Ashely Adams is a swamp-adjacent writer whose work has appeared in Paper Darts, Fourth River, Permafrost, Apex Magazine, Cosmonauts Avenue and other places.She is the nonfiction editor for Lammergeier.
X. C. Atkins has short stories in Paper Darts, Makeout Creek, Poydras Review, Whole Beast Rag, Akashic Books Richmond Noir, and other places. He is also an avid zine maker. He graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University. He lives, works, writes, and drinks in Los Angeles. See more at http://xcatkins.squarespace.com.
Philip Berry‘s short fiction and poetry has appeared in Headtstuff, Bunbury Magazine, Metaphorosis, Spelk, Ellipsiszine, Hypnopomp, Deracine and Liars’ League among others. He lives in London. Twitter: @philaberry Web: philberrycreative.wordpress.com
With degrees in Physics and Chemistry, Andy Betz has tutored and taught in excess of 30 years. His novel (The Lady in Red Quilt), his short stories (“If Revenge is What You Seek,” “To Tell or Not to Tell,” “The Copy,” “Kelly”, “My Color,” and “Mrs. Zeeman”), and his poems (“Soon,” “When I Was 10,” and “I Watched the Ocean”) are works still defining his style. He lives in 1974, has been married for 26 years, and collects occupations (the current tally is 95).
Michael Blackburn is a PhD student at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, where he studies the English Renaissance and the uncanny.
A.C. Bohleber is a writer located in Nashville, Tennessee. She graduated from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where she received the Ken Smith Fiction Award and a degree in Creative Writing. She has published work with Treehouse Magazine and Weasel Press. She now works a full time job to pay for books and cat food.
Paul Brucker lives in Mount Prospect, IL and has been published in many magazines, including somewhat recent appearances in The Barefoot Review, Crack the Spine, INK WELL, Poydras Review, Ray’s Road Review, SPECS Journal, The New Plains Journal, and the anthology Pagan’s Muse: Words of Ritual, Invocation and Inspiration.
Charlotte Burnett is 23, dyslexic, and currently studying Psychology at the Open University, although she’s also studied copy-editing and creative writing and hopes to pursue both in the future.
John Casey graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1992 and from Florida State University with a Master of Arts in 1994. A 22-year Veteran, John served globally as a tactical airlift and developmental test pilot, and later as an international affairs strategist and military diplomat in Germany, Ethiopia, and at the Pentagon. John’s work has appeared in Into The Void Magazine, The Remembered Arts Journal, The Flumes Literary Journal, Anapest Journal, Pamplemousse, and elsewhere. His writing is inspired by the incredible spectrum of people and cultures he has experienced throughout his life. “Unicorn” is from the book Raw Thoughts by John Casey, to be released by Adelaide Books in July 2019. For more information, visit www.facebook.com/
Robert Crisp currently hides out in Savannah, GA, where he teaches and keeps strange hours and stranger company. He writes poetry as often as he can. Learn more at www.writingforghosts.com.
Donna M. Davis is a former English teacher and current small business owner who lives in the Central New York region. She has published poems in the Tipton Poetry Journal, Slipstream Review, Pudding Magazine, Halcyon Days, The Muddy River Review, The Comstock Review, Third Wednesday, Burningwood Literary Journal, Poecology, The Centrifugal Eye, Red River Review, Ilya’s Honey, Gingerbread House, Aberration Labyrinth, Red Fez, Oddball, and others. Poems are also forthcoming in The Homestead Review.
Linda Dove holds a Ph.D. in Renaissance literature and teaches college writing. She is also an award-winning poet, and her books include, In Defense of Objects (2009), O Dear Deer, (2011), This Too (2017), and the scholarly collection of essays, Women, Writing, and the Reproduction of Culture in Tudor and Stuart Britain (2000). Poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and the Robert H. Winner Award from the Poetry Society of America. She lives with her human family, two Jack Russell terriers, and three backyard chickens in the foothills east of Los Angeles, where she serves as the faculty editor of MORIA Literary Magazine at Woodbury University.
Amanda EL has been teaching high school English for seven years. Her works have been published in literary and educational journals. She also has her own personal blog that can accessed at the following link: aelentino.com/blog. She has two upcoming publications in the mental health section of sheknows.com.
Chris Erickson currently works as a tutor in the Bronx. He graduated from Carleton College with an English degree in 2008 and has worked a variety of jobs since: middle school teacher, basketball coach, retail associate, horticulturist, and supervisor at an overnight air cargo operation.
Born in Tennessee, Angel Filyaw is currently studying English literature at Roane State Community College. Find her snuggled in the corners of a coffeehouse, sipping a hot mocha and inhaling a novel.
