SQN Academy

Meet the Issue Two members of the SQN Academy. Prize winners and runners-up appear first, followed by the remaining contributors in alphabetical order.  

NNAMDI NDIOLO

First Place — Poetry

Mea Maxima Culpa, p. 48 

Nnamdi Ndiolo writes poetry from Port-Harcourt when he isn’t pretending to be a chef, expecting Grammys from singing in the shower, re-reading Harry Potter, or day-dreaming himself the Pulitzer. Voice-over artist, Finalist for the Porter House Review Editor’s Prize 2026, Finalist for the Brooklyn Poets Winter Fellowship 2026, Finalist for the Alpine Fellowship Poetry Prize 2025, the Kofi Awoonor Poetry Prize and Winner of the Lucky Jefferson Poetry Contest 2025, he explores the intersection of the body, faith, grief, identity, sexuality, violence and how language could restore dignity to what the world attempts to discard. Read him in New Orleans Review, Palette Poetry, Poetry Column, OnlyPoems. Find him @mirrorofbryan and @firelord_bryan.

CHRISTINE ESTIMA

First Place — Creative Prose

Qamariyyah, the Moon, p. 41 

Based in Toronto, Christine Estima (she/her) has written for The New York Times, New York Daily News, The Observer, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, The Walrus, VICE, Chatelaine, Maisonneuve Magazine, and many, many more. Her debut collection The Syrian Ladies Benevolent Society (House of Anansi Press) was named one of the Best Books of 2023 by the CBC. Her debut novel Letters to Kafka (House of Anansi Press) was on the 2025 Most Anticipated Lists of the CBC, Indigo, Book Riot, The Globe and Mail, and The Toronto Star. It has been selected as a Heather's Pick at Indigo and was also named one of the Best Books of 2025 by the CBC. Visit ChristineEstima.com for more.

ZAYNAB ILIYASU BOBI

Runner-Up — Poetry

i will come in multitudes, p. 61 

Zaynab Iliyasu Bobi, a Cave Canem Fellow 2025, is a poet, a multidisciplinary artist, and a medical laboratory scientist from Bobi, Nigeria. She is the author of the chapbooks Cadaver of Red Roses (2024), which won the 2024 Derricotte/Eady Chapbook Prize, and Uncensored Snapshots (2025). Zaynab is a Literary Arts MFA candidate at Brown University, beginning in Spring 2026. @ZainabBobi and Instagram @zaynab_iliyasu_bobi.

DYLAN BRODY
Runner-Up — Creative Prose
Blooming Unlikely, p. 77 

Dylan Brody is an internationally acclaimed story-teller and award-winning film-maker, with a history in stand-up comedy, a degree in theater, published novels and produced plays and solo-shows, who has cobbled together a career in the literary and performing arts that largely runs parallel to the Entertainment Industry. When he does crossover, it is to much success. His latest film, You Are Here – a Dylan Brody Project has racked up awards across the indie festival and awards circuit and has found streaming distribution with Circuit Cinema, a platform dedicated to independent art films new and old. Learn more about him at https://dylanbrody.com

A.C. KOCH
Runner-Up — Creative Prose
Rhapsody on a Theme of Norm Macdonald’s Moth Joke,  p. 62 

A.C. Koch is a teacher, writer and musician whose work has been published in Analog, Gulf Coast, Catamaran, Split/Lip, The Pinch and forthcoming in Fantasy & Science Fiction. After some years living and working overseas (France, South Korea, Mexico), he resides in Denver, Colorado, working with language learners and writing film reviews for Spectrum Culture. He recently completed the Regis Mile High MFA program and is querying a novel-in-stories, Ask the Moon. As a moonlight gig, he sings and plays guitar in the power-pop bands The Chef André Show and Firstimers.

MEREDITH RAINE OLSSON
Runner-Up — Poetry
Ocean Beach, San Francisco, p. 80 

Meredith Raine Olsson is a current MFA candidate in poetry at Boston University. They have previously been published in Midwest Quarterly.

