Novus Spring 2026 Contributors

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Pratiksha Ahuja

Pratiksha Ahuja is a poet based in Goa, India. She began writing as a child while growing up in a fractured home, using language to survive and to understand who she is. Her work holds trauma, love, rage, and an irrepressible wonder for life. Themes explored often include self-identity, feminism, climate, and politics

Emily Alston-Follansbee

Emily Alston-Follansbee wrote her first poem, entitled “Love,” on a tiny piece of paper, in 1972. She was an elementary and preschool teacher for many years, and she raised two children who grew up to be lovely adults. In 2020 Emily became ill with a disabling neurological disorder. She spends her good moments on writing and rewriting, mostly poetry. Emily lives in Maynard, Massachusetts with her cheery husband and two goofy dogs.

Marie Anne Arreola

Marie Anne Arreola is a bilingual interdisciplinary artist and journalist whose work engages speculative lyric, digital culture, and diaspora memory. She is the founding editor of VOCES, a bilingual platform amplifying global writers and artists, and a Rotten Tomatoes–certified critic. Her writing appears in over forty literary journals across the U.S., Europe, and Latin America. She is the author of Sparks of the Liberating Spirit Who Trapped Us (Foreshore Publishing, UK) and a 2025 Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee.

Emily Adams

Emily is a fiction writer based out of Scranton PA. She is an award-winning short film director and screenplay writer, currently working on her debut novel. Emily holds a Master of Advanced Study in Film and Media Studies from Arizona State University. Her special interests are psychological drama and horror and she seeks to explore the thin line between the real and the fantastical within her work.

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Kate Bladek

Kate Bladek is a creative writing student at both Washington State University and Aberystwyth University, where she is attending a year-long study abroad program. She enjoys writing literary fiction, speculative fiction, and magical realism, but is always experimenting with new genres. Her other short stories can be found in the Land Escapes and Gossamer Wight literary journals.

Raymond Berthelot

Raymond Berthelot is a writer, poet, and author of the chapbooks, The Middle Ages and Border Crossings. His poems have appeared in Rowayat, The Acentos Review, Chaotic Merge, The Caribbean Writer, Progenitor, Mantis, Peregrine Journal, Apricity Magazine, and many other diverse literary journals.

Daniel Brennan

Daniel Brennan (he/him) is a queer writer and coffee devotee from New York. Sometimes he’s in love, just as often he’s not. His poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize/Best of the Net, and has appeared in numerous publications, including The Penn Review, Sho Poetry Journal, Puerto Del Sol, and Trampset. He can be found on Twitter @DanielJBrennan_

Lina Bui

Lina Bui is a freshman at Cumberland University, currently working on her Associate of Arts. This is her first publication.

Melea Boren

Melea Boren is a freshman at Cumberland University who is on the bowling team. She enjoys reading, writing fiction, and eating sushi.

Kalia Busick

Kalia Busick is a senior at Lebanon High School. She is involved in choir/Devils Chord, theatre, and is president of the International Thespian Society. In her free time she likes to sing, dance, and write poetry. She plans to attend Savannah College of Art and Design for acting.

Buck Brown

Buck Brown, First Place Winner of our High School Creative Writing Contest, is a writer, editor, actor, and student at Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville, Tennessee. His work, which has been recognized by Scholastic and awarded the Zager Poetry Award and the 1st Place Roscoe Bond Davis Award three times, focuses on the perspective of high-performing, pressured students struggling to wrestle with expectation, beauty, and memory in a bleak, academically-driven environment. I am the founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Full Monty, a school and community-based literary journal sponsored by Mr. Collins “C.I.” Aki.

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Stacy Carlson

Publisher’s Weekly called Stacy Carlson’s debut novel, Among the Wonderful, “Intelligent, engrossing, and utterly unique.” Her second novel is The Gyre, published in May 2026 by Alternating Current Press. Stacy’s essays and fiction have appeared in Tin House, Post Road, Inkwell, Sparkle+Blink, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of fellowships from The Mesa Refuge, The Community of Writers, The Arctic Circle, Djerassi Resident Artists Program, and Signal Fire. Stacy’s background also includes work as a historical ecologist, fish cannery worker, and hot springs caretaker. She was only 23 miles away from Mt. St. Helens when it erupted in 1980.

