Issue 34 Contributors

​Agboola Tariq A. is a poet, editor, and a final year student of law at the University of Ibadan. He has his works in various prestigious magazines, including Lucent Dreaming, Aké Review, ANMLY, Magma Poetry, Poetry Column NND, South Florida Poetry Journal, Olumo Review, Brigitte Poirson Poetry Prize Anthology, Variety Pack, tableFEAST mag, Eunoia Review, The Poetry Journal, and many others. He is currently co-judging the Blessing Kolajo Poetry Prize 2025 as winner of the prize in 2024.

​Alma Ariaz (she/her) is a writer from Toronto, Ontario. She works as a freelance copyeditor and a social media manager for Arrival Magazine, Humber Polytechnic’s student-led literary magazine. Her current projects include a science-fiction novel and a collection of visual, mixed-media erasure poems. Her short stories and poetry have been published in literary journals online, including Writers Resist, 50-Word Stories, Mulberry Literary, and Ink in Thirds. You can find her on Instagram via @soulscrambling. 

​Maung Htike Aung is a Burma-based poet, literary translator and educator. His poems and translations are forthcoming and have appeared in Portside Review, Wasafiri, Volume Poetry, The /tƐmz/ Review, Mekong Review, Consequence Forum, Prudence Dispatch, and SUSPECT.

​Jessica Bakar (she/her) is from Northern California and lives in Tiohti:áke/Montréal.

​Khushi Bajaj (she/her) is a multilingual poet and writer from Lucknow, India. Her work has previously been published by Penguin Random House, The Bombay Literary Magazine, Feminism in India, and more. She has won the international Briefly Write Poetry Prize, and been highly commended for the Disabled Poets Prize and the erbacce-prize. Her debut chapbook ‘The Girl Who Ate Words’ is forthcoming with Parlyaree Press. She is passionate about intersectional feminist politics, supporting local communities, and radical kindness.

​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 taught in Ontario after studying to become a teacher with a focus on First Nations Education: B.A./Laurentian U.; B.Ed/U of T; M.Ed/York U; and D.Ed/UBC. She received a Certificate in Magazine Journalism from Ryerson U and is an alumni of Humber College’s Writing Program. Sharon founded and operated the international literary E-Zine Big Pond Rumours (2006-2019) and its associated press, releasing chapbooks of Canadian poets as prizes for the magazine’s contests. Her poetry appears as full books with Borealis, Coach House, and Cyberwit, and she has four chapbooks with BPR Press. Sharon’s short fiction is with Porcupine’s Quill, and her nonfiction appears with BPR Press. Her writing appears across Canada, the USA, Mexico, Chile, England, Wales, Netherlands, Germany, Siberia, Romania, India, Persia, Singapore, and Australia. Her 3rd poetry collection Stars in the Junkyard was a Finalist in the 2022 International Book Awards, and her narrative history The Name Unspoken: Wandering Spirit Survival School 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. 

​Asa B. Brooks is a disabled nonbinary poet who lives somewhere in a forest in the remote New England wilderness. Their work has been published or is forthcoming in Larina’s Lit Lounge, Up North Lit, and Wild Hyacinth Magazine.

​Jenny Chu writes from Dallas, Texas. Her work is forthcoming from or appears in Pithead Chapel, The Shore, and Gone Lawn, and she is editor-in-chief of two literary magazines and reads poetry for Okay Donkey. She really loves Swedish Fish.

​Hannah Bel Davis is a writer and illustrator living, writing, and creating on the unceded and unsurrendered land of the Halkomelem-speaking peoples, also known as New Westminster, BC. She has an MA in Creative writing from Concordia University and a BFA in Film & English with Certificate in Creative Writing from Simon Fraser University. Her work has been published in The /t3mz/ Review, People Department Magazine, WordWorks, and Font Magazine. Her personal essay “New Knees” was shortlisted for the 2024 FBCW Contest for Creative Nonfiction. She was the 2025 Wallace Stegner House February Writer-in-Residence.

​Amanda Earl (she/her) is a working writer, editor, publisher, reviewer, and visual poet who writes on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg Peoples. Earl is grateful for funding received from the City of Ottawa to work on her manuscript of winter sequences. Earl is the managing editor of Bywords.ca and the editor of Judith: Women Making Visual Poetry.  Please visit AmandaEarl.com for more information or subscribe to Amanda Thru the Looking Glass for musings on finding joy in difficult times.

​Chance Freihaut holds a BA in writing and philosophy from the University of Victoria. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in This Side of West, The Imagist, The Letter Review, L'Esprit Literary Review, and PRISM international as the winner of the 2024 Grouse Grind Lit Prize for V. Short Forms. His work has also been shortlisted for awards including The Writer’s Union of Canada Short Prose Competition, Exile Quarterly’s Best Canadian Short Story, and the Malahat Review Open Season award for creative nonfiction. He lives on Vancouver Island.