ANGELA CAROLE BROWN
Craft & Theory
May This Be Love: A Consideration of Creative Intent, p. 2 

Writer/musician Angela Carole Brown, born and raised in Los Angeles, now living and writing in Kansas City, has published books of fiction, poetry, and wellness, including her North Street Book Prize-winning novel, Trading Fours (2018). Shorter works appear, or are forthcoming, in MacQueen’s Quinterly, Brilliant Corners, Thorny Locust, Flapper Press, midnight & indigo, Kansas City Review, and the poetry anthologies In The Black / In the Red and Bards Against Hunger — Kansas City. She is the author/illustrator of the multi-award-winning children’s film short, The Richest Girl in the World (2021) and is featured in the documentary film The Goddess Project.

KATE FALVEY
Poetry
Zen Triptych 3: The One About the Bottom Falling Out, p. 74 

Kate Falvey’s work has been published in many journals and anthologies; in a full-length collection, The Language of Little Girls (David Robert Books); and in two chapbooks, What the Sea Washes Up (Dancing Girl Press) and Morning Constitutional in Sunhat and Bolero (Green Fuse Poetic Arts). She co-founded (with Monique Ferrell) and for ten years edited the 2 Bridges Review, published through City Tech (City University of New York) where she teaches, and is an associate editor for the Bellevue Literary Review. Her chapbook, Croneville, is forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press in 2026.

ANDREA FERRARI KRISTELLER
Creative Prose
Professor Rizzo’s Box of Snails, p. 90 

Andrea Ferrari Kristeller is an Argentinean teacher, bilingual writer and naturalist. Her poems and short stories have been published by several American, Canadian and British magazines. “The Land Without You” was published by the University of Misiones Press, and self-published as The Land without You and Other Stories on Amazon in 2023. She has recently twice won the Horacio Quiroga International short story contest, and her book was chosen to represent the province of Misiones in the Buenos Aires Book Fair 2024. She is finishing a new sci-fi novel on the Atlantic rainforest’s trees.

MATTY LAYNE GLASGOW
Poetry
domestic pastoral, p. 72

Matty Layne Glasgow is the author of deciduous qween (Red Hen Press, 2019), winner of the Benjamin Saltman Award. His poetry and nonfiction have appeared in Copper Nickel, Denver Quarterly, Ecotone, Gulf Coast, Kenyon Review, Houston Public Media, Missouri Review, Pleiades, Poetry Daily, Third Coast, and elsewhere. He is a Black Earth Institute Fellow, holds a PhD in Creative Writing and English Literature from the University of Utah, and is an Assistant Professor of English at the College of Charleston where he serves as the CNF Editor of swamp pink.

IKECHUKWU HENRY
Creative Prose
You Took the Rain with You, p. 55 

IkeChukwu Henry is an Igbo Nigerian writer whose writings tackle the issues of environmental and climatic crises, family dynamics, queerness and speculative otherworldliness. He was fifth place in Christian Speculative Fiction Prize, Shortlisted for The Oriire Folktale Prize and has stories published in, but not limited to Brittle Paper, The Kalahari Review, Lampblack Magazine and others. When not writing, he can be found searching for the next magazine to submit to.

ROWEN HOLDER
Creative Prose
the pendulum stops, p. 83

Rowen Holder has a BA in English from John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She loves writing in all genres but also enjoys working on the editorial side of the writing process, having spent her college career editing for her student newspaper, The Sentinel, and a student-run creative journal called The Quill. Rowen is heavily inspired by her grandmother, who wrote practically every day of her life and always enjoyed sharing her personal history with Rowen. She recently completed her intensive senior thesis on monstrosity and morality in Gothic horror and hopes to continue sharing her work with the writing community.