N.T. Chambers

N.T. Chambers writes about the wide variety of experiences intrinsic to human nature. Life with in the high desert of Arizona provides ample and unique opportunities for reflection and self-discovery which evolve into different literary creations. Over 50 poems, short stories and essays have been published in various journals, magazines, and anthologies.

Willy Conley

Willy Conley, born profoundly deaf, is an award-winning writer-photographer whose nine books include Photographic Memories, Plays of Our Own, Listening Through the Bone, and The Deaf Heart. Early in his career he worked as a medical photographer at leading hospitals in the U.S. before earning certification as a Registered Biological Photographer. He is professor emeritus of Theatre and Dance at Gallaudet University, the world’s only liberal arts university for deaf and hard-of-hearing students, in Washington, D.C. For more info about his work, please visit his blog and website: www.willyconley.com/blog

Holly Carignan

Holly Carignan lives in St. Augustine, FL with her three irresistible, pesty, entertaining cats. She has an old, unused MA is psychology and, more recently, a BS in biochemistry. When she is not slogging away in a hospital lab, she is home writing by computer light in the comfortable darkness of her messy house. She is a proud member of a weekly writing group called The Scrawl, as well as the Westport Writer’s Workshop – she is forever indebted to them for their friendship and support.

Randall Coll

Randall Coll’s poetry has appeared in The Quasar Review and Delaware Bards Poetry Review 2026. He lives in Delaware.

Emma Clemmons

Hannah Crouch

Hannah Crouch is a sophomore at Cumberland University studying English. After graduating from CU, Hannah plans to attend seminary to obtain a Masters degree in Biblical Studies. In her free time she enjoys reading, theatre, writing poetry, and drinking good coffee.

L.F. Conrad

L. F. Conrad is a sophomore at Cumberland Univeristy and she is studying Creative and Professional writing. Lillian loves all things outdoors, creative, and adventurous. She is excited for her future semesters at Cumberland University.

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Rueben De’Marco

Rueben De’Marco is a 20 year-old poet from Birmingham England. He adores poetry of antiquity, and hopes to revitalise and honour the themes of that world through finding modern parallels in his own work.

Rachel DeVault

R.H. DeVault is a prose writer and poet whose work has been published in Cafe Review, New Square, The Switch Literary Magazine, and others. She will graduate from Cumberland University this spring with a degree in English, concentrating in Creative Writing, and intends to pursue an MFA in creative writing. She lives in Tennessee with her husband, Michael, and their family.

Megan D’Albero

Megan D’Albero is a poet based in New York. She earned her MFA in Poetry from Sarah Lawrence College. Her work will be featured in the upcoming anthology “If Memory Serves: Stories from the Table” published by Good Printed Things. Megan writes during the time she finds in between her 9 to 5, and writes mostly about the living she does outside of her 9 to 5. She currently lives with her husband, son, and two rescue dogs.

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E.S.P.

E.S.P. is the author of two novels, a poetry anthology, and a short story collection. A native New Yorker, she holds a degree in Advertising and Public Relations from the City College of New York. Outside of writing, she enjoys reading, weightlifting, and spending time with her two pet bunnies and two tuxedo cats. She is @authorESP on Instagram, Twitter, and Substack.

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Alison Gadsby

Alison Gadsby is a first-generation Canadian who writes in Toronto, where she lives in a multigenerational home that includes several dogs. Her short fiction appears in The Ex-Puritan, Blank Spaces, The TƐmz Review, Blue Lake Review, and others. Some are included in her collection of short stories, Breathing is How Some People Stay Alive (Guernica Editions, March 2026). Her debut novel, Dreams of the Weary, will be published in 2028 (Palimpsest Press). Alison holds an MFA from the University of British Columbia, and a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing from York University. She is the founder/host of Junction Reads, a prose reading series in Toronto and co-host on HOWL, a literary radio show on CIUT, 89.5FM.

Bryn Gribben

Bryn Gribben is a poet and essayist who left academia to write and explore antiques. Her essay “Cabin” was nominated for a 2019 Pushcart Prize, and she was a finalist both for the 2021 Creative Nonfiction Porch Prize and the Peseroff Prize in poetry. Bryn’s first book, a musical memoir, Amplified Heart: An Emotional Discography, was published by Otherwords Press in 2022. She lives in Seattle with two cats and a love song of a husband.

