Issue 114 Contributors
Mary Ayetey likes to write. She is a Black Autistic writer and winner of the Cow Tipping Prize. She likes Disney. She likes trolls. She likes listening to calm music and upbeat music. She’s been writing the first book of Henriette Meets Mully, and she wrote the “Respect” poem and “Pepper Spray.” She also likes to paint.
Christy Lee Barnes is a Seattle-based educator whose writing has been featured in Prairie Schooner, Plume, Cream City Review, Cagibi, Spillway, Stirring, Tin House's "Broadside Thirty," McSweeney's, and elsewhere. This year she received two Best of the Net nominations at Literary Mama and MER.
Sara Beth Brooks (she/they) is a queer and disabled self-taught poet and visual artist whose work explores grief, identity, illness, relationship, and the vulnerability of human bodies. Sara Beth’s poems have appeared in Eunoia Review and Squawk Back. They teach writing and revision workshops online and live with her spouse and their tuxedo cat on the unceded territory of the Nisenan people, known today as Sacramento, California. She can be found on instagram at @supsbb.
Mark Dunbar is a former teacher and writer originally from Columbus, Ohio, and now living outside Chicago. He attended Kenyon College where he was the recipient of the American Academy of Poets Award.
Christa Fairbrother, MA, has had poetry in Arc Poetry, Pleiades, Stoneboat, and Sunlight Press among others. She’s been a resident with Sundress Academy for the Arts and the Bethany Arts Community. Currently, she’s Gulfport, Florida’s poet laureate and she’s been a Pushcart Prize nominee. Connect with her at www.christfairbrotherwrites.com.
Beth Gordon is a poet, mother and grandmother currently living in Asheville, North Carolina. She is the author of several chapbooks including The Water Cycle (Variant Literature) How to Keep Things Alive (Split Rock Press) and Crone (Louisiana Literature). Beth is Managing Editor of Feral: A Journal of Poetry and Art, Assistant Editor of Animal Heart Press, and Grandma of Femme Salve Books. Twitter Instagram, and BlueSky @bethgordonpoet.
Melissa Joplin Higley is the author of First Father (Bottlecap Press). Her poems appear in B_O_D_Y, Feral, Sleet Magazine, Whale Road Review, Writer’s Digest, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, co-facilitates the Poetry Craft Collective, co-edits book reviews for MER, and serves as the 2024-2026 Mamaroneck Poet Laureate. Melissa lives by the sea in New York with her multi-generational family and four tuxedo cats. melissajoplinhigley.com.
Jill Michelle is the author of Underwater (Riot in Your Throat, 2025) and winner of the 2023 NORward Prize for Poetry. Her newest poems are forthcoming in Blue Heron Review, Free State Review and Lips Poetry Magazine. She teaches at Valencia College in Orlando, Florida. Find more at byjillmichelle.com.
Sarah Pfohl is a dis/abled, chronically ill artist and teacher. She makes work about the value, power, and complexity of: a rural New York hill, the disabled body, and classroom teaching. Sarah serves as Associate Professor of Photography and Art Education Coordinator in the Department of Art & Design at the University of Indianapolis. She lives in Indianapolis and Hubbardsville, NY. Her artist website is https://sarahpfohl.com.
Shana Ross is a recent transplant to Edmonton, Alberta and Treaty Six Territory. Qui transtulit sustinet. Her work has recently appeared in CutBank, Identity Theory, Ilanot Review, Ninth Letter and more. She is the winner of the 2022 Anne C. Barnhill prize and the 2021 Bacopa Literary Review poetry competition, as well as a 2019 Parent-Writer Fellowship to Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. She serves as an editor for Luna Station Quarterly and a critic for Pencilhouse.
Pooja Singh is an emerging poet based in Delhi, India, and a software developer by profession. She's the Author of the debut poetry collection Until The Cold Is Gentle. Her work has been featured in PULP LITMAG, the Anthology - Delusions by The Quill House, and will appear in Anarchist Fictions Journal next year. Beyond poetry, she loves to code, paint, travel and learn new skills. Connect with her on instagram at @p.s.aislinn and on twitter at @musebythesea.