Bethany Bruno is a Floridian author whose fiction and nonfiction often explore history, place, and the strange beauty of Florida. She holds a BA in English from Flagler College and an MA from the University of North Florida. Her work has appeared in more than a hundred literary journals and magazines, including The Threepenny Review, The Sun, McSweeney's, River Teeth's Beautiful Things, and The Huffington Post. She won the 2026 Saturday Evening Post Great American Fiction Contest and the 2026 Key West Art & Historical Society's Tennessee Williams Short Story Contest. www.bethanybrunowriter.com

Ben Cooper is a poet studying creative writing at Salisbury University. He is the winner of the 2025 AWP Intro Journals Award and works as the Managing Editor of 149 Review. His poetry is published or forthcoming in Colorado Review, Diode Poetry Journal, Guernica, The Penn Review, The Shore, swamp pink, and elsewhere. ben.cooper.poetry@gmail.com

Nina Forsythe is a freelance editor, knitter, gardener, and City Council member in Frostburg, Maryland. She has an MFA from Bennington, and her poems, translations, and reviews have appeared in Nimrod, Kestrel, Chiron Review, Taproot, Prairie Wolf Press Review, Loch Raven Review, and the anthology Knocking on the Door, among others. She's a three-time winner of the Backbone Mountain Review Poetry Prize, and she hosts the monthly Coffee with a Writer series. ninaforsy@yahoo.com

Seth Jones lives in Spokane County, where he works for a fire department. Work brings him into the lives of others at critical crossroads; beginnings, ends, and hard corners along the way. Poems of these encounters have previously been published in Rattle and NOVUS, and are forthcoming in the I-70 Review. He can be found on Bluesky as spokanesjones. sethe.j.89@gmail.com

Patricia Ljutic writes fiction, essays, and poetry, with work in Bards and Sage Quarterly, upstreet, Lunch Ticket, The Broad River Review, and various anthologies. Her story "Life's Work" was a finalist for the 2024 Rash Award, and "Do or Dash" won second place in the 2024 Writer's Digest's Mainstream/Literary Short Story Competition. She's also a Glimmer Train finalist. www.patricialjutic.com/

Jane Medved's most recent books are Wayfarers (winner of the Off the Grid Prize, Grid Books, 2024) and Deep Calls To Deep (winner of the Many Voices Project, New Rivers Press, 2017). Her translation of Wherever We Float, That's Home (by Maya Tevet Dayan) won the Malinda A. Markham Translation Prize (Saturnalia Books, 2024) Recent work appears in Bracken, Sheila-Na-Gig, Plume, River Heron Review, and Bending Genres. She is an editor of The Ilanot Review. janemedved.net

Marthine Satris is the Associate Publisher at Heyday, the nonprofit press in Berkeley, CA, and holds a PhD in English from UCSB. Her poetry and prose have been published in The Georgia Review, Ballast Journal, Flyway Journal, Wild Roof Journal, Recenter Press Poetry Journal, Icebreakers Lit, and elsewhere. She lives in Oakland and is a frequent contributor to Oakland Review of Books. You can find her on Bluesky at @msatris and Instagram at @m_satris.

T. Dallas Saylor (he/they) holds a PhD from Florida State University and an MFA from the University of Houston. His work meditates on the body, especially gender and sexuality, against physical, spiritual, and digital landscapes. He is the author of one poetry collection entitled Starfish, published by Glass Lyre Press in 2025. He currently lives in West Virginia. X: @dallas_saylor

Dale Scherfling is a full-time writer/poet and photographer instructor. He is a former newspaper sportswriter, editor and photographer and retired U.S. Navy photojournalist. His work has been published in many places, including The Monterey Poetry Review, San Diego Poetry Annual, and Chiron Review. He is the recipient of three U.S. Army Front Page Journalism Awards and is also a college lecturer and instructor of photojournalism, photography, and music. dalescherfling@yahoo.com

Sarah Seybold's poetry has appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, ZYZZYVA, The Dodge, SWWIM, Thimble Literary Magazine, The Indianapolis Review, and elsewhere. She grew up in Terre Haute, Indiana, and earned her BA in English and Gender Studies from Indiana University and her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Oregon. She lives with her husband and daughter in Columbus, Ohio. Instagram: @sarahseyboldwrites

Jake Shore's short stories have been published in Denver Quarterly, Hobart, Litro Magazine and others. His plays have been presented in New York City at The Flea Theater, The Chain Theatre, Theaterlab, The Connelly Theater, Brooklyn Art Haus and others. jacobshore17@gmail.com

Cela Xiè is currently an MFA candidate at North Carolina State University. His poem "莫生 Only Absence, No Time" won the AWP Intro Journals Prize and is forthcoming in Mid-American Review. His poetry has been published in Sine Theta Magazine, Tab Journal, and VOLT Magazine. His book of poems, Before I Spoke to Myself, was published by betweenthehighway press. jxie99@gmail.com