Author of “Roach Poem,” February Spikener (they/she) is a Black femme poet from Detroit residing in Chicago and an MFA candidate at Randolph College. She is a Poetry Fellow of the Watering Hole and two-time Best New Poets nominee with work featured or forthcoming in ‘Muzzle Magazine’, ‘Poet Lore’, and ‘Anomaly’ among others. Always writing towards the body, their poems reflect how they understand what it means to love and be loved. She believes that love is and has always been the answer and that the mastery of love is a form of survival.

Author of “sonnet of the starless night” & “untrussed, and yet,” Nicole Arocho Hernández is the author of the poetry chapbook “I Have No Ocean” (Sundress Publications, 2021). Their poems can also be found in The Acentos Review, Electric Literature, Honey Literary, West Branch, The Academy of American Poets, and elsewhere. Their work has been supported by the Hambidge Center, Tin House, and The Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing, among others. They currently live in Puerto Rico, where they are a caregiver.

Author of “All the Ways to Cut and Cook a Carrot,” Elizabeth Deanna Morris Lakes was born in Harrisburg, PA and has a BA in Creative Writing from Susquehanna University and an MFA from George Mason University. She has appeared in The Rumpus, swamp pink, Cartridge Lit, Gulf Stream Lit, Crab Fat Magazine, and SmokeLong Quarterly. Her first book, Ashley Sugarnotch & the Wolf, is out from Mason Jar Press.

Illustrator of “All the Ways to Cut and Cook a Carrot,” Ah-reum Han received her MFA from George Mason University. Her illustrations of BRASSICA can also be found at Oyez Review and Dream Pop Press. 

Co-author of “Some softer mood,”Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi (They/Them) is a queer, Iranian born, Toronto-based Poet, Writer and Translator. They were shortlisted for the 2021 Austin Clarke poetry prize, 2022’s Arc Poem of the year award, The Malahat Review’s 2023 Open Season awards for poetry and The Fiddlehead’s 2024 Ralph Gustavson Award. They are the winner of the 2021 Vallum Poetry Prize and the author of four poetry chapbooks and three translated poetry chapbooks. They have released two full-length collections of poetry with Gordon Hill Press. Their full-length collaborative poetry manuscript “G” is out with Palimpsest press Fall 2023, and their full-length collection of experimental dream-poems “Daffod*ls” is out with Pamenar Press. Their Translation of Ghazal Mosadeq’s “Andarzname” is forthcoming with Ugly Duckling Presse Fall 2025. Their fifth poetry manuscript “Book of Interruptions” is forthcoming with Wolsak and Wynn Fall 2025.

Author of “I Tell My Lecturer I Write Poems And She Insists I Talk,” Janiru Liyanage is a student and writer, with recent work in The Harvard Advocate, AGNI, The Slowdown, and elsewhere. He has produced work for Australian Poetry, The Wheeler Centre, and The Emerging Writers’ Festival, among other places.

Auteur of “Out of Area” and “Dear Theresa,” Julie Moon is a writer and translator from Korea. She holds an MFA from Columbia University, and most recently taught as Lecturer in writing at the University of California, San Diego. She is the winner of the 2024 First Pages Prize in Creative Nonfiction, selected by Edwidge Danticat, and she is currently at work on a hybrid memoir. www.juliemoon.info 

Author of “If You Give the Land a Lord,” Sophia Chong is a queer poet. A 2023 Adrienne Rich Award for Poetry semifinalist, her poetry has appeared/is forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, Sine Theta, among other places. Their prose has appeared/is forthcoming in the Adroit Journal, Seneca Review, and fugue. They hold an MFA in poetry from Rutgers University-Newark.

Author of “Y/N,” Baylina Pu graduated from Yale in 2023. She has read for The Yale Review and Columbia Journal, and her work has been recognized by the Michigan Quarterly Review Online, New Ohio Review, The Yale Literary Magazine, The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, and more. She is currently pursuing an MFA at Columbia University, where she received the Felipe De Alba Fellowship for her fiction writing. You can find her at baylinapu.com.

Author of “Ian McEwan Erasures,” Sarah Rose Cohn Bennett is a writer and budding psychotherapist from Syracuse, New York. Sarah spent the past year on a Fulbright scholarship in Wałbrzych, Poland, and now lives in Columbus, Ohio, where she is working as a therapist and keeping her eyes peeled for Hanif Abdurraqib (he could be anywhere!). Her poems have appeared in Pithead Chapel, La Piccioletta Barca, Stoneboat Literary Journal, and are forthcoming in Watershed Review. You can find her on Twitter @SRB926 and Instagram @sarrose_.

Author of “Detect Light,” Carlina Duan loves community gardens. Author of the poetry collections I Wore My Blackest Hair (Little A, 2017), and Alien Miss (University of Wisconsin Press, 2021), Carlina is an Assistant Professor in English at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where she teaches poetry. 

Reader and Vocalist of “Detect Light,” Bea Troxel writes essays and songs, will begin her MFA at U of Arizona this fall, and is obsessed with beavers, fake phones, and Nashville’s local water park, Wave Country.