​Hannah Gardiner is a writer and cultural organizer from Kitchener, Ontario. She has a master’s degree in literary studies from the University of Waterloo, where she was thrice awarded the Beltz Essay Prize. Her writing and translation projects have been supported by Canada Council for the Arts, the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund, the Brubacher House Museum, and the Mennonite Historical Society of Ontario.

Arismita Ghosh is a freelance journalist, writer, and editor based in Montreal. Their work, which focuses on arts and culture, has appeared in The Indian Express, The McGill Daily, Forget The Box, and more. They specialise in feature writing, from theatre and book reviews to in-depth artist profiles, and are interested in highlighting stories from Montreal’s creative scene that are often overlooked.
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They hold a BA in Honours English Literature from McGill University, where they served as an editor at multiple magazines. They're currently working as a Coordinator at Arts East-West, a non-profit media arts organisation that platforms Asian artists. You can find them on LinkedIn or contact them via email.

​Kimberley Gilmour has written reviews for ARIEL, FreeFall Magazine, The Windsor Star, The Antigonish Review, The T3MZ Review, and elsewhere in Canada. She has a degree with Honours in Gender Studies and Philosophy from Trent University. She has a B.Ed from The University of Windsor, and an English Literature B.A. from Trent University. She is currently reviewing novels by Amanda Leduc and Meg Todd.

​Rebecca Gross is a writer, educator, and PhD candidate at UC Santa Cruz in the Literature and Critical Race & Ethnic Studies departments. Her research focuses on contemporary Jewish anti-Zionist writing and art, with specific attention to how the current cultural movement draws on previous iterations of diasporic internationalism. 

​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 released this summer 2025. You can find her on Instagram: @salma_h_writes.

​Mitch James is a Professor of Composition and Literature at Lakeland Community College in Kirtland, OH, the Editor-at-Large at Great Lakes Review, and the owner of The Write Methods (LLC), where he facilitates therapeutic and creative writing workshops to guide others in experiencing the transformative power of the written word. Mitch is the author of the novels Seldom Seen: A Miner’s Tale (Sunbury Press), and Young Men, Cry (forthcoming from Cornerstone Press), and was a finalist for the 2024 SmokeLong Quarterly Grand Micro and 2025 Blue Frog Flash Fiction Contests. He’s published works across the genres of short/flash/micro fiction, poetry, and academic scholarship. You can find his latest fiction in Lost Balloon, Bending Genres, and SmokeLong Quarterly, his poetry at Sheila-Na-Gig, and his scholarship at the Journal of Creative Writing Studies and New Writing: The International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing. Keep up with Mitch at mitchjamesauthor.com and @mitchjamesauthor.bsky.social.

​Tyler Lee is a writer, poet, and hip-hop artist. His short fiction has been accepted for publication in Grain Magazine, Radon Journal, Neon & Smoke, and foofaraw. Tyler lives in Saskatoon, where he owns a completely normal amount of sneakers, and definitely isn't on a first-name basis with the staff of his neighbourhood burrito spot.

​Michael Lithgow’s poetry, essays and short stories have appeared in Canadian and international journals, including TNQ, Literary Review of Canada, Fiddlehead, The Brussels Review, Canadian Literature, and Topia. His second collection of poetry was published in 2021, by Cormorant Books. He teaches at Athabasca University.

Kathryn MacDonald’s poems have appeared in literary magazines and anthologies in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Ireland and India. Her reviews have also been published in journals across Canada and on her website (https://kathrynmacdonald.com). Her newest poetry collection, The Blue Gate, will be published by Frontenac Press, Spring 2026. She is a co-author of Liminal Spaces (Glentula Press, 2025) and is the author of Far Side of the Shadow Moon (Glentula Press, 2024), A Breeze You Whisper: Poems (HBP, 2011), and Calla & Édourd (fiction, HBP, 2009).

​Juls Macdonell studies and works on W̱SÁNEĆ and lək̓ʷəŋən lands. He received the 2025 Lorna Crozier Scholarship for Poetry and the 2025 Philip Pickering Award for Poetry at the University of Victoria. Her work is found in or forthcoming in Prairie Fire, Contemporary Verse 2, HAD, and more. 

Sumaiya Matin wears many hats as a writer, social worker, educator and public policy professional. She holds a Master of Social Work and is currently working toward her Master of Fine Arts (in Creative Writing) at the University of British Columbia. She is the author of a literary memoir titled The Shaytan Bride: A Bangladeshi Canadian Memoir of Desire and Faith (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2021) and a forthcoming children’s picture book. She lives in amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton) but you can also find her online at @sumaiya.matin on Instagram or www.sumaiyamatin.com

Steven Mayoff is a Canadian novelist, poet and lyricist living in rural Prince Edward Island. His fiction, poetry, essays and reviews have appeared in literary journals and blogs across Canada, the U.S. and abroad. His most recent book is the revised edition of his poetry collection, Swinging Between Water and Stone (Galleon Books, 2025). His website is www.stevenmayoff.ca

​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.

