Contents
Contributors
Essam M. Al-Jassim is a Saudi writer and translator based in Jubail, Saudi Arabia. His writings and translations have been featured nationally and internationally in various Arabic and English-language literary journals. He is the translator and editor of the recently published anthology of flash fiction Furtive Glimpses: Flash Fiction from The Arab World.
Sara Barnett is an American poet and writer whose work has appeared in the UK, Singapore, Canada, and several of her native United States. Also a professional actor, her full list of publications as well as several other creative adventures are available here: sarabarnett.net
Jo Bear is a poet, scholar, and educator currently pursuing their MFA in poetry at North Carolina State University. They have an MA in Drama & Performance Studies from University College Dublin and are a 2023 Zoeglossia Fellow. Their poetry appears or is forthcoming in The Offing, Shō Poetry Journal, Channel, West Branch, The South Carolina Review, Blue Earth Review, Poetry Ireland Review, ROPES Literary Journal, and elsewhere.
Jason Bentsman is a writer and fine art photographer. Works have appeared in The Brooklyn Review, the Offing, HAD, Litro Magazine UK, Mercurius, Tiny Molecules, The Montreal Review, The American Bystander, The Museum of Americana, The Cardiff Review, F-STOP Magazine, Ephemere Gallery Tokyo, and other art and literary publications. His poetic environmental book The Orgastic Future has been called “A 21st-century HOWL” (A. Shoumatoff, New Yorker & Vanity Fair). For more information, visit www.linktr.ee/Jason_Bentsman
Anthony Caleshu is the author of five books of poetry, most recently Xenia etc. (Shearsman, 2023). His poems have appeared widely in Anglo-American journals such as TLS, Granta, Narrative, Agni, and Boston Review (as winner of the Boston Review Poetry Prize). He is Professor of Poetry at University of Plymouth in SW England.
Daniel Carden Nemo is a writer, poet, and translator. His work has been long-listed for the Best Literary Translations (Deep Vellum) and has appeared or is forthcoming in Atlanta Review, RHINO, Full Stop, Magma Poetry, Sontag Mag, Exchanges, and elsewhere. 
Meg Carter is a writer and literary translator from the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work can be found in Permafrost Magazine, Revista Grifo, and Thimble Literary Magazine.
Chelsea Dingman’s first book, Thaw, won the National Poetry Series (UGA Press, 2017). Her second book, through a small ghost, won The Georgia Poetry Prize (UGA Press, 2020). Her third collection is I, Divided (LSU Press, 2023). She is also the author of the chapbook, What Bodies Have I Moved (Madhouse Press, 2018). As a PhD Candidate at the University of Alberta, her current work draws on research supported by funding from the Social Sciences and Research Council of Canada. Visit her website: chelseadingman.com.
Sean Thomas Dougherty
© Melanie Rae
Sean Thomas  Dougherty's most recent book is Death Prefers the Minor Keys. His awards include the James Hearst Prize from North American Review. He works as a Medtech and Caregiver for folks with traumatic brain injuries along the Great Lake Erie.
Atef Ebeid is a distinguished Egyptian author known for his contributions to short fiction and his research in cognitive science. He possesses a doctorate in cognitive systems and has authored over four acclaimed collections of short stories, which have garnered significant recognition from critics.
Suzy Eynon's work has been published in Roanoke Review, Passages North, Autofocus, X-R-A-Y, and elsewhere. Her chapbook, Commuting, was published by Ghost City Press. Originally from Arizona, she lives in Seattle.
Jose Arturo Flores has self-published three books of poetry on Amazon. He is a graduate of the writing program at California Institute of the Arts. He was published in season 7 of the online journal, Peach Mag.
Giorgio Fontana (1981) is an Italian award-winning writer. He has published nine books translated in eight languages and has contributed to several magazines such as The Massachusetts Review, The European Review of Books, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Politico, Asymptote. His last book is an extensive essay on Franz Kafka.
Genna Gardini is a writer, theatre-maker, and educator. Her debut poetry collection, Matric Rage, was published by uHlanga Press in 2015 and received a commendation for the Ingrid Jonker Prize. Her work has been published widely, most recently in And Other Poems, New Contrast, and Literary Hub. 
Peter Gordon is a writer living in Massachusetts. His recent and forthcoming work appears in Post Road, The Dublin Review, Litro and elsewhere. His work has been awarded a Pushcart Prize among other recognitions.
Michael Loyd Gray is the author of eight published books of fiction (novels/novellas) and sixty published short stories. Scheduled for a March 2026 release by Between the Lines Publishing -- The Writer in Residence, a novel. Gray earned a MFA from Western Michigan University and a bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois. He is a winner of the Alligator Juniper Fiction Prize, a Sol Books Prose Series Prize, a Writers Place Award for Fiction, and a support grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation. He lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan, with three cats and a lot of electric guitars.
summa iru happened when the poet came across Rilke's Book of Hours. The rest, as they say, is a dog whistle.
Keetje Kuipers’ most recent collection of poetry, Lonely Women Make Good Lovers, was the recipient of the Isabella Gardner Award. Poems from her three previous collections have been honored by publication in The Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry anthologies, and her poetry and prose have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, American Poetry Review, POETRY, and over a hundred other magazines. Keetje has been a Stegner Fellow, Bread Loaf Fellow, and the Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Resident. She lives with her wife and children in Montana, where she is Editor of Poetry Northwest.
