Issue 25 Contributors

Eric Abalajon is currently a lecturer at the University of the Philippines Visayas, Iloilo. His works have appeared in Plumwood Mountain Journal, Four Way Review, Stonecoast Review, Modern Poetry in Translation, Asymptote, and Copihue Poetry. His debut poetry collection is forthcoming from Flowesong Press. He lives near Iloilo City.

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.

Noah Cain is a multimodal artist, critic, and teacher. His work has appeared in CV2, long con magazine, and Winnipeg Free Press. Find him online at noahjcain.com

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.

Alison Gadsby’s short fiction appears in a bunch of great literary magazines including, The Ex-Puritan, Dreamers, Fleas on the Dog, and the most recent issue of Synchronized Chaos. She earned her MFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia. She hosts Junction Reads, a prose reading series, in Tkaronto where she lives with her family writing another novel.

Julien Griswold (they/them) thinks insurance agencies should cover notebook costs as therapy expenses. When they aren’t laying their thoughts bare in said notebooks, they study at Brown University. Their work has appeared in Palette Poetry, RUNESTONE, Neologism Poetry, The Racket Journal, and more. Connect with them online @cheerupjulien.

Hazelmist is a dyslexic writer based in Hong Kong. Her work has appeared in Genesis. She is pursuing a BBA-JD double degree at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Hazelmist is working on her debut novel, addressing issues including diversity and inclusion, mental health and destiny. Find her at hazelmist0.wordpress.com.

Rebecca Higgins’s debut collection of short stories, The Colours of Birds, was published by
Tightrope Books in 2018. The title story in the collection first appeared in The Antigonish
Review (2008), and “The White Stain” won second place in the Toronto Star Short Story Contest
in 2013. Find her at www.rebeccahiggins.org.

Caroline Hung writes smart, honest, certified organic and free-range speculative fiction. She has works in the oven currently and also in Strange Horizons, khoreo magazine, and more. Witness the trainwreck @cheeseanqi on Twitter/X or look at her stuff on carolinehungauthor.com.

Danny Jacobs’s latest book, Sourcebooks for Our Drawings: Essays and Remnants (Gordon Hill Press, 2019) won the Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick Book Award for Nonfiction. A novel is forthcoming in 2025. Danny lives in Riverview, NB.

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.

Dawn Macdonald lives in Whitehorse, Yukon, where she was raised off the grid. Her poetry appears in places like Grain and Nat. Brut, and also in places like Asimov’s Science Fiction and Wizards in Space. Her first collection, Northerny, is forthcoming from University of Alberta Press.

Marcie McCauley's work has appeared in Room, Other Voices, Mslexia, Tears in the Fence and Orbis, and has been anthologized by Sumac Press. She writes about writing at marciemccauley.com and about reading at buriedinprint.com. A descendant of Irish and English settlers, she lives in the city currently called Toronto, which was built on the homelands of Indigenous peoples - Haudenosaunee, Anishnaabeg, Huron-Wendat and Mississaugas of New Credit - land still inhabited by their descendants.

Maria Meindl is the author of The Work (Stonehouse 2019) and Outside the Box (McGill-Queens 2011), and has had essays, stories, interviews and poetry published in numerous journals (including the Temz Review). In 2005, she founded the Draft reading series, now in its 18th season. She writes and teaches movement in Toronto, and offers a series of monthly lectures called The Work: Straight Talk on Craft and Method, about the suspring histories of today's popular self-care practices. www.mariameindl.com

Jérôme Melançon writes and teaches and writes and lives in oskana kâ-asastêki / Regina, SK. His third chapbook, Bridges Under the Water, was published by above/ground press in August 2023. It follows Tomorrow’s Going to Be Bright (2022) and Coup (2020), as well as his most recent poetry collection, En d’sous d’la langue (Prise de parole, 2021). He has edited books and journal issues, and keeps publishing academic articles that have nothing to do with any of this. He’s on various social media, with handles resembling @lethejerome.

Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi (They/Them) is a queer Iranian-born, Toronto-based Poet, Writer and Translator. They were shortlisted for the 2021 Austin Clarke poetry prize, 2022’s Arc Poem of the year award, The Malahat Review’s 2023 Open Season awards for poetry, and they are the winner of the 2021 Vallum Poetry Prize. They are the author of four poetry chapbooks and three translated poetry chapbooks. They have released two full-length collections of poetry with Gordon Hill Press. Their full-length collaborative poetry manuscript G is out with Palimpsest Press Fall 2023, and their full-length collection of experimental dream-poems Daffod*ls is forthcoming from Pamenar Press.

Yasmeen Mohssenzadeh resides in British Columbia, and is a first year student at The University of Victoria. She is currently working towards her BA in the department of writing. This is her first published fiction piece, and she plans to write many more.

