Issue 31 Contributors

Jay Abramowitz was born in The Bronx, New York. His novel Formerly Cool (written with Tom Musca) was published in 2019, and his short stories have been featured in the literary journals 34 Orchard, Catbird Lit and Honeyguide, and on the website HollywoodDementia.com. Abramowitz was head writer on the animated PBS series Liberty's Kids, an account of the American Revolution that blended fact, fiction and comedy and featured the voices of, among many others, Dustin Hoffman, Annette Bening and Walter Cronkite. He has written and produced a dozen situation comedies as well as pilots for Warner Bros. Television, CBS and ABC, and has conducted comedy-writing workshops at the American Film Institute.

Maung Htike Aung is a Burma-based poet, literary translator and educator from Mandalay, Myanmar. His poems and translations have appeared in the Portside Review, Wasafiri, Volume Poetry, The /tƐmz/ Review, Mekong Review, and the forthcoming SUSPECT.

Sharon Berg attended the Banff School of Fine Arts Writing Studio in 1982 and was accepted to Banff’s Leighton Artist Colony in 1987. She is also an alumni of Humber College’s Writing Program. She did her B.A. in Indigenous Studies at Laurentian U, followed by her B.Ed for Primary Education at U of T. Her M.Ed focused on First Nations Education at York U, and her D.Ed focused on Indigenous Education at UBC. She also received a Certificate in Magazine Journalism from Ryerson U. Sharon founded and operated the international literary E-Zine Big Pond Rumours (2006-2019) and its associated press, which released chapbooks of Canadian poets as prizes for the magazine’s contests. She's published five full books and three chapbooks, working in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Her work appears in periodicals across Canada, the USA, Mexico, the UK, the Netherlands, India, Germany, Singapore, and Australia. Her 3rd poetry collection Stars in the Junkyard (Cyberwit 2020) was a Finalist in the 2022 International Book Awards, and her narrative history The Name Unspoken: Wandering Spirit Survival School (Big Pond Rumours Press 2019) won a 2020 IPPY Award for Regional Nonfiction. When she retired from teaching, she opened Oceanview Writers Retreat in Charlottetown (Terra Nova National Park) Newfoundland.

Mitchell Bodo (he/him) is a poet from Hamilton, Ontario. His work has appeared in Pulp Literature and Quagmire. He is currently completing an M.A. in English in the Field of Creative Writing from the University of Toronto, where he is working on his debut collection.

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.

Alex Carrigan (he/him) is a Pushcart-nominated editor, poet, and critic from Alexandria, VA. He is the author of Now Let’s Get Brunch: A Collection of RuPaul’s Drag Race Twitter Poetry (Querencia Press, 2023) and May All Our Pain Be Champagne: A Collection of Real Housewives Twitter Poetry (Alien Buddha Press, 2022). He has appeared in The Broadkill Review, Sage Cigarettes, Barrelhouse, Fifth Wheel Press, Cutbow Quarterly, and more. Visit carriganak.wordpress.com or follow him on Twitter @carriganak for more info.

Eli Dowd is a student living and working in Virginia.

Amanda Earl (she/her) does creative stuff from the 19th floor of her Chinatown apartment in Ottawa on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg Peoples. Her most recent publication is the collaborative poem the suitcase poem with a bunch of poets, published by above/ground press. You can be her client for editing, mentorship, literary event organizations and customized workshops. AmandaEarl.com.

Jennifer Falkner (she/her) is a short story writer living in Ottawa, Canada, on the traditional, unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg First Nation. She is the author of the novella Susanna Hall, Her Book, a finalist for the Ottawa Book Award, and Above Discovery, a short story collection. Her work has also appeared in numerous publications in print and online, including Timeworn Literary Journal, Agnes and True, and The Stonecoast Review. www.jenniferfalkner.ca

Catey Fifield is a freelance editor based in Montreal.

Travis Flatt (he/him) is an epileptic teacher and actor living in Cookeville, Tennessee. His stories appear in Prime Number, Fractured, Variant Lit, Puerto del Sol, HAD, Bull, and other places. He is a Best Small Fictions nominee and was longlisted for the Wigleaf Top 50. He enjoys theater, dogs, and theatrical dogs.

