JC Alfier’s (they/them) most recent book of poetry, The Shadow Field, was published by Louisiana Literature Press (2020). Journal credits include Faultline, New York Quarterly, Notre Dame Review, Penn Review, Raleigh Review, Southern Poetry Review, and Vassar Review. They are also an artist doing collage and double-exposure work.

Zachary Bos studied in the MFA program at Boston University. He was named runner-up in the 2023 Hearst Poetry Prize and has had recent writing Vroom!, Old Moon, and The Muse Journal. He directs the publishing activity of Pen & Anvil Press out of an office above Bonfire Bookshop in North Central Massachusetts.

Cristian Dunn is a junior majoring in Creative and Professional Writing at Cumberland University. Under the tutelage of Sandee Gertz, Cristian’s artistic talents have truly begun to blossom. He was blessed to have Anders Carlson Wee critique his work in a workshop. When Cristian is not spending his time writing, he likes to learn as much as he can about the supernatural aspects of the world, with angels being one of his major interests.

Cathy Socarras Ferrell is a second-generation Cuban-American poet, writer, and educator from Central Florida. She finds inspiration in walking (anywhere), family, and the Sandhill cranes in her yard. She enjoys playing with form, space, and the sounds of language. Her work can be found online at Poetry Breakfast (upcoming), Red Noise Collective, Quibble.Lit, sinkhole, and Compulsive Reader, and in the scholarly collection, Shakespeare and Latinidad, edited by Trevor Boffone and Carla Della Gotta. Connect with Cathy at ferrellwords.com.

Originally from San Antonio, Texas, Jonathan Fletcher holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Columbia University School of the Arts. He has been published in Acropolis Journal, The Adroit Journal, Arts Alive San Antonio, The BeZine, BigCityLit, Book of Matches Literary Journal, Catch the Next: Journal of Ideas and Pedagogy, Colossus Press, Curio Cabinet, Door is a Jar, DoubleSpeak, Emerge Literary Journal, Five South, Flora Fiction, FlowerSong Press, fws: a journal of literature & art, Glassworks, Half Hour to Kill, Heimat Review, The Hooghly Review, Hyacinth Review, Infrarrealista Review, The Institutionalized Review, LONE STARS, Midway Journal, The MockingOwl Roost-An Art and Literary Magazine, MONO., Moot Point, The Muse, Naked Cat Publishing, The Nelligan Review, The New Croton Review, New Feathers Anthology, OneBlackBoyLikeThat Review, The Opal, Open Ceilings, Otherwise Engaged Journal: A Literature and Arts Journal, The Phare, Quibble, Rigorous, riverSedge: A Journal of Art and Literature, Route 7 Review, The San Antonio Express-News, San Antonio Living, San Antonio Public Library, Speakeasy, Spoonie Press, Synkroniciti, Tabula Rasa Review, The Thing Itself, TEJASCOVIDO, Unlikely Stories Mark V, Vagabond City Literary Journal, voicemail poems, Voices de la Luna: A Quarterly Literature & Arts Magazine, Waco WordFest, Whale Road Review, Wishbone Words, and Yearling: A Poetry Journal for Working Writers. Additionally, his work has been featured by The League of Women Voters of the San Antonio Area and at the Briscoe Western Art Museum and the San Antonio Museum of Art. In 2023, his work was also chosen as a finalist for the Plentitudes Prize in Poetry. That same year, his work was also chosen as a finalist for Synkroniciti’s Poetry Prize for its Issue, “Broken.” He has also been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Additionally, he has served as a Columbia Artist/Teacher for New York City’s iHOPE, a specialized school for students with traumatic brain injuries, as well as a poetry editor for Exchange, Columbia University’s literary magazine for incarcerated writers and artists. In 2023, he won Northwest University Press’s Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize. Currently, he serves as a Zoeglossia Fellow.

Cal Freeman is the music editor of The Museum of Americana: A Literary Review and author of the books Fight Songs (Eyewear 2017) and Poolside at the Dearborn Inn (R&R Press 2022). His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in many journals including Image, The Poetry Review, Verse Daily, Under a Warm Green Linden, North American Review, The Moth, Oxford American, River Styx, and Hippocampus. His poems have been anthologized in The Poet’s Quest for God (Eyewear 2016), RESPECT: The Poetry of Detroit Music (Michigan State University Press 2020), I Wanna Be Loved By You: Poems On Marilyn Monroe (Milk & Cake Press 2021), What Things Cost: An Anthology for the People (University Press Kentucky 2022), and Beyond the Frame (Diode Editions 2023). He is a recipient of the Devine Poetry Fellowship (judged by Terrance Hayes), winner of Passages North’s Neutrino Prize, and a finalist for the River Styx International Poetry Prize. Born and raised in Detroit, he teaches at Oakland University and serves as Writer-In-Residence with InsideOut Literary Arts Detroit.

Chris Girman is an associate professor of nonfiction writing at a Mid-Atlantic university, and he’s also an immigration attorney who uber drives during the summer. His books include The Chili Papers and Mucho Macho: Seduction, Desire, and the Homoerotic Lives of Latin Men. His poetry and creative non-fiction have appeared in Salt Hill Journal, Hobart, Dreich, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, American Book Review, The Rumen, Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change, and the anthology What I Didn’t Know about Becoming a Teacher.