Michael Gubbins

Michael Gubbins is a fiction writer. His work has appeared in Caveat Lector. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

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Jennifer Handy

Jennifer Handy is the recipient of aPearl Hogrefe Fellowship in Creative Writing at Iowa State University, and the author of the poetry chapbooks California Burning (Bottlecap Press2024), Dirt (Finishing Line Press 2025), and Huswifery and HigherMath (Dancing Girl Press 2026.) “The Treachery of Rhyme” is from herunpublished book of poetry This Is Not a Polar Bear: A Study in PostmodernExtinction. To receive notifications when poems from the book are publishedand the book’s release date, sign up at This Is Not a Polar Bear http://thisisnotapolarbear.com/.

Matthew Henningsen

Matthew Henningsen has published in many journals, most recently in, “The Naugatuck River Review.” He is primarily inspired by history and travel.

Macy Huston

Macy Adams is a second year MFA student in Poetry at Oklahoma State University. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in English – Creative Writing from the University of Central Oklahoma. Her writing often explores uncanny and obscure themes and her work has been published in various small presses, including Oyster River Pages.

Cathy Hollister

Cathy Hollister is the author of Seasoned Women, A Collection of Poems published by Poet’s Choice. When not writing you might find her on the dance floor enjoying the company of friends or deep in the woods basking in the peace of solitude. A 2024 Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has been in Eclectica Magazine, Canyon Voices, Burningword Literary Journal, Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, and others. She lives in middle Tennessee; find her online at www.cathyhollister.com

Stuart Harris

Stuart Harris has taught English at Cumberland University since 1997. Before that he taught English at Hunters Lane Comprehensive High School in Nashville, Tennessee, for eleven years. A graduate of Belmont University, Dr. Harris has published poetry in a number of small literary magazines, a story in South Dakota Literary Review, and a story in an anthology of Tennessee writers. He has also published a review of Clyde Edgerton’s novel Where Trouble Sleeps and an article on teaching World Literature in an interdisciplinary context in Tennessee English Journal.

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Douglas Jones

Douglas Jones, MFA poetry (Univ. of Idaho), MA philosophy (Univ. of Southern Cal) has published work in McSweeney’s, Antiphon, Books and Culture, Valparaiso Poetry Review, River Oak Review, Phil Lit, and the California Quarterly. He teaches high-school literature at The Cambridge School, San Diego, California.

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Courtney Klaers

Courtney Klaers is a 2023 alum of Cumberland University. They grew up in Tennessee, but they have resided in Indiana and Illinois for the last three years. They love writing poetry and prose and often describe it as “glorified journaling” for themself. They are inspired by nature, relationships, and the beauty of the mundane.

Korrine Key

Korrine Key is a poet from Elmwood, TN and a graduate of Cumberland University. She received a Bachelor’s in creative writing with a minor in English. Her work has been published in the Novus Literary Arts Journal and the New Square Journal; she has also worked as an editor for Novus. Korrine is continuing her education at Texas Tech University, working on her MFA in Creative Writing with a focus in poetry.

Kolin Kennedy

Kollin Kennedy is a writer in the Dallas area who has graduated from the University of North Texas with his bachelor’s in Creative English Writing. He has self-published a few collections of poetry, including his ‘A Blue Period, which has made it to #1 in Poetry, Poetry on Nature, & Poetry on Love on Amazon in January of 2024. He has also published his poems in other issues such as Wingless Dreamer and The Decadent Review.

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Charley Lenton-Lyons

Charley Lenton-Lyons is a UK-based poet with a multidisciplinary environmental science background. Drawing on training in zoology and social research, their work explores power, adaptation, and strangeness across ecological and human systems, often blending the mythic with the contemporary. Their poetry is forthcoming with Flora Fiction.

Eli Leonard

Eli Leonard is a student at Cumberland University who loves using art and writing as a way to get the world to listen.

