Issue 24 Contributors

Maya Afilalo is a queer writer based in Philadelphia. The recipient of the 2022 James Hurst Prize for Fiction, her stories and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in New Ohio Review, Lilith Magazine, The Pennsylvania Gazette, and elsewhere. She has an MFA in fiction from North Carolina State University and was a Tin House Summer Workshop 2023 participant. Maya is working on a short story collection and a novel, which explore themes of Middle Eastern Jewish identity, family, sexuality, and friendship. You can find her on Twitter @m_afil and on Instagram @mafilalo.

Hannah Barrie is a researcher and writer living in Hamilton, Ontario. You can find her at hannahbarrie.ca.

Sharon Berg is a poet, a fiction author, and an historian of First Nations education in Canada. She's published her poetry in periodicals across Canada, as well as in the USA, Mexico, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, India, and Australia. Her first two books were poetry published by Borealis Press (To a Young Horse, 1979) and Coach House Press (The Body Labyrinth, 1984). This was followed by two audio cassette tapes from Gallery 101 (Tape 5, 1985) and Public Energies (Black Moths 1986). She also published three chapbooks with Big Pond Rumours Press in 2006, 2016 & 2017. Her fiction appeared in journals in Canada and the USA. Porcupine's Quill released her debut fiction collection Naming the Shadows in the Fall of 2019. Her cross-genre history The Name Unspoken: Wandering Spirit Survival School was published in 2019 by Big Pond Rumours Press and received a Bronze 2020 IPPY Award for Best Regional Nonfiction in Canada East. She lives in Charlottetown, Newfoundland, Canada.

Patricia Quintana Bidar is a Western writer from the Port of Los Angeles area. Her work has been featured in Wigleaf, SmokeLong Quarterly, The Pinch, Pidgeonholes, Flash Fiction America (W.W. Norton), Best Small Fictions 2023 (Alternating Current Press), and Best Microfiction 2023 (Pelekinesis Press). Patricia lives with her family and unusual dog outside of Oakland, CA. Her book of short fiction, Pardon Me For Moonwalking, will be published by Unsolicited Press in 2025. For more info, visit https://patriciaqbidar.com

Courtney Bill is currently pursuing a degree in creative writing. Her work has appeared in PRISM International, Canthius, Literary Heist, Frighten the Horses, This Side of West, and elsewhere. Her short fiction was runner-up for the 2022 Grouse Grind Lit Prize for V Short Forms.

Kevin Canfield's work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Cineaste, Film Comment and other publications. He lives in New York City.

Oladejo Abdullah Feranmi is a writer, haikuist and Veterinary Medicine student from Nigeria. A Dylan Thomas shortlist finalist and Pushcart Nominee, he reads submissions at SeaGlass Literary and edits for Incognito Press. His works are published in Gone Lawn, Hooligan Magazine and more. He tweets from @tinybecomings

Connor Fisher is the author of A Renaissance with Eyelids (Schism Press, forthcoming 2024), The Isotope of I (Schism Press, 2021) and three poetry and hybrid chapbooks, including Speculative Geography (Greying Ghost Press, 2022). He has an MFA from the University of Colorado at Boulder and a Ph.D. in Creative Writing and English from the University of Georgia. His writing has appeared in journals including Denver Quarterly, Random Sample Review, Tammy, Tiger Moth Review, and Clade Song. He currently lives and teaches in northern Mississippi.

Kimberley Gilmour is a freelance writer who is published in The Antigonish Review, ARIEL, and The Windsor Star. She is currently reviewing poems by Eva H.D. and Holly by Stephen King. She has a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Philosophy and Women‘s Studies from Trent University. She also has a B.Ed and a B.A. in English Literature.

Sarah Wheeler Hedborn taught First-Year Composition for seventeen years at Northern Illinois University. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Iowa State University. Currently she lives, writes and is raising twins in a small town outside of Chicago. This is her first published short story.

Donna Kane’s poems, short fiction, reviews and essays have been published widely. She is the author of the non-fiction book Summer of the Horse and of three books of poetry, most recently Orrery, a finalist for the 2020 Governor General’s Literary Award. A new book of poetry, Asterisms, is forthcoming in Spring 2024. She divides her time between Rolla, BC in Treaty 8 Territory and Halifax, NS in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and traditional lands of the Mi’kmaq people.

Penn Kemp's recent work includes P.S. (https://www.gapriotpress.com/archive/penn-kemp-sharon-thesen-ps) and the anthology Poems in Response to Peril that she co-edited (https://www.rsitoski.com/poems-in-response-to-peril). Her latest album of sound poetry, Incrementally, is out now on Angry Starlings: https://www.hempressbooks.com/authors/penn-kemp.

https://twitter.com/pennkemp

Anson Leung is a graduate of the University of Alberta’s Bachelor of Commerce program. He is an Alberta-based writer who loves all forms of writing, including poetry and article writing. In his spare time, he loves playing tennis and board games.

Anton Pooles was born in Novosibirsk, Siberia and now lives and writes in Toronto, Ontario. His work has appeared in an array of journals and magazines. He is the author of the chapbook Monster 36 (Anstruther Press, 2018) and the full-length collection Ghost Walk (Mansfield Press, 2022).

Twitter: @AntonPooles

Shantell Powell is a two-spirit author, artist, and swamp hag. She is the 2023 Yosef Wosk VMI Fellow, a graduate of the Writers’ Studio at Simon Fraser University, and a recipient of the Waterloo Arts Fund grant for her debut novel in progress. When she’s not writing or making things, she’s wrangling chinchillas or getting filthy in the woods.

Alyssa Sherlock is the author of the illustrated memoir this is a love story: poems and essays on friendship, love, and mental health (2023). Alyssa writes on the themes of mental health, family, and friendship in her fiction and creative non-fiction. In 2022, she was shortlisted for the CNFC/Humber Literary Review Creative Non-Fiction Contest. She regularly interviews other writers and storytellers about their work through her newsletter, love letters to storytellers, and occasional “In Conversation” pieces in the Winnipeg Free Press. She lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba (Treaty 1 territory).

Evan Shumka is a Cowichan Valley writer whose short stories have appeared in Portal and Gooey Magazine. He studies Creative Writing at Vancouver Island University and is currently working on his first novel. His other passions include acting and visual art.

Maya Somogyi is from the Sunshine Coast, BC. She is currently working toward her BA for Writing and English Honours at UVic. Her writing is informed by her experiences as a lesbian, half-Chinese woman.

With stories accepted by Douban Read, Tales to Terrify, Queen’s Quarterly, and Seize The Press, Howard Tseng is a house dad in Toronto cared for by his wife and teenage son. Before quasi-homemaking, he enjoyed a two-decade adventure working in IT across Asia and North America.

Chris Yurkoski is a writer living in Ottawa, Ontario, who also performs policy analysis on socio-economic issues for the federal government.

He has previously published a variety of prose and poetry. Most recently, his poems have appeared in Euphony, Hidden Peak, The Prairie Journal of Canadian Literature, Bones and Shot Glass Journal. He has also had work accepted for an upcoming edition of The Antigonish Review.