LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
j tate barlow lives near a river, and walks a lot. Her poems can be found in The New Quarterly, The Quarantine Review, Grain, EVENT, The Dalhousie Review, The Eastern Iowa Review, Vallum Magazine (First Place poem 2020), and other pages.
Daniel Bourne’s books of poetry include The Household Gods (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 1995), Where No One Spoke the Language (CustomWords, 2006), and Talking Back to the Exterminator, Regal House, 2024). His poems have also appeared in Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, Boulevard, Guernica, Conduit, Salmagundi, Crab Orchard Review, Rhino, Shenandoah, Prairie Schooner, Field, Michigan Quarterly Review, Plume, Yale Review, and others. Founding editor of Artful Dodge, and translation editor of its online successor The Dodge, since 1980 he also sometimes lived in Poland, including in 1985-87 on a Fulbright for the translation of younger Polish poets. A collection of his translations of Polish poet Bronisław Maj, The Extinction of the Holy City, has just been published in May 2024 by Free Verse Editions/Parlor Press, and his translations of Maj and other Polish writers have appeared in Field, Colorado Review, Partisan Review, Plume, Salmagundi, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Antigonish Review, Nimrod, and Prairie Schooner.
Irish poet, doctoral candidate, and journalist, Oisín Breen, a multiple Best of the Net nominee and Erbacce Prize finalist, is published in 117 journals in 22 countries, including in Agenda, North Dakota Quarterly, Books Ireland, Door is a Jar, Northern Gravy, Quadrant, Decomp, and The Tahoma Literary Review. Breen’s widely reviewed and highly praised second collection, Lilies on the Deathbed of Étaín, a Scotsman poetry book of the year, 2023, has just be reissued by Downingfield (Nov. 20). It follows Breen’s critically well-received debut, Flowers, All Sorts, in Blossom, Figs, Berries, and Fruits Forgotten (Dreich, 2020). Breen’s third collection, The Kergyma, is slated for release in 2025 (Salmon).
Salvatore Difalco writes from Toronto, Canada.
Olivier Faivre is a French expatriate living in the Netherlands. A physicist by training, he is currently pursuing an MA in Creative Writing at the Open University. He reads and writes in French, German, Dutch, Spanish and English.
Atma Frans lives in Gibsons, B.C. on the beautiful, unceded territory of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh people. Her poetry has won awards and has been published in Arc Poetry Magazine, CV2, TNQ, Prairie Fire Magazine and Lighthouse Literary Journal among others. In her writing, Atma searches for the voice beneath her personas: woman, mother, designer, trauma survivor, queer, author.
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 or is forthcoming in Palette Poetry, The /temz/ Review, Poetry Online, and elsewhere. Connect with them online @cheerupjulien.
Poet, performer and playwright Penn Kemp has long been a keen participant/activist in Canada’s cultural life, with thirty+ books of poetry, prose and drama; seven plays and ten CDs produced as well as award-winning videopoems. Recent publications are Poems in Response to Peril: an anthology for Ukraine, and Intent on Flowering, Rose Garden Press. Penn’s new collection, Incrementally, is up as e-book and album on https://www.hempressbooks.com/authors/penn-kemp. Delighting in multimedia, Penn is active across the web. Updates are on www.pennkemp.weebly.com, www.pennkemp.wordpress.com and www.pennkemp.substack.com.
Laurie Koensgen lives and writes in Ottawa, Canada. Her poetry appears internationally in journals, anthologies and online magazines. Recent publishers include Stone Circle Review, Literary Review of Canada, The Madrigal, DarkWinter Literary Magazine, and Rust and Moth. Laurie’s latest chapbook, Small Psalms for Moving On, is with Pinhole Poetry.
Sara Krahn is a writer from Winnipeg, Manitoba. She is currently based in Saskatoon, where she is working on a novel and completing an MFA in Writing at the University of Saskatchewan. Sara’s work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Quagmire Literary Magazine, Stone Poetry Quarterly, The Literary Review of Canada, The Fieldstone Review, The Conrad Grebel Review, and elsewhere.
Grace Kwan is a Malaysian-born sociologist and writer based in “Vancouver,” the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations. A Best New Poets 2024 nominee, their recent poetry appears in Canthius, Room Magazine, and others. Their first full-length book is forthcoming in 2024 from Metonymy Press. Find them at grckwn.com.
Julieanne Larick is a poet from Ohio. She is a poetry editor for GASHER Press, prose editor for jmww Journal, and social media assistant for The Dodge. In 2023, she attended the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference and a SAFTA Residency. Julieanne has poems in perhappened mag, Eunoia Review, Kissing Dynamite, and more. Find her work at http://www.julielarickwriting.com
Francesca Leader is a writer and artist originally from Western Montana. Her poetry and flash CNF have been published in Hooligan, Club Plum, Identity Theory, Sho Poetry, Door is a Jar, Stanchion, Literary Mama, Poetry New Zealand, and elsewhere. Her debut poetry chapbook, Like Wine or Like Pain, is now available from Bottlecap Press. (https://bottlecap.press/products/likewine)
Kathryn MacDonald’s poems have appeared in literary journals in Canada, the U.S., Ireland, and England, as well as in various anthologies. Her poem “Duty / Deon” won Arc Award of Awesomeness (January 2021). “Seduction” was entered in the Freefall Annual Poetry Contest edited by Gary Barwin and was published in Freefall (Fall 2020). She is the author of Far Side of the Shadow Moon: Enchantments, A Breeze You Whisper (poems) and Calla & Édourd (fiction). Please see https://kathrynmacdonald.com for details.
