduce and warmly invite viewers in, one must put the work in to decode truths of the playhouse paintings, exposing stories of body autonomy and health. Whether through figurative paintings, portraiture, or paintings of the best type of life there is–animals–Lazik showcases vitality and the fragility attached.
David Anson Lee is a physician, philosopher, and poet based in Houston, Texas, whose work explores memory, human connection, and the liminal spaces between perception and reality. He holds a background in medical science and philosophy, bringing a reflective and inquisitive lens to his writing. His poetry draws inspiration from both contemporary and classical literature, emphasizing vivid imagery and emotional depth. His poems are forthcoming in Mobius, Euonia Review, and Unbroken Journal. David is currently developing a collection of original poems examining time, identity, and place.
Jonathan Mahaffie is a pediatric speech language pathologist in the Pacific Northwest and writes about newfound fatherhood, his obsession with the blackberry, and inequities in the public schooling system. He was recently published by Dos Gatos Press and selected as 2025 Lakewold Gardens Poet.
Dibyasree Nandy is the author of A Labyrinth of Silent Voices: Epistles From the Mahabharata, Stardust: Haiku and Other Poems, Meteor Shower, Fireflies Beneath a Misty Moon, April Verses, Magic of the Eventyr, The Terrorist's Journal, An Upset Inkpot, Tabula Rasa, Fireworks Upon a Cold Sea, An Atelier of Despair, The Village of Wind, Winter Plum, Red Soil, The Slate Blue Eyed Hawk, Postcards of Forgotten Murders, and O Spring, Once-Beloved. Her individual works of poetry and prose have appeared in more than a hundred anthologies and literary magazines.
Michael O’Connor was born in Broadhead Manor and grew up in the Ingram, Sheraden, McKees Rocks areas of Pittsburgh. He has an MFA in creative writing from the University of Pittsburgh and graduated there in the mid-eighties. While there, he tutored in the writing workshop for two years. He is a former kick boxer, hunter, traveler, and grandfather of six.
Gill O’Halloran’s a lido-loving Londoner. Her poetry collection This Seven-Year-Old Walks into a Bar was placed in the top twenty in 2009’s Small-Press Poetry Awards. Now focusing on flash fiction, her publications include Bath and Oxford Anthologies, Smokelong Quarterly, TrashCat Lit, Neither Fish Nor Foul, Frazzled Lit. Her 2025 wins include Editors’ Choice award for UK NFFD, WestWord, and Flash 500, and shortlist/finalist placing for LISP, Fish, and Cambridge awards. Find her @quickasaflash.bsky.social.
Gregory O’Neill, from Seattle, writes reflective, conversational poetry about the canny, uncanny, the seemingly sublime, the obscure within the mundane, and the emotional physics of absence. His writing appears or is forthcoming in The Laurel Review, Mantis Literary Journal, Jackdaw Press, Relief Quarterly, Route 7 Review, Paraselene, Eunoia, Cathexis, Larina’s Lit, Litbop, Bristol Noir, Jake, Last Leaves, Words Faire, Zoetic, Gabby & Min’s, Closed Eye Open, Half and One, and other venues.
Anne Reiner is a photographer, writer, and biostatistician. She is based in NYC. You can find her here: annereiner.com
Denise Sedman says the Disease of the Month Club is where she belongs. She has bipolar disorder and was recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and Sjogren’s autoimmune disease. Her work appears in many literary journals and anthologies. Her most recent chapbook, The Past Isn't Done with Me Yet, is available online and was published in 2023.
Innokenty Sharkov, born in Moscow in 1973, is a ceramic artist based in Samoš, Serbia. He graduated in 2004 from Stroganov Moscow State University of Arts and Industry (glass and ceramics) and completed his studies at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA Moscow) in 2008. He is the founder of Ivica Sveta, an independent art residency in Samoš. Since 2001, his work has been exhibited internationally, including Vasi e Visioni, OFF.Glaze Studio (Carugate, 2024); Under the Sky, Roots Gallery (Pisa, 2024); XVIII Premio Internacional de Cerámica Contemporánea (Zaragoza, 2023); and the 21st Angelina Alós International Biennial of Ceramics (Barcelona, 2023).