Gavin Garza was raised in the Institute of Basic Life Principles, a Christian cult. Today, he is a Best of the Net nominated Chicano poet studying at the University of California, Berkeley. His work has appeared in One Art, MudRoom, The Acentos Review, and several more. Garza serves as a staff editor for the Berkeley Poetry Review and stays rooted to Fresno, California. Instagram: @gavinopoet

Jody Padumachitta Goch is non-binary, neuro-diverse, slightly dyslexic and Canadian. None of these things get in the way of drinking coffee and wondering how they ended up living in the German Black Forest. They write, chop wood, and ride other people’s horses. Jody’s jeans and shirt pockets are full of stories. It’s hell on the washing machine. They enjoy lighting the wood stove and rescuing words from the lint catcher.

Jody has been published in Does It Have Pockets, Wild Word, Rise Up Review, Comlit, Poetically Yours and Third Street Review.

Duru Gungor is a professor of English at Fanshawe College in London, ON. Her short fiction and haiku have appeared in Spadina Literary Review, Fudoki Magazine (the U.K.), the Wild Word (Berlin), and The Temz Review; she also dabbles in a bit of ink painting and some questionable martial arts. You can keep in touch with her at https://www.instagram.com/gungorduru/ (Inky Pursuits) and https://durugungor15.wixsite.com/durugungor

Salma Hussain writes poetry and prose. Her fiction has recently appeared in The Humber Literary Review, The Temz Review, Queen’s Quarterly, The Ex-Puritan and Prism International. Her young adult novel, The Secret Diary of Mona Hasan, about a young girl’s immigration and menstruation journey, was published by Penguin Random House in 2022. It was selected for ALA’s Rise: A Feminist Book Project List and shortlisted for the Geoffrey Wilson Historical Fiction prize. A chapbook of her poems from Baseline Press releases this summer 2025. You can find her on Instagram: @salma_h_writes.

Helena Haitian Jiang is a postgraduate majoring in English Language and Literature at Shanghai International Studies University, China. Her poems, translations and paintings have appeared or are forthcoming in Ilanot Review, Heavy Feather Review, Hawaii Pacific Review, Arkana, Corvus Review, and elsewhere.

breton lalama is a writer, performer, filmmaker, and sex worker. his work has been published and shown internationally. he's the proud co-founder of the spindle films foundation and sits on the pink triangle press advisory council. none of this means he has any idea what he's doing. @bretonlikethecrackers

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.

Michelle Li has been nationally recognized by Scholastic Art and Writing, Bennington Young Writers Awards, and Apprentice Writer. She is an alumna of the Kenyon Review Young Writer's Workshop and her work is forthcoming or published in Aster Lit, wildscape. literary, and Third Wednesday. She edits for The Dawn Review and is executive editor of Hominum Journal. She plays violin and piano, loves Rachmaninoff and blackberries.

Christian Hanz Lozada aspires to be like a cat, a creature that doesn’t care about the subtleties of others and who will, given time and circumstance, eat their owner. He wrote the poetry collection He’s a Color, Until He’s Not. His Pushcart Prize nominated poetry has appeared in journals from five continents and counting. Christian has featured at the Autry Museum and Beyond Baroque. He lives in San Pedro, CA and uses his MFA to teach his neighbors and their kids at Los Angeles Harbor College.

Vaidhy Mahalingam came to the USA from India for graduate school, completed his PhD in Naval Architecture, and had a 29-year career in the tech industry. In retirement, he spends his time cherishing moments with his family and putting into words the stories that have lived in his thoughts for years. His short stories have been featured or are scheduled to be featured in Arkana, Pembroke Magazine, Ginosko Literary Journal, MudRoom, and Umbrella Factory Magazine.

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.

Adam McPhee’s fiction has appeared in Old Moon Quarterly and Ahoy Comics, and has been longlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize. His book reviews have appeared in Exacting Clam, minor literature[s], Necessary Fiction, and elsewhere. He writes the Substack newsletter Adam’s Notes. Originally from Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, he now lives in Alberta.

Sean G. Meggeson lives in Toronto, Canada, where he works as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist. He has written and lectured on such topics as Lacan & James Joyce, neurodiversity, and interspecies intersubjectivity. Meggeson was the winner of the 2024 League of Canadian Poets Spoken Word Award. Poems forthcoming in The Queen's Quarterly, and TYPO.