MARVELLOUS MMESOMACHI IGWE
Poetry
Dispossessed, p. 49

Marvellous Mmesomachi Igwe is a budding poet from Port Harcourt, Nigeria. A 2025 Alpine Fellowship shortlistee, he is the winner of the 2024 Kukogho Iruesiri Samson Poetry Prize, co-winner of the 2024 Poetry ColumnNND Chapbook Award and the 2024 Folorunsho Editor’s Prize for Poetry. He tweets @mesomaccius.

p joshua laskey
Craft & Theory
Why Me?: Analysis of a Translator, p. 9

Originally from Sacramento, p joshua laskey currently writes in Richmond, Texas, and misses all eight other far-flung cities he’s called home. He is Associate World Literature Editor for The Literary Review and Artistic Director of Theater Galatea. His published work includes original, adapted, and translated plays as well as original and self-translated short stories, flash fiction, and poetry. He has received multiple awards across genres, including Sacramento News & Review’s Best Original Play, Fairleigh Dickinson University’s Baumeister Scholarship in Creative Writing, Toyon Literary Magazine’s Multilingual Award in Translation, and Reunion: The Dallas Review’s Robert Bone Memorial Prize. More at www.pjoshualaskey.com.

SOPHIA NAZ
Poetry
Abrā-Cadaver, p. 75

Sophia Naz is a bilingual poet, artist, author, and translator. She has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize, in 2016 for creative nonfiction and in 2018 for poetry. Her work has featured in numerous literary journals and anthologies including The Academy of American Poets, Poetry Daily, The Penguin Book of Modern Indian Poets, The Night Heron Barks, Singing in the Dark: A Global Anthology of Poetry Under Lockdown, Berfrois, The Bombay Literary Magazine, Rattle, The Punch Magazine, Poetry At Sangam, The Adirondack Review, and many others. She has authored the poetry collections Peripheries (Cyberhex 2015), Pointillism (Copper Coin 2017), Date Palms (City Press 2017), Open Zero (Yoda Press 2021), and Shehnaz, a biography (Penguin Random House 2019). Bark Archipelago (Weavers Press, San Francisco & Red River India 2023) is her fifth collection of poetry. She can be found online at www.sophianaz.com

KANDALA SINGH
Poetry
What do you remember of the earth?, p. 81

Kandala Singh is a writer and researcher from New Delhi. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from the University of Pittsburgh, where she was a Dietrich fellow. Her poems appear/ are forthcoming from Ploughshares, Southeast Review, Muzzle Magazine and The Penguin Book of Poems on the Indian City, among other places. Her writing has been nominated for Best New Poets, and has won fellowships and support from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Sangam House International Writers’ Residency, and Hudson Valley Writers Center, among others. She reads poetry for Ploughshares. You can find her chasing clouds, flowers and poems at https://www.kandalasingh.com

ANGELA TOWNSEND
Creative Prose
Moving Men, p. 69

Angela Townsend (she/her) is an eleven-time Pushcart Prize nominee, twenty-one time Best of the Net nominee, five-time Best Small Fictions nominee, and the winner of The Iowa Review’s Tim McGinnis Award and West Trade Review’s 704 Prize for Flash Fiction. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Arts & Letters, Blackbird, Chicago Quarterly Review, Five Points, Fourth Genre, JMWW, The Offing, SmokeLong Quarterly, trampset, and Witness.

ELIONGEMA UDOFIA
Poetry
Paternoster, p. 51

Eliongema Udofia is a Best of the Net nominee, lover of dogs, music and artworks. He has been published in The Bombay Literary Magazine, Sunlight Press, Last Stanza Poetry Journal and elsewhere. On X, he is @obongemem_001

SHERRE VERNON
Poetry
Stranger, I Say to the Mirror, p. 82

Sherre Vernon (she/her/hers) is the award-winning author of Green Ink Wings; The Name is Perilous; Flame Nebula, Bright Nova; and Translating Blue. Sherre has been published in journals such as Tahoma Literary Review and The Chestnut Review, nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart prizes, and anthologized in several collections including Fat & Queer and Best Small Fictions. Read more at www.sherrevernon.com

ANNE MARIE WELLS
Poetry
Granting Grace to the Grandmother Who Abandoned My Mother at Age Nine But Who Refused to Sign Any Adoption Papers, So My Mother Signed Her Own When She Turned Eighteen, p. 53

Anne Marie Wells (she/they) is a queer award-winning poet, playwright, memoirist, and oral storyteller. She is the author of two children’s books—Mommy, Why Am I a Bird? (Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra, 2015) and Underwater Explorers & Rescuers (Ethical Seafood Research Publishing, 2025)—and two collections of poetry—Survived By (Curious Corvid Publishing, 2023) and Mother, (v) (Cinnamon Press, 2024). Her book of writing prompts, Write Some Cool Sh!t, was published in November 2025 by Star Belt Press. She is the founder and host of the weekly Zoom show and emerging brand The Joy of Poeting. Learn more on her website AnneMarieWellsWriter.com.