Ruth Schreiber is a multimedia visual artist and poet (ruthschreiber.com) and a long-term volunteer guide at the Israel Museum (imj.org.il), living and working in Jerusalem. Her art has been widely exhibited in public and private collections, and her poetry widely published. Her subjects tend to relate to family, life-cycle events, and the world around her. She tries to find the beautiful/interesting/unusual in daily life.
Beth Sherman’s writing has been published in more than two hundred literary magazines, including Flash Frog, GoneLawn, Tiny Molecules, 100 Word Story, Fictive Dream, and Bending Genres. She’s a submissions editor at Smokelong Quarterly and the winner of Smokelong’s 2024 Workshop prize. Her work is featured in Best Microfiction 2024 and 2026, as well as Best Small Fictions 2025. A multiple Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, she can be reached on X, Bluesky or Instagram @bsherm36.
Harmony Sutherland was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. She has a BFA in studio art from Murray State University. She gets her inspiration from graffiti and tattoo culture, with a mix of Tibetan Buddhism and Indonesian folklore.
Lynn Tait is an award-winning poet/photographer residing in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. Her poems have appeared in Prairie Fire, FreeFall, Vallum, CV2, Literary Review of Canada, Verse/Virtual, Muleskinner, Last Leaves, Anti-Heroin Chic, Up the Staircase Quarterly and in over one hundred North American anthologies. She is a member of the Ontario Poetry Society, the League of Canadian Poets, and The Writers Union of Canada. She published her debut poetry collection You Break It, You Buy It (Guernica Editions) in 2023.
Cliff Tisdell attended the School of Visual Arts and the Arts Student’s League. His art draws on various genres of painting, sculpture, cinema, literature, and illustration, and is in private collections in the United States, Europe, and Canada. Venues include the Edward Hopper House Museum, Carnegie Hall, Eric Fischl’s America Here and Now Project, the Chautauqua Institution, Ivan Karp’s OK Harris Gallery, and the Village Voice. His paintings have appeared in several literary journals, including Blackbird (VCU), Curlew New York, and Hayden’s Ferry (ASU). Mr. Tisdell has been delivering talks on the arts to libraries and arts organizations since 2017.
Anna Ursyn, PhD, professor at the University of Northern Colorado, combines programming, software, and various media. She has published twelve books and several book chapters and has exhibited her work in over fifty single art shows/two hundred fine art exhibitions, including over a dozen times at the ACM SIGGRAPH Art Galleries and at the Louvre, Paris, NTT Museum in Tokyo (five thousand texts and two thousand images representing XX Century), and Virtual Media Network. Since 1987, she has been chair of the Symposium and Digital Art Gallery D-ART: International IEEE Conference on Information Visualisation (iV) London. Her artwork was selected to be sent to the Moon by NASA as a part of the MoonArk Project by Carnegie Mellon University. Her work has also appeared in traveling shows, including for Centre Pompidou, Paris. Her work in the ABAD exhibition is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She also has work in the permanent collection of Museé de la Poste in Paris, France, and the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC. Book series: Knowledge through the Arts, published by Taylor and Francis in 2026.To learn more, see her website at ursyn.com.
Giovanni Verga is a composer and sound artist working in electroacoustic music and sound installations. His work explores the relationship between sound, memory, and space, creating immersive environments that invite deep listening and emotional engagement.
He has developed multichannel installations and audiovisual projects presented in artistic and research contexts, focusing on spatial sound and perceptual experience. Verga also teaches sound design, and his research bridges artistic practice and sound studies in contemporary media and installation art.
Melissa Jordan Willis writes and draws to process her own struggles with the fractured communication that comes from loving people who have autism, heroin addiction, and schizophrenia. She earned her B.A. at the U.C.L.A. School of Fine Art in 1991, and continues to draw and collage daily.
John Zedolik is an adjunct English professor at Chatham University and Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. In 2019, he published his full-length collection, entitled Salient Points and Sharp Angles (WordTech Editions), and in 2021 he published his second collection, entitled When the Spirit Moves Me (Wipf & Stock), which is spiritually themed. In 2023, he published his third collection, Mother Mourning (Wipf & Stock), and in 2024 published his fourth collection, entitled The Ramifications (Wipf & Stock), which consists of five long, experimental poems. He published his fifth and sixth collections in 2025, entitled Lovers’ Progress and Triple Muse, respectively.