Victoria Mbabazi is currently Canadian in Brooklyn, New York. victoriambabazi.ca
Nathaniel G. Moore is non-performing stand up comic and artist living on stolen land somewhere in Atlantic Canada. He has published books of fiction and poetry to moderate acclaim for someone writing at the skill level he writes at for his age and weight. He fondly recalls going to malls with his maternal grandmother Thelma, who passed away when Nirvana was at its peak, about a year before “In Utero” was released.
Josiah Nelson holds an MFA from the University of Saskatchewan, where he teaches creative writing. His work has appeared (or is forthcoming) in Contemporary Verse 2, Grain, Hunger Mountain, The Nashwaak Review, Palette Poetry, Queen’s Quarterly, and The Rumpus, among others. He won third place in Fractured Lit’s Monsters, Mystery, and Mayhem Prize, and has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. He lives in Saskatoon, Canada.
Christine C. Rivero-Guisinga works for a humanitarian organization. A member of the SEA Lit Circle, she maintains an informal gallery of amateur photography and short poetry inspired by the haiku form on IG @storyseamstress
Michael Russell (he/they) is the queer, mad mother monster behind two chapbooks, gallery of heartache (forthcoming from 845 Press) and Grindr Opera (Frog Hollow Press). They are the coauthor of chapbook Split Jawed with Elena Bentley (forthcoming from Collusion Books). He has a heart full of rainbows, unicorns and chocolate chip pancakes and they want the best for you. Insta: @michael.russell.poet
Wenda Salomons has been making pinhole photographs since the late 1980s when she was first seduced by the process and results. Recently she's been using an altered DSLR camera to make images that explore the temporal and spiritual in mostly natural subjects. You can find her current work on Instagram @theessencetells.
Kevin Spenst is the author of sixteen chapbooks and three full-length books of poetry plus his newest collection A Bouquet Brought Back from Space (Anvil Press, 2024). He is one of the organizers of the Dead Poets Reading Series, has a chapbook review column for subTerrain magazine, occasionally co-hosts Wax Poetic on Vancouver Co-op Radio, and teaches poetry at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver on unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) territory where he cohabitates with the one and only Cheryl Rossi.
Adam Spiegelman is a NY based writer. His work has appeared in the Evergreen Review, Adroit Journal, and Grand Journal, among others.
Emily A. Taylor is a writer based in London, England.
Matt Thomas is a smallholder farmer, engineer, and Pushcart nominated poet. His work has appeared recently in Copihue Poetry and Hiram Review and is upcoming in Dreich Magazine and Halfway Down the Stairs. Disappearing by the Math, a full-length collection, was published by Silver Bow in 2024. He lives with his family in the Blue Ridge foothills of Virginia.
Paula Turcotte loves your dog, her dog, and Raisin Bran. She is the author of the chapbook Permutations (Baseline Press, 2024). Her work has been published in Canthius, PRISM international, Arc Poetry, and elsewhere, and she was the 2023 People's Choice winner in CV2's 2-Day Poetry Contest. Paula is a poetry editor at MAYDAY. She lives in Moh'kins'stis (Calgary).
Brett Warren (she/her) is a long-time editor and the author of The Map of Unseen Things (Pine Row Press, 2023). Her poetry has appeared in Canary, Halfway Down the Stairs, Harbor Review, Hole in the Head Review, ONE ART, Rise Up Review, SWWIM Every Day, and other literary publications. A triple nominee for Best of the Net (Poetry, 2023), she lives in a house surrounded by pitch pine and black oak trees—nighttime roosts of wild turkeys, who sometimes use the roof of her writing attic as a runway. www.brettwarrenpoetry.com
Dave Wise struggled with talking as a kid so non-verbal communication became his focus. His first foray into the darkroom came at 3 years old. He left school at 16 and, unable to settle into regular employment, hitchhiked to France with the aim of joining the French Foreign Legion. He’s since wandered through over 80 countries, documenting his experiences using a variety of means including pinhole photography, film, poetry, and prose. His photos have featured in over 30 exhibitions, and his work has appeared in the same amount of books. In 1999 he founded the Medway art collective Dilute To Taste, and in 2002 created Urban Fox Press with Billy Childish, which published over 50 books by Medway creatives. From 2004 to 2006 he organized the Medway Independent Arts Festival with Zara Carpenter. In 2008 he founded Hakim & Slater Press, which continues to this day. Dave worked as a sports and travel journalist before emigrating to Canada in 2015. He enjoys marathons, and has won the 24 hour Canadian running Championships a couple of times. Running-induced vulnerability, as well as yogic breathing and the lowering of energy, plays a part in his creative process. He began painting in 2021 and had his first exhibition in this medium in May 2022 in New York State.
Susan Wismer (she/they) is a queer poet who is grateful to live on Treaty 18 territory at the southern shore of Manidoo-gitchigami (Georgian Bay) in Ontario, Canada with two human partners and a very large dog. Recent work has been published in MsLexia, The Goose, The Book of Night (ed. Lorna Crozier), Poetry Plans (Bell Press) and Poets in Response to Peril (eds. Penn Kemp, Richard Sitoski). Susan’s book Hag Dances is coming out with At Bay Press in Spring 2025. www.susanwismer.com
Rebecca Wood is an emerging writer from Toronto and their work often explores my experience living with multiple chronic illnesses and episodic disability. Their creative non-fiction and poetry has been published in Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature, Corporeal, Wishbone Words and The Blood Project.