MELANIE YORK
Craft & Theory
How To Love Bad Feedback, p. 22

Melanie York is a hobbyist writer, US expat, and master’s student living in Cologne, Germany. In her writing, she enjoys exploring humor and heart in the mundane. Her short stories have appeared in 101 Words, Twisted Tournament Magazine, and the One More Short Story podcast. To see more of her work and upcoming projects, you can check out her Instagram page: @oh.no.melly.

Meet the Issue One members of the SQN Academy. Prize winners and runners-up appear first, followed by the remaining contributors in alphabetical order.  

OLADOSU MICHAEL EMERALD
First Place — Poetry
Manual for a Body in Transit, p. 46 

Oladosu Michael Emerald (he/him) is the author of the poetry book, Every Little Thing That Moves, an art editor at Surging Tide magazine, a digital/musical/visual artist, a photographer, a footballer, a boxer, and a political scientist. He teaches art at the Arnheim Art Gallery to kids and adults, Young Artists Art Hub, an Art Instructor at the Anasa Collection Art Gallery, and is a volunteer art instructor at Status Dignus Child Rescue Home and Ibeere Otun Initiative. He is a Pioneer Fellow of the Muktar Aliyu Art Residency. His works have been published or forthcoming in many magazines and won numerous awards in writing and art; a few to mention: winner of Garden Party Collective Neurodivergent Poetry contest, winner of Off the Limit Art contest, winner of Sprinng Annual Poetry Contest, second runner-up in Fireflies poetry contest, Lolwe, Better Than Starbucks, Ake Review, Daily Times Nigeria, Nigerian Tribune, The Guardian News, Flash Frog, Blanket Gravity, Paper Lantern Lit, The Temz Review, and elsewhere. He’s a man who does not know how to give up, and art chose him before he existed. Say hi to him on Twitter @garricologist and Instagram @garrycologist.

TERESA MILBRODT
First Place — Creative Prose
The Hedgehog, p. 48 

Teresa Milbrodt has published three short story collections: Instances of Head-Switching, Bearded Women: Stories, and Work Opportunities. She has also published a novel, The Patron Saint of Unattractive People, a flash fiction collection, Larissa Takes Flight: Stories, and the monograph Sexy Like Us: Disability, Humor, and Sexuality. Milbrodt is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Roanoke College, and teaches fiction, speculative fiction, poetry, and disability studies. She loves cats, long walks with her MP3 player, independently owned coffee shops, peanut butter frozen yogurt, and texting hearts in rainbow colors. Read more of her work at: http://teresamilbrodt.com/homepage/

ONYEKACHI ILOH
Runner-Up — Poetry
Farewell to Grief or Because It Began with an Apple Does Not Mean It Should End with an Axe,  p. 97 

Onyekachi Iloh is a writer, poet and visual artist currently exploring photography as a means of documentation and the re-examination of sight. His work has appeared or forthcoming in Barren Magazine, Welter, Singapore Unbound, Blue Marble Review, Palette Poetry and elsewhere.

JEN KARETNICK
Runner-Up — Poetry
We Are Each Other’s Harvest, p. 85 

A 2024 National Poetry Series finalist, Jen Karetnick is the author of 12 collections of poetry, including Inheritance with a High Error Rate (January 2024), winner of the 2022 Cider Press Review Book Award and semi-finalist for the PSV 2025 North American Book Awards. Forthcoming books include What Forges Us Steel: The Judge Judy Poems (Alternating Current Press, 2025) and Domiciliary (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2026). The co-founder and managing editor of SWWIM Every Day, she has recent or forthcoming work in Cimarron Review, NELLE, Pleiades, Plume, Seneca Review, Shenandoah, Sixth Finch, swamp pink, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. See jkaretnick.com.