Jérôme Melançon writes and teaches and writes and lives in oskana kâ-asastêki / Regina, SK. His third chapbook, Bridges Under the Water (2023), follows Tomorrow’s Going to Be Bright (2022) and Coup (2020), all with above/ground press, as well as his most recent poetry collection, En d’sous d’la langue (Prise de parole, 2021). He has also published two books of poetry with Éditions des Plaines, De perdre tes pas (2011) and Quelques pas quelque part (2016), as well as one book of philosophy, La politique dans l’adversité (Metispresses, 2018). He has edited books and journal issues, and keeps publishing academic articles that have much to do with some of this. He sometimes translates poetry for periodicities as well as other text in other places, and is currently working on translations of books by Denise Desautels and by Phyllis Webb. He is on various social media under variations of @lethejerome.

Selena Mercuri is a Toronto-based writer, editor, book reviewer, publicist, and social media manager. She holds a BA in Political Science from the University of Toronto and a Certificate in Publishing from Toronto Metropolitan University, where she received the Marsh Jeanneret Memorial Award. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Fiddlehead, The Literary Review of Canada, The Dalhousie Review, Room Magazine, Prairie Fire, The Ampersand Review, The BC Review, The Seaboard Review, The Hart House Review, The Trinity Review, and The Temz Review.

Selena was the recipient of the 2023 Norma Epstein Foundation Award for Creative Writing and a finalist in the Hart House Poetry Contest. She will begin the University of Guelph’s MFA program in Creative Writing in the fall. Selena is a publicist with River Street and a social media associate at The Rights Factory.

Ioana Mirodonie is a poet and speculative writer from Romania. This is her first published work.

Qudus Olowo is a Nigerian poet, rapper, singer, and songwriter. He is the Founding Editor of Afrihill Press and currently an Editorial Intern at Another Chicago Magazine. Most of his works have appeared or are forthcoming in Lolwe, Funicular magazine, Sunlight Press, Pena Litmag, Consequence Forum, Poetry Column NND, and elsewhere. He made the longlist of the Brigitte Poirson Literature Prize 2024. He also served as a mentor at the SprinNG Writing Fellowship from 2022 to 2024. He is the author of the micro-chapbook Making Love by the Waterside (Afrihill Press, 2023). You can reach him via twitter @iamBlackpoet and on Instagram @iamblackpoet

Devon Rae is a queer writer from Montreal, QC who now lives in Vancouver, BC. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Arc Poetry Magazine, Canthius, PRISM International, Room, Plenitude, The New Quarterly, and elsewhere. She is the author of the poetry chapbook Thirteen Conversations with My Body (Anstruther Press, 2024).

Mira Singer has been making up stories since before she can remember. She spent her childhood in New England sword fighting with friends and searching for magic, and currently roosts in a treehouse in the wilds of Yonkers. Previous fiction publications include "The World is Raining" and "They Live So Little and They Die So Fast" in Flash Fiction Magazine. She has a BA in Storytelling from Vassar and two MFAs in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence and Pine Manor. You can find more about her writing at https://dragonsathenaeum.weebly.com/

Austin Thornton is a diviner of refined sentimentalism, a modern metaphysical, a possible human, and the winner of several scholarships and awards, such as Oregon State University’s 2023 WIC Award and 2025 Provost Prize. Poetry, nonfiction, and fiction from this author are featured or forthcoming in Gleam, About Place, PRISM, and elsewhere. A novel is in progress, but more short stories and poems will be procrastinated with.

Nicole Yurcaba (Нікола Юрцаба) is a Ukrainian American of Hutsul/Lemko origin. Her poems and reviews have appeared in Appalachian Heritage, Atlanta Review, Seneca Review, New Eastern Europe, and Ukraine’s Euromaidan Press, Lit Gazeta, Chytomo, Bukvoid, and The New Voice of Ukraine. Nicole holds an MFA in Writing from Lindenwood University, teaches poetry workshops for Southern New Hampshire University, and is the Humanities Coordinator at Blue Ridge Community and Technical College. She also serves as a guest book reviewer for Sage Cigarettes, Tupelo Quarterly, Colorado Review, and Southern Review of Books. Her poetry collection, The Pale Goth, is available from Alien Buddha Press.

J. Y. Zhang codes by day, writes by night, and doom-scrolls Reddit in the hours between. Their fiction has previously appeared in Heartlines Spec. They grew up by the Detroit River, among grasshoppers.