Ginny Fite is the author of the mysteries Cromwell’s Folly, No Good Deed Left Undone, and Lying, Cheating & Occasionally Murder, and the political thriller No End of Bad. Her degrees are from Rutgers University and Johns Hopkins University and she has studied at the School for Women Healers and the Maryland Poetry Therapy Institute.
J. J. Fletcher is an English teacher, writer, and dog rescuer. “Fiendish” is part of a short story collection that re-imagines the childhood of Dr. H.H. Holmes–Chicago’s (allegedly) first serial killer. Fletcher is currently at work on a crime novel, The Devil Inside Me, in which a descendant of Holmes resurrects his duplicitous and murderous legacy in the Windy City. Learn more at www.jjfletcherbooks.wordpress.com.
Jay Gershwin is the author of three novels. You can get a FREE copy of his new novel, Poor Man’s Autumn, here: http://www.amazon.com/
Lizzie Groth is a first year creative writing major at Bowling Green State University pursuing a self-created minor in contemporary fiction.
Stephen Ground’s work has appeared in numerous publications, including STORGY, Typishly, Flumes Literary Journal, and forthcoming from Dark Ink Magazine. He holds a BA in Theatre Studies and a certificate in Community Arts from York University, and currently lives in Milton, Ontario after a seven-year retreat in the prairielands.
Chad Haskins lives in Georgia. His writing has appeared in a few places, including Yellow Mama, The 5-2, Spinetingler Magazine, Golden Sparrow Literary Review and The Flash Fiction Offensive.
Tama Hazak was born in Kibbutz Afikim in 1971, daughter to Aya and the poet Yechiel Hazak. After spending two years in London she moved with her mother to Tel Aviv and was tested and declared as a special gifted child. At age of ten she moved with her mother Aya and Ofer Azrielant to New York, studied at Horace Mann and University of Chicago, majored in Philosophy and literature and was on the dean’s list. Tama served two years in the Israeli army, studied librarian studies, painted and created. She published her first poetry book, silence of sand pouring, one year ago. Now she lives in Jerusalem, continues her studies and works as translator of Hebrew to English.
Justin Herrmann is the author of the short fiction collection Highway One, Antarctica (MadHat Press 2014). His stories have appeared in Best Small Fictions, as well as journals including River Styx, Washington Square Review Review, and Elm Leaves Journal. He spent 24 months living and working at McMurdo Station, Antarctica. He lives with his family in Alaska.
Matt Neil Hill has published speculative and neo-noir fiction in Syntax & Salt, Shotgun Honey and Weirdbook. He’s married and the proud owner of a socially maladjusted rescue cat. He can be found on Twitter @mattneilhill.
Sean Hogan is an environmental activist living in the Midwest with his partner and two cats. He thinks about the past and writes about the future.
Stephen Hundley is a former high school science teacher. He currently works and studies as an MFA student at the University of Mississippi. He also serves as the fiction editor for The Swamp literary magazine. He was a finalist for Arts & Letter’s Fiction Prize in 2017. His recent work can be found in The MacGuffin, Driftwood Press, and BULL. He lives in Oxford, Mississippi.
Harrison Hurst is an undergraduate English student from Chattanooga, TN. A writer for most of his life, Harrison Hurst is dedicated to the refinement of his craft, and finds inspiration and standard in the spirit of writers such as Barbara Kingsolver, Tim O’Brien, and J.R.R. Tolkien.
Joshua Ian is an up-and-coming writer, sometime poet, and failed filmmaker living in New York City. His short story entitled “Counter Strike” was recently included in the Queer Sci Fi Anthology titled Impact (Other Worlds Ink, 2018). His story “The Bitter Taste of Caulberries” appeared in Enchanted Conversation‘s December issue, “Of Frost and Firelight: A Winter’s Rhapsody.” Another of his stories will be included in the Perfectly Poisoned Steampunk Anthology due out later in the year. You can find him on Twitter @joshuaianauthor and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joshuaianauthor.
Grace Jenkins is a writer, lover of stories, and a student at the University of British Columbia. Her short story “The Ones Who Never Were” has been published on the UBC AMS Writer’s Guild website as the runner-up for their March contest.
Sarah Jennings is an emerging writer and yoga teacher from North Carolina. She has been published by Cadence magazine, Fish Food magazine, and won the D.A. Brown award for creative writing at Wake Forest University. She likes to explore characters and situations that make readers uncomfortable, and challenge them to accept that the world isn’t perfect.
As a youth, Paul Kardos spent many long, lonely winter nights staring into the backyard woods while dreaming up stories, many of which scared him to death. Today, he puts that vivid imagination to use by writing novels and short stories in the hopes of terrifying others. In addition to ‘The Innocent Sink’, Paul is also the author of the psychological thrillers, ‘Losing Weight’ and ‘The Crossing’. Proficient over several different genres, Paul is also the author of two satirical fiction novels from his ‘Boston and Langley’ series, ‘The Push’ and ‘The Pharaoh’s Breakfast’. You can keep up with Paul by visiting his website, paulkardos.com, or following him @Twitter.com/paulkardos. He lives in the Sarasota, Florida area with his wife and two children, and now has a relatively harmless golf course in his backyard.