Shelby Jones is a student at Wilson Central High School and is a proud member of the BluePrints Yearbook staff. She is from Mount Juliet, Tennessee, and is planning on attending the University for Creative Careers in Savannah, Georgia.

Korrine Key is a senior at Cumberland University and will graduate in the spring of 2024. Her major is in Creative Writing with a minor in English. Korrine discovered in high school that she enjoyed writing poetry and has been working to improve her writing since then. She takes part in many other creative activities such as art and music. She participates in Concert, Jazz, Marching band, and Choir. The arts have always been a passion of hers. She has been published in the Novus Literary Arts Journal and is working as an editor for the journal as well.

Michael Lauchlan has contributed to many publications, including New England Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The North American Review, Louisville Review, Poet Lore, and Lake Effect. His most recent collection is Trumbull Ave., from WSU Press.

L. Leslie is an emerging writer and educator born and raised in Wyoming. He is passionate about dynamic language and advocates for intentionality. Words are meant for more, or less, accuracy when describing the strange and wide world we live in—make them live long.

Lana is an undergraduate student majoring in English at Cumberland University. She has published one children’s book and two YA novels. Her essay, “Fort Nashborough,” was selected for Volunteer State Community College’s 2022-2023 edition of Best Essays. Lana loves to write, read, and paint. You can follow her @WritingEclipses on nearly all social media and her artwork can be found under #LLoweArts on Instagram.

Leonydes Matis is on track to be a Creative Writing Major. She is in her 2nd semester of her sophomore year. She hopes to write for a living and become an author full-time in the future.

Lynn Marie Moody is a junior attending Wilson Central High School who spends much time writing and working to achieve her goals.

Matthew Nisinson (he/him) lives in Queens, NY with his wife and daughter and their two cats. He has a JD, and a BA in Latin. Each summer he grows chili peppers. By day he is a bureaucrat. His poetry has appeared in Boats Against the Current, en*gendered, Hyacinth Review, and Milk Press, among others.

Thomas Sims holds a B.S. in Biology from the Templeton Honors College at Eastern University. He currently teaches sixth grade science and eleventh grade philosophy/literature in Chandler, Arizona. His work has been featured by “Beyond Words,” “An Unexpected Journal,” “In Parenthesis,” and “The GGP Collective.”

Emma Jane Sullivan is a writer and artist living in Springfield, Missouri. She is currently teaching and studying in the Department of English at Missouri State University. She is currently working on a novel. This is her first publication.

Charles Thomas lives in Tennessee. Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Poem, San Pedro River Review, Poetry New Zealand, Spoon River Poetry Review, Friends Journal, WorshipWeb of the Unitarian Universalist Association, and Remington Review have published other poems of his. He plans to self-publish a collection.

Travis is a writer of short fiction and poetry. He lives in Lebanon, Tn. and works at the Lebanon-Wilson County Public Library. He enjoys crochet and being outdoors. He can be reached at danjon81@icloud.com.

Angela Townsend is the Development Director at Tabby’s Place: a Cat Sanctuary. She graduated from Princeton Seminary and Vassar College. Her work appears or is forthcoming in over 120 literary journals, including Arts & Letters, Chautauqua, Paris Lit Up, The Penn Review, The Razor, Still Point Arts Quarterly, Terrain.org, and The Westchester Review. Angie has lived with Type 1 diabetes for 33 years, laughs with her poet mother every morning, and loves life affectionately.

Alan D. Tucker is a native Tennesseean who relays his experience of the world through literary-fictive storytelling. He holds a Master of Arts in English and considers fiction the most authentic way of portraying the human experience. His work has appeared in Avalon Literary Review and Novus Literary Arts Journal.

Evan Morgan Williams has published over fifty short stories in literary magazines famous and obscure, including Kenyon Review, ZYZZYVA, Alaska Quarterly Review, and Antioch Review. He has published three collections of short stories: “Thorn,” winner of Chandra Prize at BkMk Press in 2014, “Canyons: Older Stories” self-published in 2018, and “Stories of the New West,” published by Main Street Rag Press in 2021. He holds an MFA, tattered and faded, from the University of Montana in 1991. Williams has retired after 29 years as a Language Arts teacher in Oregon’s toughest middle school.

Nicole Bethune Winters is a poet, writer and multi-faceted artist. Her first collection, brackish, was published by Finishing Line Press, and her work has appeared in Backlash Journal, Wild Roof Journal, and Seaborne Magazine. When she isn’t writing or wheel-throwing, Nicole is likely at the beach, on a trail, climbing, or exploring new landscapes with her dog. She currently resides in Southern California, where she works as a full-time artist from her home studio.

Ashley Wood is a sophomore at college and is majoring in Creative and Professional Writing. The first thing you need to know about her is that she is from southern California and loves the beach, hiking, and reading. She started to love reading because when she was younger she had a challenging time reading, which made her parents make her read more to improve her reading skills. It worked–a little too well. Most of her inspirations for her stories appear when she is listening to music, working out, or running.