​Neil McClelland is a visual artist who has had solo and group exhibitions across Canada. Originally from the Gatineau Hills, Quebec, he divides his time between Edmonton, Alberta and Victoria, British Columbia. Neil has been previously published in Arc Poetry Magazine.  

​Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa, where he is home full-time with the two wee girls he shares with Christine McNair. The author of some fifty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, his most recent titles include On Beauty: stories (University of Alberta Press, 2024), the poetry collections the book of sentences (University of Calgary Press, 2025) and edgeless (Caitlin Press, 2026), and the anthology groundworks: the best of the third decade of above/ground press 2013-2023 (Invisible Publishing, 2023). The current Artistic Director of VERSeFest: Ottawa’s International Poetry Festival, he spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta.

​Maria Meindl is the author of a memoir, Outside the Box, a novel, The Work, and many short fiction and non-fiction pieces, including in The Temz Review. In 2005, she founded the Draft Reading Series, which is still going strong after 20 years. She teaches Feldenkrais movement classes, and runs a webinar series called The Work, Straight Talk on Craft and Method, about the history of wellness, fitness and performer-training methods.

Jérôme Melançon writes and teaches and writes and lives in oskana kâ-asastêki / Regina, SK. His fourth collection, Prairial·es, is now out with Prise de parole. It follows his three chapbooks with above/ground press: Bridges Under the Water (2023), Tomorrow’s Going to Be Bright (2022), and Coup (2020), his occasional translations, and his book of philosophy, La politique dans l’adversité (Metispresses, 2018). He has edited books and journal issues, and keeps publishing academic articles that often have to do with colonialism and the attempts we make to disentangle ourselves from it. He is on various social media under variations of @lethejerome, notably at bsky.social.

​Caleb Merritt is an artist living and working in the Treasure Valley.

​Gloria Ogo is an American-based Nigerian writer with several published novels and poetry collections. Her work has appeared in Eye to the Telescope, Brittle Paper, Spillwords Press, Metastellar, Gypsophila Magazine, Harpy Hybrid Review, Allegro Poetry Magazine, among others. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and serves as a reader for Reckoning Magazine.

She is the winner of the 2024 Brigitte Poirson Literature Prize and a finalist for the 2024 Jerri Dickseski Fiction Prize, the 2025 ODU Poetry Prize, and the 2025 Rhonda Gail Williford Poetry Prize, earning honorable mentions. She is also a finalist for Lucky Jefferson’s 2025 Poetry Contest. Her work was longlisted for the 2025 American Short(er) Fiction Prize. https://glriaogo.wixsite.com/gloria-ogo

​Christine C. Rivero-Guisinga works for a humanitarian organization. A SEA Lit Circle member, her writing has appeared in Pinhole Poetry, the After Happy Hour Review, The Ex-Puritan, and most recently in Full House Literary. Her piece in Briefly Write received the publication’s 2024 Poetry Prize. She shares travel photos and short poems inspired by the haiku form on Instagram @storyseamstress.

​Ferdoss Shaarani is a Lebanese writer. She resides in Baton Rouge while pursuing her PhD in literature at Louisiana State University. Her research interests include memoir studies, affect theory, trauma theory, and of course, love. Her work appears or is forthcoming in TAMARIND and elsewhere.

​E.S. Taillon is a queer, neurodivergent writer based in Tkaronto and former managing editor at PRISM Magazine. Their French-to-English translation of Scenes from the Underground was shortlisted for the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers. She is currently crocheting new covers for some worn-out chairs.

Issra Tobah (she/her) is an Egyptian-Canadian poet based in London, Ontario. Her work has also appeared in Ghost City Press. 

​Costantino Toth is a 1st-gen immigrant, researcher, warehouse worker, and writer. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Epiphany, The Good Life Review, The Rumpus, and Two Thirds North. She currently pursues her M.A. in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology at the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, and is finishing up her first chapbook, ‘La Selva di Circe.’

​Daniel Scott Tysdal is a writer, filmmaker, and teacher. His works include The End Is in the Middle: Mad Fold-In Poems (icehouse), the short story collection Wave Forms and Doom Scrolls (Wolsak & Wynn), and the TEDx talk, “Everything You Need to Write a Poem (and How It Can Save a Life).” He is a Professor, Teaching Stream, at the University of Toronto Scarborough, and a pro wrestling trainee at Superkick’d Studios.

​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.