Sugar Lafever is an avid reader, music enthusiast, and writer. She recently published her first historical fiction novel set in 1920’s Pennsylvania entitled Consumption in the Jazz Age. She currently resides in Ohio with her family.
Anthony Lawrence has published fifteen books of poems, the most recent being 101 Poems, (Pitt Street Poetry 2018). His poems have appeared previously in Poetry (Chicago), River City, Green Mountains Review and Australian Book Review. He is a Senior lecturer at Griffith University, Queensland, and lives on Moreton Bay.
Leon Lowder is a Foreign Service Officer at the U.S. Department of State. His work has been published in Red River Review, Passager, Exposition Review and Typishly.
Taylor Mali is a poet and educator and one of the original poets to appear on the HBO series “Def Poetry Jam.” A four-time National Poetry Slam champion, he is the author of four previous collections of poetry and a book of essays, What Teachers Make: In Praise of the Greatest Job in the World. He curates the Page Meets Stage reading series in New York City and is the inventor of Metaphor Dice. These poems are also forthcoming in Taylor Mali’s book Late Father, published by Quercus.
Rod Martinez was born and raised in Tampa, Florida and was attracted to words at an early age. Wrote his first comic book “The Boy Who Liked To Read” (about himself) with construction paper and pencil in the 2nd grade on his own – wasn’t a class assignment. The teacher then decided to keep the masterpiece and show other students in class what they could do if they “applied” themselves. It was his English teacher in high school that pulled him aside and said “You should delve into short story writing, give the comic books a rest.” It wasn’t till his later adult years that he started to take it seriously, having written a middle grade fiction adventure titled “The Juniors” that was picked up by a publisher. Now he knows that he wants to do this for the rest of his life.
Deborah Matusko has published her poetry in Freshwater, Fresh Ink, and The Awakenings Review. A writer of dark poetry, she appreciates the opportunity to share her poems with others who know the value of works that speak to topics not often seen in literary journals.
Madison McLoughlin is a writer and an English literature and mass communication journalism junior at Loyola University New Orleans. She is from Southwest Michigan and has a passion for reading and writing. In addition to short stories, Madison also writes for her school’s award-winning newspaper, The Maroon.
Linda McMullen’s short stories are currently available on Burningword (‘Aurora’), Typishly (‘The Announcement’), Panoply (‘Flavia’) and Open: Journal of Arts and Letters (‘Elaine’s Idyll’); other pieces are forthcoming from Enzo Publications, Allegory, and Palaver. She is also a wife, mother, and U.S. diplomat, currently home on a domestic rotation, but most often found in Africa or Southeast Asia.
Zuri McWhorter is a Black lady writer from Detroit, MI, USA. Focusing on the things that drive us to be human – patience, humor, redemption, love.
José Enrique Medina earned his BA in English from Cornell University. He writes poems, short stories and novels. When he is not writing, he enjoys playing with his baby chicks, bunnies and piglets on his farm in Whittier, California.
Ashley Memory is an amateur ghost hunter living in southwestern Randolph County, N.C. Her poetry and prose have appeared in numerous publications, including The Thomas Wolfe Review, Brilliant Flash Fiction, The Gyroscope Review and The Hardball Times. Two flash stories are forthcoming in the July 2018 issue of The Birds We Piled Loosely. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has won the Doris Betts Fiction Prize sponsored by the N.C. Writers’ Network twice. For more, visit her blog at ashley-memory.com.
Ralph Pennel is the author of A World Less Perfect for Dying In, published by Cervena Barva Press. Ralph’s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Iowa Review, Literary Orphans, F(r)iction, Tarpaulin Sky, Reality Beach, Elm Leaves Journal, Rain Taxi Review of Books and various other publications. His work has been nominated for a Pushcart, and he was twice a finalist for Somerville Poet Laureate. Ralph is on the board of the New England Poetry Club and teaches poetry and writing at Bentley University.
Linda Quinlan has been published in many journals, some of which include The North Carolina Literary Review, Fine Madness, Pudding, The New Orleans Review and Sinister Wisdom. She was Poet of the Year in Wisconsin. Presently she lives in Vermont.
Born in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, Konstantin Rega studies British & American Literature and Creative Writing at The University of Kent in Canterbury, England. He has been published by The Claremont Review, Four Ties Lit Review, AOM, Minetta Review, The Write Launch, and has won the ZO Magazine Silver Prize for Poetry, and is currently a Review Assistant for Newfound and a contributor to BLJ. Visit his site at: www.neomodernkonstantin.weebly.com.