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Marjorie Maddox

Majorie Maddox is the host for Poetry Moment for WPSU-FM, assistant editor of Presence, and Professor Emerita at Commonwealth University. Maddox has published 17 collections of poetry—most recently Hover Here, Seeing Things, and Small Earthly Space—as well as a story collection, 5 children’s books, and the anthologies Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania and Keystone Poetry (co-editor). Her middle-grade biography is A Man Named Branch: The True Story of Baseball’s Great Experiment. www.marjoriemaddox.com

Eliza Marley

Eliza Marley is a Chicago based folklorist and fiction writer. She is the author of the book, You Shouldn’t Worry About the Frogs (Querencia Press 2023). Her work has been featured in Red Ogre Review, Chaotic Merge Magazine, and Stoneboat Journal among others. Eliza collects and studies ghost stories and climate literature, interested in how haunted places and their construction can be used as attunement for climate crisis.

Giancarlo Malchiodi

Giancarlo Malchiodi returned home from fifth grade one day and proclaimed to his mother “I want to be a teacher!” Spending thirty years happily sparking the creativity of many young minds as a high school teacher of English, he is now re-igniting his own. A graduate of the MFA program at Brooklyn College/CUNY where he studied with Allen Ginsberg, Giancarlo’s poetry has been featured in A Gathering of The Tribes, Oberon Poetry Magazine, The Paterson Literary Review, Streetlight, and The Nimrod International Journal. His essays and photographs have likewise been featured in Teachers & Writers, Panorama, and The Emerson Review. When not travelling, reading/writing, absorbing news and pop culture, or scanning the skies for Superman, Giancarlo wanders to rediscover NYC or explores 125+ feet undersea as a DiveMaster.

Daniel Edward Moore

Daniel Edward Moore lives in Washington on Whidbey Island. His work has appeared in Southern Humanities Review, North American Review and more. His work is forthcoming in The Meadow, Deep South Magazine, New Plains Review, Steam Ticket Journal and Cider Press Review. His book, “Waxing the Dents,” is from Brick Road Poetry Press.

William Rieppe Moore

William Rieppe Moore is from Richland County, South Carolina and moved to Unicoi County, Tennessee with his wife. He resumed teaching high school English after earning an MA in English from East Tennessee State University. Moore’s poetry has received various honors, including Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations as well as finalist honors in the Ron Rash Award in Poetry and second place in the George Scarbrough Prize for Poetry. His poems appear in Driftwood, Blue Earth Review, Appalachian Places, James Dickey Review, North American Review, Terrain.org, and most recently in River Heron Review.

Laura McLaughlin

Laura McLaughlin has a Bachelor of Arts in English from Boston College. You can find more of her work on Substack under the name @leovon2

Lucas Murphy

Raised in an isolated cabin in the woods of Minnesota, Lucas Murphy is now a Los Angeles based writer, filmmaker and editor. He has had fiction published in Currant Jam, Mercer Street and Angel City Review, and co-founded and runs the literary magazine Cusper. As a filmmaker, he has developed projects with August Pointe Productions, Shout! Studios and BuzzFeed Studios, and has had work appear in festivals such as Raindance, Dances with Films and Screamfest, as well as on Film Shortage and Director’s Notes. He is currently in pre-production on a debut feature and is writing his first novel.

Tamara J. Madison

Tamara J. Madison is a writer, poet, editor, and instructor in Florida. She is a MFA graduate of New England College and a Hedgebrook, Ucross, KHN, and Anaphora Literary Arts fellow. Her work has been reviewed and published in various journals and literary magazines including Callaloo, Killens Review, The Amistad, Poetry International, Cider Press Review, and World Literature Today and is forthcoming in Obsidian. Her most recent full-length poetry collection, Threed, This Road Not Damascus, is published by Trio House Press. She is currently working on a new collection of poetry based on five generations of her ancestry.

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Peter Newall

Peter Newall has worked variously as a dockyard labourer, as a lawyer and as a musician. He has lived in England, Australia, Japan, and now in Odesa, Ukraine, where he leads a local blues band. His work has been published in the UK, Europe, North and South America, India and Australia.

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OAK

Max Masure (they/them) is a disabled white trans masculine author who self-published “You (don’t) Suck: How to Overcome Imposter Syndrome,” a self-help memoir, in 2022. They openly write about their life growing up as a girl and coming out as trans-masculine when they were thirty-five, with the lens of healing and self-growth. Storyteller, parent, artist, activist, trans advocate, and public speaker, Max is known for their raw and honest writing processing trauma, motivated by their experiences as a survivor of incest, living with C-PTSD and chronic illnesses. They are fighting for queer and trans rights and are a disability advocate. As painful memories flood back after years of trauma-focused therapy, it feels crucial to them to write down what happened in their childhood and their journey to healing as a trans person in the hope that it will have some impact. Originally from France, they live in New York, with their kid and cat Pinkie. You can find Max at their local coffee shop drinking matcha and writing their new memoir about their transness, trauma, and healing: “Becoming OAK.”