Jenny Maaketo (she/her) is a neurodivergent writer, psychiatric nurse, and former professional actress from Austin, Texas. She is currently an MFA poetry candidate at the University of Mississippi, as well as the senior poetry editor for Yalobusha Review. Jenny was a finalist for the 2024 New Letters Editor's Choice Award, a semifinalist for the 2024 Brett Elizabeth Jenkins Poetry Prize, and received a C.D. Wright Memorial Scholarship to attend the 2024 Poetry Program at the Community of Writers. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Midway Journal, Acta Victoriana, Cherry Tree, The Florida Review, PRISM international, the Columbia Review, Atlanta Review, Crab Creek Review, Cordite Review, The Madison Review, and elsewhere. Jenny lives in rural Mississippi with her husband, toddler son, five dogs, two cats, and lots of love.
Simone Muench is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship and the author of seven full-length books, including Lampblack & Ash (Sarabande; Kathryn A. Morton Prize), Wolf Centos (Sarabande), and The Under Hum (Black Lawrence Press, 2024), cowritten with Jackie K. White. Poems are forthcoming in Kenyon Review, North American Review, swamp pink, New Letters, and elsewhere. In 2025, she received writing fellowships to The Hambidge Center, Wildacres Residency, and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
Michael K Norris is a writer of fiction and will never refer to that career in the past tense. He has been a senior aide for a California politician, a communications manager for a San Jose nonprofit, and a publishing industry analyst at Simba Information – where he made regular presentations at the London Book Fair and was frequently quoted in The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and elsewhere. Michael is also the creator of the #ThursdayTrashFlashFiction social media campaign and a member of South Bay Writers. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, artist Suma CM.
Robert Okaji holds a BA in history, served without distinction in the U.S. Navy, toiled as a university administrator, and once won a goat-catching contest. Two years ago he was diagnosed with late stage metastatic lung cancer, which he finds terribly annoying. But thanks to the wonders of modern science, he still lives in exotic Indianapolis with his wife—poet Stephanie L. Harper—stepson, cat and dog. He is the author of Our Loveliest Bruises (3: A Taos Press, 2025), His Windblown Self (Broadstone Books, 2025), and multiple chapbooks, including Buddha's Not Talking and Scarecrow Sees.
Roberto Ontiveros is a fiction writer, artist, and journalist. Some of his work has appeared in The Threepenny Review, Santa Monica Review, The Baffler, and The Believer. His debut collection, The Fight for Space, was published by Stephen F. Austin State University Press, and his second book, Assisted Living, was published by Corona Samizdat Press.
Lila Rosen (she/her) is a poet from Norfolk, VA, but is currently based in Providence, RI. Her work has appeared in Ghost City Review and Moonstone Arts Center. You can find her on the banks of the nearest river.
Diane Sahms is the author of eight poetry collections, latest, Blues, Prayers, & Pagan Chants and has been awarded first place in Judith Stark’s & Partisan Press’s Poetry Contests and is recipient of AEVentures Foundation’s Poetry Grant. Published in North American Review, Northern Virginia Review, Brushfire Literature & Arts Journal, Valley Voices, Sequestrum’s Journal, Chiron Review, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Pennsylvania Literary Journal,  New Verse News & elsewhere. B.S. / Master’s Credits in Education, she taught high school English, has recently retired as a Contract Specialist with the U.S. government; and is currently the  Poetry Editor at North of Oxford.   
Georgia San Li is at work on poetry and other writing. Her work has appeared in, e.g., Blackbox Manifold (UK), Poet Lore, Heavy Feather, Osmosis (UK), Pembroke, and The Missouri Review. She is a two-time 2025 Pushcart Prize nominee and her poems were longlisted for the 2024 London Magazine Poetry Prize and shortlisted for the 2023 Oxford Poetry Prize. Her chapbook arrangement of Small Galaxies for Breakfast was a semifinalist for the 2024 Tomaž Šalamun Prize. She is the author of three chapbooks -- Wandering (FLP 2024), Periodic Elements (GTP 2025), and Intermezzo (Ravenna Press, forthcoming). 
Marin Sorescu was a Romanian poet, playwright, and novelist nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992 and 1996. He published over twenty books of poetry.
Tim Suermondt’s sixth full-length book of poems A Doughnut And The Great Beauty Of The World came out in 2023 from MadHat Press. He has published in Poetry, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, The Georgia Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Stand Magazine, The Lake, Smartish Pace, Barrow Street, Poet Lore and Plume, among many others. He lives in Cambridge (MA) with his wife, the poet Pui Ying Wong.
Jackie K. White is the co-author, with Simone Muench, of Hex & Howl (Black Lawrence Press, 2021; Society of Midland Authors Honoree) and The Under Hum (Black Lawrence Press, 2024). Her collaborations have appeared in American Poetry Review, Bennington Review, Ecotone, Salamander, Pleiades, Hopkins Review, Shenandoah, Phoebe, The Journal, The Offing, Allium, and others. One of her collaborations with Muench received the 2025 Mary Blinn Poetry Award from After Hours Press.
Anne Whitehouse is the author of poetry collections: The Surveyor’s Hand, Blessings and Curses, The Refrain, Meteor Shower, Outside from the Inside, and Steady, as well as the art chapbooks, Surrealist Muse (about Leonora Carrington), Escaping Lee Miller, Frida, Being Ruth Asawa, and Adrienne Fidelin Restored. She is the author of a novel, Fall Love. Her poem, “Lady Bird,” won the Nathan Perry DAR 2023 “Honoring American History” poetry contest.
Alexander Lazarus Wolff's writing appears online in The Best American Poetry website and Poets.org, and in the North American Review, Pithead Chapel, and elsewhere. A recipient of an Academy of American Poets prize, he teaches at the University of Houston where he is the Inprint MD Anderson Foundation Fellow and assistant poetry editor for Gulf Coast. You can read more of his work at www.alexanderlazaruswolff.com.
Nina Zúñiga is a 25-year-old Chilean writer and translator. She lives in La Ligua, Chile and will soon graduate from the Creative Literature undergraduate program at Diego Portales University.