Lana Nizhehorodova is from Odesa, Ukraine and now lives there, war notwithstanding. She has a linguistic background and can speak 5 languages. Recently, she has been writing essays, short stories, and poems. This is something that brings her a great deal of enjoyment, and she hopes they will be enjoyable for you to read too.

Persephone's writing has been published by Expat Press, Hobart Pulp, and House of Vlad, among others. @hacksawplaydate

Alana Prochuk (she/they) works for a feminist legal non-profit and is slowly co-writing a musical about tenant-landlord relationships and queer kinship. Her non-fiction writing has appeared in The Globe and Mail and Bitch Magazine; this is their first poetry publication, not counting their highschool yearbook. Alana lives uninvited on unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) homelands.

Stan Rogal lives and writes in Toronto along with his artist partner and their pet jackabee. Work has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies in Canada, the US and Europe. The author of several books, including 12 poetry and a handful of chapbooks. He’s left-handed and has never owned a smart phone, placing him among the elite 8% of North Americans.

Aaron Schneider is a queer settler living in London, Ontario. He is the founding Editor at The /tƐmz/ Review, the publisher at the chapbook press 845 Press, and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Writing Studies at Western University. His stories have appeared in The Danforth Review, Filling Station, The Ex-Puritan, Hamilton Arts and Letters, Pro-Lit, The Chattahoochee Review, BULL, Long Con, The Malahat Review and The Windsor Review. His stories have been nominated for The Journey Prize and The Pushcart Prize. His novella, Grass-Fed (Quattro Books), was published in Fall 2018. His collection of experimental short fiction, What We Think We Know (Gordon Hill Press), was published in Fall 2021. The Supply Chain (Crowsnest Books) is his first novel.

Sam Shelstad is the author of the novels The Cobra and the Key and Citizens of Light, as well as the story collection Cop House. He lives in Toronto.

Ashish Kumar Singh (he/him) is a queer Indian poet whose work has appeared in Passages North, The Bombay Literary Magazine, Grain, Chestnut Review, Fourteen Poems, Foglifter, Atlanta Review and elsewhere. Currently, he serves as a poetry reader at ANMLY.

Spenser Smith is a Regina-born poet, essayist, and photographer who recently moved to Winnipeg after 10 years in B.C. His debut book of poetry, A brief relief from hunger, was published by Gordon Hill Press in 2023.

Joshua St. Claire is an accountant from a small town in Pennsylvania who works as a financial director for a large non-profit. His poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Lana Turner, Sugar House Review, Allium, and Ligeia Magazine, among others. His work has appeared in the Dwarf Stars Anthology and he is the winner of the Gerald Brady Memorial Senryu Award and the Trailblazer Award.

Henry Adam Svec is the author of American Folk Music as Tactical Media, a scholarly monograph, and Life Is Like Canadian Football and Other Authentic Folk Songs, a novel. He currently teaches in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Waterloo.

Shanai Tanwar (she/her) is a queer poet of Indian origin living and working on stolen Musqueam territory. She recently graduated with a BA in English Literature from the University of British Columbia. Shanai’s poetry has previously appeared in Plenitude Magazine and Train River Publishing, alongside other writing in Broadview, Chatelaine, The Ubyssey, Harper’s Bazaar Arabia, and Cosmopolitan Middle East. Currently, she proofreads for The Ex-Puritan, and enjoys admiring dogs while secretly learning she might be a cat person.

Jade Wallace’s writing has won the Muriel’s Journey Poetry Prize and Coastal Shelf’s Funny & Poignant Poetry Contest, placed third in the Ken Belford Poetry Contest, been a finalist for the Wergle Flomp Humour Poetry Prize, and been nominated for The Journey Prize. They are the author of several solo and collaborative chapbooks, most recently Expression Follows Grim Harmony (as MA|DE, Jackpine Press, 2023), as well as the book reviews editor for CAROUSEL and the co-founder of MA|DE, a collaborative writing entity. Love Is A Place But You Cannot Live There is Wallace’s debut poetry collection. Their debut novel, Anomia, is forthcoming with Palimpsest Press in 2024. Keep in touch: jadewallace.ca

Katie Ward (she/her) is a writer from Northampton, Massachusetts. She graduated from Vanderbilt University in 2019 with a Bachelor's Degree in Creative Writing, and is a second year prose candidate in the MFA program at UMass Amherst. She is a previous attendee of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and currently works as a Graduate Teaching Associate and Writing Center Tutor at UMass.

Jenny Worrell writes during lunch breaks from her job as a university library admin, where she wears out the circulation staff with incessant book requests. Jenny's work appears or is forthcoming in subTerrain, Inquisitive Eater, Underland Arcana, and other nifty places. Her first novel, Edge of Sundown, is expected to re-release later this year. For more information, check out https://linktr.ee/JenniferWorrell.