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Paige Passantino

Paige Ellen Passantino (she/hers) is an MFA candidate in poetry at Johns Hopkins University, where she teaches creative writing. She earned her BA in English Literature from Smith College as an Ada Comstock Scholar. Her work appears on Poets.org and in The Florida Review, SHŌ Journal, and is forthcoming in Folio, among others. She is a nominee for 2025 Best of the Net, was an honoree for the 2023 Adroit Prize, and her work has been supported by Tin House. She is currently working on her debut collection of poems, a memoir, and a novel about clowns.

Sherry Poff

Sherry Poff writes in and around Ooltewah, Tennessee. She holds an M.A. in writing from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. She is a member of the Chattanooga Writers’ Guild and the Poetry Society of Tennessee. Sherry’s work has appeared recently in Women Speak, The Zest of the Lemon, The Clayjar Review, and Speckled Trout Review, among others.

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Heather Laszlo Rosser

Heather Laszlo Rosser is a fiction writer, poet and teacher. She currently teaches college writing for Montclair State University, and has taught developmental writing for New York University, been a newspaper editor, and an arts administrator both for the University of Pennsylvania’s Kelly Writers’ House and the University of Vermont’s Summer Writing Program. Additionally, she was a Co-Founder of a progressive school for grade-school children and a Volunteer for the United States Peace Corps in Central West Africa. She holds a BA in English Literature from Boston University, an MA in English Literature from The University of Vermont and an MFA in Fiction from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her work has appeared in The Baltimore Review, Gray Sparrow Journal and Zingara Poetry Review. She is at work on her first novel.

Chad Rutter

Chad Rutter is an emerging poet originally from rural Nebraska now residing in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He received a BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and an MFA from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, both in visual art. His work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Rust and Moth, Anti-Heroin Chic, and Right Hand Pointing.

Tom Roth

Tom Roth teaches creative writing in Cincinnati, Ohio. He earned an MFA from Chatham University. His most recent publications are in Black Fox Literary Review, Gordon Square Review, Miracle Monocle, and Ponder Review.

Brian Robertson

Brian Robertson is a Tennessee native with deep family roots in the state. He enjoys a good cigar, engaging conversations, and helping others. Those who know him value his talent for storytelling. Having spent 15 years in the Information Technology industry, he now looks forward to helping others during times of grief as he embarks on the journey of becoming a mortician and funeral director. Born and raised in Nashville, he now resides in Lebanon, Tennessee, with his wife, Amy, and their son, Samuel.

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Travis Stephens

Travis Stephens is a tugboat captain who resides with his family in California. Recent credits include: Gyroscope Review, 2River, Sheila-Na-Gig, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Raven’s Perch, Crosswinds Poetry Journal, Gravitas, and The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature.

Liza Shaub

Liza Shaub writes about family, grief, and forgiveness — because the tough parts of life deserve language that doesn’t hide them. She’s a mother of three, a sister of three unforgettable siblings, and a firm believer that love doesn’t have to be tidy to last. Her writing comes from the unglamorous spaces where grief, gratitude, confusion, and joy overlap — the messy miracle we all live in. She is previously published in Business Insider. She graduated from the University of Virginia with a Bachelor of Arts in History.

Joris Soeding

Joris Soeding’s most recent collection is In Twos (Bottlecap Press, 2026). Soeding’s writing has appeared in publications such as Another Chicago Magazine, Poetry Pacific, Portage Magazine, and Tint Journal. He is a fifth/sixth grade Social Studies teacher in Chicago, where he resides with his family.

Carroll Susco

Carroll Ann Susco has a chapbook, Bean Spiller, about her mental illness and over 50 publications, including The Sun Magazine and Asylum Magazine. See her LinkedIn page for a list and links.