Maya Roe is a poet and biologist who currently lives in coastal Maine. Her work has been published in multiple print anthologies and online journals, including the River of Words anthology and the San Francisco Chronicle.
Greg Schmult lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he works as an environmental consultant. His poetry has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Hanging Loose, Iodine, Poetry Quarterly, Spillway, and The Main Street Rag.
Caleb Scott is a writer and actor. His plays and performance pieces have been produced and presented at venues in New York City and around the country, including Classic Stage Company, HERE Arts Center, La MaMa ETC, the Bootleg Theater in Los Angeles, Diversafest in Tulsa and the Wooster Group’s Performing Garage. He is an associate artist with Colt Coeur Theater in New York and a founding member of the FLEET playwrights workshop in Los Angeles. Caleb’s writing has appeared in The Bellevue Literary Review, Nashville Review, Typishly Literary Journal and Eclipse, and his first book, U.F.O., was published in 2006 by PowerHouse Books. His films have screened in festivals all over the world, including the Toronto International Film Festival, Raindance in London, Cinequest in San Jose, Palm Springs International Film Festival and Aesthetica in York, UK. He has been a finalist for an Academy of Motion Pictures Nicholl Fellowship, a finalist for the Lila Acheson Wallace Playwrights Program at Juilliard, a nominee for Best Actor and Best Writer by the Kinsale Shark Awards, and his plays have been selected as finalists for the Playwrights Foundation Bay Area Playwrights Festival and the Eugene O’Neill Theater’s National Playwrights Conference. Caleb is a graduate of Dartmouth College and the recipient of a Dartmouth Senior Fellowship in Writing. He lives in Miami, Florida.
Ryan Seagrist is a writer, songwriter, and musician. His work has appeared in Cyprus Dome, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and the List Magazine (Scotland). He is a 2018 Springing Center Fellow and currently resides in Brooklyn, NY.
Jeremy Sideris is a tenured professor of English at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. He teaches writing at Buffalo State College, too, as a way of giving back to his alma mater.
Josh Smith has a career held together by spit, duct tape, and whimsy. No one else on Earth has both a Harvard education, and a pair of Iffy Awards for Best Hair.
Paul Smith writes poetry & fiction. He lives in Skokie, Illinois with his wife Flavia. Sometimes he performs poetry at an open mic in Chicago. He believes that brevity is the soul of something he read about once, and whatever that something is or was, it should be cut in half immediately.
Jack Somers’s work has appeared in WhiskeyPaper, Jellyfish Review, Literary Orphans, and a number of other publications. He lives in Cleveland with his wife and their three children. You can find him on Twitter @jsomers530 or visit him at www.jacksomerswriter.com.
Aaron Starks is a homeless aspiring writer and poet primarily interested in the darker hidden side of human nature. He’s not some goth emo type; he just finds darkness fascinating. But just as fascinating to him are the small acts of kindness and love our species is capable of. Duality–as cliched and corny as it sound–is still viable and relevant if portrayed in the proper light.
J. B. Stone is an neurodiverse poet/fiction writer from Brooklyn, now residing in Buffalo. Stone is the author of A Place Between Expired Dreams And Renewed Nightmares (Ghost City Press 2018). Some of his work is featured and/or forthcoming in Occulum, Riggwelter Press, Peach Mag, BlazeVOX, Mystic Blue Review, Breadcrumbs Magazine, Flash of Dark, Crack the Spine, among several other publications. You can check out more of his work and other noteworthy updates at jaredbenjaminstone.com.
Brian Vlasak holds a Ph.D. in music composition from the University of Iowa. Presently, Dr. Vlasak is an MFA candidate at Emerson College, where they study creative nonfiction, work as a stagehand, and keep a daily quote journal. Oh. And tweet – @brianvlasak.
Michael Washburn is a Brooklyn-based writer and journalist. His fiction has appeared recently in Green Hills Literary Lantern, Rosebud, Adelaide, the New Orphic Review, the Weird Fiction Review, Meat for Tea, and other publications.
Andrew Weber is a freelance writer in Eugene, OR. He does a sci-fi webcomic called Ion Grip (iongrip.com), has written some fantasy novels, and produces a podcast of original short fiction called Lies and Half-Truths. You can see some of his portfolio at apweber.com.
John Thomas Wetmore is a poet who teaches creative writing at Arts at the Capitol Theater in Willimantic, CT. He loves tattoos and wild wolves. His work has recently appeared in print in The Sandy River Review and Steam Ticket. He was also a featured poet in an online edition of After the Pause.
Maura Yzmore writes short-form literary and speculative fiction, as well as humor. She lives in the American Midwest and teaches subjects with a lot of math to college students. Some of her darker pieces can be found in Trembling with Fear, Occulum, Gone Lawn, and The Sirens Call. Website: https://maurayzmore.com Twitter: @MauraYzmore.