DEAN GESSIE
Runner-Up — Creative Prose
on the telephone with mom, p. 55 

Dean Gessie is an author and poet of global renown. Among dozens of honors, Dean won the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award in England, the UN-aligned Poetry Competition in Finland, the Enizagam Poetry Contest in California, the COP26 Poetry Competition in Scotland, the Samuel Washington Allen Prize in Massachusetts, the Southern Shakespeare Company Sonnet Contest in Florida, the Indigo Open Prize in England, the Draper’s Guild Short Story Contest in New York, the Ageless Authors Poetry Competition in Texas, the Creator Award from CAPTRS in America, the Frank O’Hara Prize in Massachusetts, the Editors’ Prize from the Spoon River Review in Illinois, the Allingham Arts Festival Poetry Contest in Ireland and a Creators of Justice Literary Award [Fiction Category] from the International Human Rights Art Festival in New York. Elsewhere, Dean won the Periscope Open Fiction Prize in England, the Angelo Natoli Short Story Award in Australia and the Half and One Literary Prize in India. Dean’s short story collection, Anthropocene, won three international awards and his latest poetry book, goat song, won the Seven Hills Literary Competition in Florida for best poetry collection published since 2020.

RENATE WILDERMUTH
Runner-Up — Creative Prose
When a Body Meets a Body, p. 80 

Renate Wildermuth’s articles, stories and essays have appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, The Miami Herald, Adirondack Life Magazine, Collidescope, and on public radio. She writes for Inkitt on their Galatea reading app and has a young adult book forthcoming from Regal House Publishing, and a novel out with Totally Entwined Group.

A.E. ABITZ
Poetry
Ghazal, p. 94 

A.E. Abitz is an MFA student in poetry at Emerson College. She holds a BFA in poetry from Texas Tech University, where she received the Stephen Ross Huffman Poetry Award in 2021. Her poems have appeared in The Dewdrop, Beyond Words Magazine, and others. Her critical writing is also forthcoming in Fork Apple Press. She volunteers as Art Director and Print Editor for Redivider in her free time.

MICHELLE ALEXANDER
Poetry
To Wish for Ourselves, p. 74 

Michelle Alexander is an American-Trinidadian poet, creative nonfiction writer, and interdisciplinary practitioner. She graduated from New York University Gallatin School of Individualized Study, receiving the Herbert Rubin Prize in Poetry, and holds an MFA from Columbia College Chicago, where she was a Nathan Breitling Poetry Fellow. Among her publications is work that has appeared or is forthcoming in the journals Third Coast, Epiphany, and Puerto del Sol. She has served as a poet in residence for the Chicago Poetry Center and as a Visiting Teaching Artist for the Poetry Foundation’s “Forms and Features” series. She is a teaching artist at ChiArts and an Interdisciplinary Humanities Instructor at the Odyssey Project. She is the recipient of the Furious Flower 2024 Poetry Prize and the Director of Interdisciplinary Arts at Unwoven Literary & Arts Magazine. Her manuscript, A Stone’s Throw from C r a y, has been a finalist for The National Poetry Series, The Word Works Competition: Washington Prize, The 42 Miles Prize, and The Lightscatter Prize.

CJ BRADY
Poetry
It’s Not the End of the World (Even As You Know It): An Apocalypse Mixtape, p. 100 

CJ Brady is a poet and first year MFA student at ODU who was born and raised in Los Angeles. She has been published in Zaum, hias, and has forthcoming work in Mantis. She also enjoys music and film production, and has been awarded a bronze medal from the international Association of Audio Engineers.

GOSPEL CHINEDU
Poetry
In A Postwar Therapy Session With An Amnesiac; He Said, p. 92 

Gospel Chinedu is a Nigerian poet from the Igbo descent. He currently is an undergraduate at the College of Health Sciences, Okofia where he studies Anatomy. He loves music and is a big fan of Isak Danielson. His poems are mostly speculative and cut across different themes. He is a 2021 Starlit Award Winner, 1st Runner Up for the Blurred Genre Contest (Invisible City Lit), 2023, Honorable Mention in the Stephen A. Dibiase Poetry Prize, 2023, and also a finalist in the Dan Veach prize for younger poets, 2023. His works of poetry have appeared or are forthcoming in Chestnut Review, Worcester Review, Augur Magazine, Mud Season Review, The Drift, Consequence Forum and in many other journals. Gospel tweets @gonspoetry.