Christopher Stolle

Christopher Stolle has many roles: partner, uncle, son, music aficionado, baseball enthusiast, and, occasionally, writer. His writing has been published by Indiana University Press, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Coaches Choice, “Roe River Review,” “Hawai’i Pacific Review,” “Sheila-Na-Gig,” “Tipton Poetry Journal,” and “Flying Island,” among many others. He lives in Richmond, Indiana.

Coco Seney

Coco Seney is a poet based in Houston, with roots in Kansas City and Chicago. She is completing her debut chapbook, Going Back for the Girls, shaped through the CharlotteLit Chapbook Lab in mentorship with poet Nickole Brown. Her work centers women’s interior worlds—what is shared in bar bathrooms, carried in bodies, and learned over time. Her poems ask how human pastness might be sacred, preserving memory through the retracing of girlhood, millennial culture, and ghost lives. Seney works in innovation and entrepreneurship, holds a BA from Rice University and an MBA from the University of Virginia. Find her @ReadCoco.

Jennifer Susan Smith

Jennifer Susan Smith, a retired speech-language pathologist, resides in Rock Spring, Georgia. Her work appears in Mildred Haun Review, Appalachia Bare, Troublesome Rising Digital Anthology 2025 and Sunflowers Rising: Poems for Peace Anthology, among others. Jennifer holds membership in Poetry Society of Tennessee, Georgia Poetry Society and Chattanooga Writers’ Guild.

Trent Schmidt

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Lily Thomson

Lily Thomson is a trans woman who lives in Edinburgh. Her work explores themes of identity, alienation, travel, and intimacy, and has been published in The Honest Ulsterman, Agora, and One Hand Clapping. She is a previous winner of the Sophia Jex Blake essay prize

Richard Leise & Lillian Taylor

Richard writes and teaches outside Ithaca, NY. A Perry Morgan Fellow from Old Dominion University’s MFA program, and recipient of the David Scott Stuelan Memorial Scholarship, his debut novel, Being Dead, was published fall, 2023. His short story, “Of Ducks,” was selected fro 2025’s Best Microfiction Anthology. His second novel, the award-winning Dry The Rain, was released by Picket Fire Press in October, 2025, to critical acclaim. His third novel, DYING MAN IN LIVING ROOM, is forthcoming from ELJ Editions (2027). A three-year Teacher of the Year recipient, he is @coy_harlingen on Twitter. Lillian Taylor grew up in Croatia. Now living among the vineyards of New York’s Finger Lakes, she spends time tending vines, trying new recipes in the kitchen, and writing stories.

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Mark Wagstaff

Mark Wagstaff’s work has appeared in The Write Launch, The Bookends Review, The Plentitudes and Sunspot Literary Journal. He is a two-time winner of the 3-Day Novel Contest. The 39th with off-kilter romcom ‘Attack of the Lonely Hearts’ and the 46th with sci-fi AI-loving roadtrip caper ‘So We Blush Less When The Phone Rings’ both published by Anvil Press. Mark’s raucous teen thriller ‘On the Level’ was published in 2022 through Leaf by Leaf, an imprint of Cinnamon Press. And Cinnamon Press published Mark’s latest novel ‘Mascara’ a post-modern tale of politics and mayhem in 2025. www.markwagstaff.com

Nataya Wade

Nataya Wade is currently a Junior at Cumberland University majoring in English with a concentration in Creative and Professional Writing. She has been writing poetry since age 15 and in the past 13 years has gone on to perform her poems and various spoken word pieces. Nataya hope to complete her degree and become an author and professor.

Tim Wright

Tim Wright has been writing stories, articles, and novels since the 90s, publishing short stories in Fiction on the Web, Black Cat Weekly, and Black Market Fiction, and essays in Spiegel Online. He lives in Tampa, Florida.

Marcus Wilson

Marcus Wilson is an MFA candidate in poetry at Lindenwood University. Based in Vermont’s Green Mountains, he writes from experiences of neurodivergence and recovery, exploring memory, inner life, and transformation. His poems appear in Main Street Rag, The Braided Way, and The Passionfruit Review, and he was a finalist in the 2025 Lucky Jefferson Poetry and Prose Contest.