JOHN FARRELL
Craft & Theory
Saying/Making/Doing: What Authors Are Up To, p. 2 

John Farrell is the Waldo W. Neikirk Professor of Literature at Claremont McKenna College, where he has taught since 1990. He is the author of The Varieties of Authorial Intention: Literary Theory Beyond the Intentional Fallacy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), The Utopian Dilemma in the Western Political Imagination (2023), Paranoia and Modernity: Cervantes to Rousseau (2006) and Freud’s Paranoid Quest (1996). He is currently publishing the Substack Thinking Out of School (https://farrelljohn.substack.com), free to the digital public.

ANDREA FIGUEROA-IRIZARRY
Poetry
Olber’s Paradox, p. 73
 

Born in Puerto Rico and raised with a North Florida accent, Andrea Figueroa-Irizarry is an MFA candidate from the University of South Florida. She writes about family, relationships, and mental health. When not writing, Andrea can be found taking pictures of her basset hound or struggling with a crochet hook.

CHANDLER GARCIA
Poetry
13 Greeds, p. 60 

Chandler Garcia is a 23-year-old Latinx and transgender student at California State University, Long Beach, pursuing a degree in Creative Writing with a focus in poetry. They use their experiences being a trans person of color in various aspects of their identity and life to inspire their writing and poetic voice. Their work has been published in SCAB Magazine.

RUTH TRAUBNER KESSLER
Poetry
Possessions, p. 76 

RUTH Traubner KESSLER is a two-time immigrant whose work focuses on place, displacement and memory. Her publications include the chapbook Fire Ashes Wings, and over 80 poems, some with special honors. A full-length collection is forthcoming in 2025. Poems have been performed in concerts and festivals and made into an artist book. Awards include NYSCA grants, and Yaddo, MacDowell and VCCA fellowships. She lives in NYC. www.RuthKessler.com

SARAH E N KOHRS
Poetry
The Loneliest Part of Being, p. 61 

Sarah E N Kohrs is a writer and artist with poems published in Arboreal Literary Magazine, Bluebird Word, Chariot Press, Culinary Origami, The Elevation, GROUND, Kitchen Quarterly Review, Louisiana Literature, Rattle’s Poets Respond, Stoneboat, Wild Roof Journal, and numerous other literary journals. She has received the Peter K. Hixson Poetry Award, as well as Poetry Society of Virginia’s Dr. Lucille E Thompson Memorial, Judah, Sarah, Grace, & Tom Memorial, Ekphrastic Poetry, Don Frew & John Newcomb Memorial, and Ada Sanderson Memorial Awards. Her chapbook, Chameleon Sky, won the 2022 Kingdoms in the Wild poetry award. Sarah has a BA in Classical Languages and Archaeology from College of Wooster, Ohio, and a Virginia teaching license endorsed in Latin and Visual Arts. Life experiences that bolster her art include homeschooling her sons, creating pottery for local Empty Bowl suppers, and volunteering for the rural non-profit, Valley Educational Center for the Creative Arts (VECCA). http://senkohrs.com.

PRAKASH KONA
Craft & Theory
Close Readings of an Interpersonal Kind, p. 13 

Prakash Kona is a writer, researcher, and independent scholar. He completed his doctorate at the University of Mississippi in 1997. He lives in Hyderabad, India, where he was a professor of English Literature. He completed his doctorate at the University of Mississippi, MS, in 1997.

KM KRAMER
Poetry
Cubist Self-Portrait, p. 95 

KM Kramer is a writer, previously a First Amendment attorney, who feels most at home in California. She earned her undergraduate and law degrees at Stanford. Her creative works can be found in Action Spectacle, Rogue Agent, Free the Verse, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, and many other places. Her debut chapbook, Art of Remaking, longlisted by Frontier Poetry in 2025 under a different title, will be available in February 2026.

D.C. LEACH
Poetry
Removing the Tree Stump from the Front Yard by Hand, p. 84 

D.C. Leach is a poet and translator based in Baltimore whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in Sargasso, Meridian, Modern Haiku, Bottle Rockets, and Kingfisher. He was a finalist for Frontier Poetry’s 2024 Nature & Place prize and holds an MFA in poetry from New York University.