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John Zedolik

John Zedolik is an adjunct English professor at Chatham University and Duquesne University in Pittsburgh and has published poems in such journals as Abbey, The Bangalore Review (IND), Commonweal, FreeXpresSion (AUS), Orbis (UK), Paperplates (CAN), Poem, Poetry Salzburg Review (AUT), and others. In 2019, he published his first full-length collection, entitled Salient Points and Sharp Angles (WordTech Editions), and in 2021 he published another collection, When the Spirit Moves Me (Wipf & Stock). In 2023 he published his third collection, Mother Mourning, and in 2024, he published his fourth collection, entitled The Ramifications (Wipf & Stock), which consists of five long, experimental poems. In February of 2025, he published his fifth collection, Lovers’ Progress (Wipf & Stock) and in December of 2025 published his sixth collection, Triple Muse (Wipf & Stock).

David Zaza

David Zaza lives in New York, where he runs a design studio specializing in arts publications. His recent poetry has been published in Medusa’s Laugh, Cathexis Northwest Press, Novus, and Barzakh, among others. Recent multidisciplinary work include The Goldberg Variations, an audio project which presents his recited poetry with piano accompaniment.

Art Contributors

Roger Camp

Roger Camp is the author of three photography books including the award winning Butterflies in Flight, Thames & Hudson, 2002. His documentary photography has been awarded the prestigious Leica Medal of Excellence and published in The New England Review, New York Quarterly and Orion Magazine. He is represented by the Robin Rice Gallery, NY. More of his work may be seen on luminous-lint.com.

Cynthia Yatchman

Cynthia Yatchman is a Seattle based artist and art instructor. A former ceramicist, she received her B.F.A. in painting (UW). She switched from 3D to 2D and has remained there ever since. She works primarily on paintings, prints and collages. Her art is housed in numerous public and private collections. She has exhibited on both coasts, extensively in the Northwest, including shows at Seattle University, SPU, Shoreline Community College, the Tacoma and Seattle Convention Centers and the Pacific Science Center. She is, a member of the Seattle Print Art Association and Women Painters of Washington.

Paola Jo (PJ) Corso

PAOLA JO (PJ) CORSO is the author of seven books of poetry and fiction set in her native Pittsburgh area where her Southern Italian immigrant family members were steel workers. Her latest are Vertical Bridges: Poems and Photographs of City Steps, The Laundress Catches Her Breath, winner of The Tillie Olsen Award for Creative Writing, Once I Was Told the Air Was Not for Breathing, winner of the Triangle Fire Memorial Association Award, and Catina’s Haircut: A Novel in Stories. Her new poetry collection, Oxygen for Two completes her Pittsburgh Air Triology and is forthcoming in 2026. As a member of an artist’s collective, Corso’s photographs have been exhibited in galleries, libraries, and open studios. She cofounded Steppin Stanzas, a grassroots performing arts project to celebrate city steps and also The Ferlinghetti Girls to celebrate Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s vision of free speech and poetry for the people. Corso earned graduate degrees in Creative Writing and Community Organizing. She lives and works in New York City.

Cindy Conley

Dr. Cindy Conley finds photography to be an enjoyable, relaxing activity. She was introduced to photography as an art form from other professionals who were also seeking ways to embrace their community and enjoy the moments. She holds a PhD from Tennessee Technological University and has pursued a career in mental health and community services. Dr. Conley is currently employed as the Director of Student Success at Cumberland University.

Tiziana Rasile

Tiziana Rasile was born in Rome where she lives and works. She completed her course of study at the Academy of Fine Arts. During her career she has participated in numerous international events,such as the Exhibition at the Quirinale Complex, (Rome), the Art Exhibition at the Venanzo Crocetti Museum, (Rome), at the Echo’s Studio in San Paulo, (Brazil) and more. She is present in the Private Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Praia a Mare, Italy. The artist is featured in the Artist’s Book – Library of the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome. She is represented by the Laura.I Gallery in London

Ellen June Wright

Ellen June Wright loves color. Her abstract expressionism revolves around the power of color and the emotions and memories they evoke. Recently, her unconventional watercolors have graced the covers of SCARS Anthology, Long River Review, Abstract Magazine TV and is forthcoming in Kelsey Review and West Trestle Review and were included in the 2024 and 2025 Newark Arts Festival and featured at the Hackensack Performing Arts Center in NJ. To see more visit: https://8-ellen-wright.pixels.com/

Serge Lecomte

Serge Lecomte was born in Belgium in 1946. He came to the States where he spent his teens in South Philly and then Brooklyn. After graduating from Tilden H. S. he joined the Medical Corps in the Air Force. He earned an MA and Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University in Russian Literature with a minor in French Literature. He worked as a Green Beret language instructor at Fort Bragg, NC from 1975-78. In 1988 he received a B.A. from the University of Alaska Fairbanks in Spanish Literature. He worked as a language teacher at the University of Alaska (1978-1997). He worked as a house builder, pipe-fitter, orderly in a hospital, gardener, landscaper, driller for an assaying company, bartender and painter.