LAURINDA LIND
Poetry
Black Lake at the Borderland, p. 87 

Laurinda Lind lives in New York’s North Country, close to Canada. Some of her poems are in Blue Earth Review, New American Writing, and Spillway. Her first chapbook, Trials by Water, was released in summer 2024 (Orchard Street Press). She has also placed first in the Keats-Shelley, Peggy Willis Lyles, Foley, and Northwind poetry competitions.

LAURA M. MARTIN
Craft & Theory
Chappell Roan and Me: The Project of Constructing a Dimensional Persona, p. 7 

Laura M. Martin resides in South Carolina where they teach writing at Lander University. They are working on a memoir that explores queer identity. You can find their writing in Electric Literature, HuffPost, Blue Earth Review, Modern Poetry Review, MARY: A Journal of New Writing, New South, The Smart Set, The Eckleberg Review, Luna Luna and Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood among other publications.

JAMES B. NICOLA
Creative Prose
Buddy, p. 64 

James B. Nicola’s poems have appeared in the Antioch, Southwest and Atlanta Reviews; Rattle; and Barrow Street. The latest of his eight full-length poetry collections are Natural Tendencies, Fires of Heaven: Poems of Faith and Sense, and Turns & Twists. His nonfiction book Playing the Audience won a Choice magazine award. A graduate of Yale, he has received a Dana Literary Award, two Willow Review awards, Storyteller’s People’s Choice award, one Best of Net, one Rhysling, and eleven Pushcart nominations—for which he feels both stunned and grateful.

HAYLEY PISCIOTTI
Creative Prose
Life Line, p. 90  

Hayley Pisciotti is a Boston-based writer and Editorial Associate at Ploughshares. Currently pursuing her MFA at Emerson College, she also works at local bookstore and will be teaching composition at Emerson this Fall. Her other work has been recognized by Writer’s Digest, The Tributary, and Quilted Voices.

JERMAINE ANTHONY RICHARDS
Craft & Theory
Don’t Try to Catch Me; You Don’t Have Your Net: Radial Suspense and Ripples from the Irradiant Node of Blackness, p. 21 

Jermaine Anthony Richards is a critical communication researcher, theorist, and philosopher; award-winning social impact producer; multimedia relational artist, critic, and curator; and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School, where he is a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow. Jermaine Anthony’s work focuses on video games as strategic tools for managing civilizational risks, crises, and disasters. He seeks to resolve communicative crises by connecting critical communication and information theory and philosophy; histories of science, medicine, technology, and religion; and contemporary art, culture, and entertainment. Richards holds degrees from The City University of New York, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and the University of Southern California.

FRANCINE RUBIN
Poetry
Moving Poem, p. 88 

A stay-at-home mom to her three young children, Francine Rubin previously worked as a teacher and higher education administrator. She is the author of the poetry chapbooks If You’re Talking to Me: Commuter Poems (dancing girl press), City Songs (Blue Lyra Press), and Geometries (Finishing Line Press). She is online at francinerubin.tumblr.com.

PENNY WALKER
Creative Prose
Badland, p. 96 

Penny Walker is director of ASU News at Arizona State University, where she is studying creative writing. She previously worked at The Arizona Republic newspaper for 16 years, mainly on the editing side. Penny is an emerging speculative fiction writer. Her story “From Dust” won Ninth Letter’s Regeneration contest, and her futuristic menu placed third in the AI Institute for Resilient Agriculture’s Future of Food 2050 writing contest. She lives in Tempe, Arizona, with her husband and a large supply of yarn.

CHRIS WATKINS
Poetry
Now Sissy That Walk (a Creation Story), p. 58 

Chris Watkins is a genderqueer poet and environmental activist. They earned their PhD with a focus in ecopoetics from Florida State University. They now work in FSU’s Office of Sustainability, and their poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry Magazine, Harvard Review, and Ecotone among other journals. Their debut collection The Drag Gospel of Queer Jesus is forthcoming with Saturnalia Books in 2026.