Robb Kunz

Robb Kunz hails from Teton Valley, Idaho. He received his MFA in creative writing from the University of Idaho. He currently teaches writing at Utah State University and is the Art and Design Faculty Advisor of Sink Hollow: An Undergraduate Literary Journal. His art has been published in Peatsmoke Journal, the NonBinary Review, Journal X, and New Delta Review. His art is upcoming in Midway Review, Kitchen Table Quarterly and Humana Obscura.

J.C. Henderson

J.C. Henderson is an artist as well as a poet. Her inspiration for art resonates with her poetic impulses. Images of her paintings, some of which as cover art, have been featured in literary and art magazines in the US, as well as in England, such as The Emerson Review, Blue Mesa Review, CALYX, Ignatian, and Indelible of London Arts-Based Research Center.

Basak Devrim Andreutti

Basak Devrim Andreutti is a visual storyteller and fine art artist specializing in oil painting. She holds a BA in Communication and has lived and worked across three continents and in many countries, experiences that inform her human-centered and globally minded perspective. Inspired by the beauty of nature and the complexity of humanity, Andreutti’s work explores the quiet connections between people, the natural world, and the planet. A lifelong observer and polyglot, she approaches painting as a space of reflection, curiosity, and emotional translation.

GJ Gillespie

GJ Gillespie is a collage artist living in a 1928 farmhouse overlooking Oak Harbor on Whidbey Island, WA. A prolific artist with 23 awards to his name, his work has been exhibited in 71 shows and appeared in more than 200 publications. Beyond his studio practice, Gillespie channels his passion for art by running Leda Art Supply, a company specializing in premium sketchbooks. Whether conjuring vivid collage compositions or enabling other artists through exceptional tools, Gillespie remains dedicated to the transformative power of art.

Willy Conley

Sheila Squillante

Sheila Squillante is a mixed media artist living in the Hazelwood neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Her work has been part of solo and group exhibitions in the region since 2023, and has been featured in several literary journals including Brevity, Mid-American Review, Asterales, A-Minor and Dogwood. A widely published poet and essayist, and author of nine books, she directs the MFA program in creative writing at Chatham University. During the pandemic, six months after the death of her mother, she got serious about making visual art after a lifetime of appreciation and play. Now, she finds that, beyond being a space for solace and healing from grief, painting compliments and feeds her writing (and vice versa) in unexpected and meaningful ways. You can see more of her work at www.sheilasquillante.com and at https://sheilasquillanteart.etsy.com. Connect with her on Instagram at @sheilasquillante_abstract_art

Aaron Lelito

Aaron Lelito is a writer and editor from Buffalo, NY. His micro-chapbook, Secret Meetings, was published by Ghost City Press in 2025, and his poetry collection, The Half Turn, was published in 2023. His work has also appeared in Sage Magazine, Tough Poets Review, Door Is A Jar, Barzakh, Santa Fe Review, SPECTRA Poets, and Tiny Wren’s Anthology: Earth: Poems of Presence and Possibility. He is Editor in Chief of Wild Roof Journal. Instagram: @aaronlelito

Megan Whitfield

Megan Whitfield (b. 1985) is a self-taught representational painter living in Annapolis, Maryland. Her award-winning work has been published in Artists Network Magazine, PleinAir Magazine and Modern Impressionist Magazine and on permanent display at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. In addition to producing highly sought-after fine art, Megan has worked as a cover artist for publishing houses over the last 14 years. Since she began exhibiting her art in 2021, Megan has been accepted into numerous juried shows and won several awards in international fine art competitions. She is a member of the American Society of Marine Artists, the American Impressionist Society, the Maryland Federation of Art, and the National Oil and Acrylic Painter’s Society. Megan is mentored by Marc R. Hanson, OPA and Ben Bauer.