Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, writer, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His first collection of poems, The Crown Ain’t Worth Much, was released by Button Poetry in 2016. His first essay collection, They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was released from Two Dollar Radio in November.
Originally from central Pennsylvania, Allison Adair now lives in Boston, where she teaches at Boston College and Grub Street. Her recent poems appear in American Poetry Review, Best New Poets, Boston Review, Minnesota Review, Poet Lore, Southeast Review, and Subtropics. Her work has won the Fineline Competition from Mid-American Review, the AROHO Orlando Prize, and this year’s Florida Review Editors’ Award.
Faizan Adil is a documentary and conceptual photographer based in Lahore, Pakistan. In 2015, he graduated in journalism from Beaconhouse National University, Pakistan. Currently, he is undertaking a photography fellowship at the Pakistan Photo Festival. His photographic expression derives life as a chapter of isolation, intertwined with hope, yet poetically distressed in the embrace of reality. He is interested in working to understand the concealed eminence of integrated nature developed by the society.
Kristen N. Arnett is a queer fiction and essay writer and author of the short fiction collection Felt in the Jaw. Winner of the Ninth Letter’s 2015 Literary Award in Fiction, her work has been featured in North American Review, The Normal School, Gulf Coast, TriQuarterly, Electric Literature, Literary Hub, Volume 1 Brooklyn, Catapult, Tin House Flash Fridays/The Guardian, Salon, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. Find her on twitter: @Kristen_Arnett.
Susan McGee Bailey directed the Wellesley Centers for Women for 25 years before retiring to study creative nonfiction at Grub Street in Boston. Her work has appeared in MS Magazine, The Boston Globe and on the Brevity Blog. This is her first publication in a literary journal.
Judith Barrington’s Lifesaving: A Memoir was the winner of the Lambda Book Award and a finalist for the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for the Art of the Memoir. She is also the author of the best-selling Writing the Memoir: From Truth to Art and four collections of poetry. Her fifth poetry book, Long Love: New and Selected Poems, will be published by Salmon Poetry in the spring of 2018. She has been a faculty member of the University of Alaska’s low-residency MFA Program and teaches workshops around the U.S. and in Britain. More at: www.judithbarrington.com
Jensen Beach is the author of two collections of short fiction, most recently Swallowed by the Cold, winner of the 2017 Vermont Book Award. His stories have appeared in A Public Space, The Paris Review, and the New Yorker. He lives in Vermont.
Chris Boyko is an Atlanta-based artist known for surrealistic paintings using automatic techniques. He graduated from Kennesaw State University in the fall of 2014 receiving a B.F.A. in Visual Art. He has participated in multiple exhibitions, some of which include Codes of Faith at Laura I. Gallery in London and Galactic Pleasures at The Studio Door in San Diego.
Born and raised in New Orleans, John Gregory Brown is the author of the novels Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery; The Wrecked, Blessed Body of Shelton Lafleur; Audubon’s Watch; and, most recently, A Thousand Miles from Nowhere. His honors include a Lyndhurst Prize, the Lillian Smith Award, the John Steinbeck Award, a Howard Foundation fellowship, the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Book of the Year Award, and the Library of Virginia Book Award. He is the Julia Jackson Nichols Professor of English at Sweet Briar College in Virginia, where he lives with his wife, the novelist Carrie Brown. His visual art has been presented in individual and group exhibitions in Virginia and can be found online at https://www.instagram.com/john.gregory.brown
John F. Buckley lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan with his wife. His publications include various poems, two chapbooks, the collection Sky Sandwiches, and with Martin Ott, Poets’ Guide to America and Yankee Broadcast Network. His website is http://johnfbuckley.net/. He is the fiction editor for the journal Third Wednesday.
Vivian Chen is a Taiwanese American from Taipei and Portland, Oregon currently residing in Slovenia. As a freelance illustrator, she focuses on conveying emotions and the underlying narrative of each piece, in hopes to find a visceral connection with the audience. Vivian works primarily in traditional mediums such as watercolor, acrylic, pen and graphite, and secondarily uses Adobe Photoshop to create and refine my work digitally.
Hannah Craig lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She is the author of This History that Just Happened (Parlor Press, 2017). Her work has recently appeared in journals like the Mid-American Review, North American Review, and Copper Nickel. She was the winner of the 2015 New Measure Poetry Prize and the 2016 Mississippi Review Poetry Prize.
John Paul Gardner is an internationally exhibited award winning artist currently living and working in New York and Nebraska. His works range from immense installations to intimate works with paper. Gardner is currently an Assistant Professor of Visual Arts and Gallery Director at Peru State College.
Richard L. Gegick is from Trafford, PA. His poems and stories have appeared in Hot Metal Bridge, Jenny Magazine, Burrow Press Review, Poetry Breakfast, and Chiron Review among numerous other publications.
Beth Gilstrap is the author of I Am Barbarella: Stories (2015) from Twelve Winters Press and No Man’s Wild Laura (2016) from Hyacinth Girl Press. She works as Fiction Editor over at Little Fiction | Big Truths. Her work has been selected as Longform.org’s Fiction Pick of the Week, nominated for storySouth’s Million Writers Award, Best of the Net, and The Pushcart Prize. Her work has appeared in Re:AL, Queen Mob’s Teahouse, The Minnesota Review, Literary Orphans, and Little Patuxent Review, among others.
Ben Gwin is the author of the forthcoming novel, Clean Time: The True Story of Ronald Reagan Middleton (Burrow Press, 2018). His work has appeared in The Normal School, Mary: A Journal of New Writing, Belt Magazine, and others. He lives in Pittsburgh with his daughter.
Tony Hoagland is the winner of the Jackson Poetry Prize, as well as the James Laughlin Prize, and the Mark Twain Award, given by the Poetry Foundation in recognition of a poet’s contribution to humor in American poetry. His newest/forthcoming collections of poems are Recent Changes in the Vernacular (2017) from Tres Chicas Press, and Priest Turned Therapist Treats Fear of God (2018) from Graywolf Press. He teaches at the University of Houston. He is at work on a third collection of craft essays.
j4 is a collective of four persons, all given names beginning with j, who are compelled to explore transindividual composition. We operate using a sort of distributed model of aesthetic production and evaluation. Are we at http://j4work.tumblr.com/?
T.C. Jones is the managing editor of Gulf Stream Magazine. His work has appeared in Green Mountains Review, Pacifica Literary Review, Dos Passos Review, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, and others.
Rollin Jewett is an award winning playwright, screenwriter, singer/songwriter, poet, author and photographer. His screenwriting credits include “Laws of Deception” and “American Vampire”. His short stories and poetry have been published in numerous literary magazines and anthologies and his plays have been produced all over the world. An avid photographer, his photo-art has been seen in several online and print magazines. Mr. Jewett has obviously still not decided what he wants to be when he grows up.
Tara Kaprowy is a fiction writer living in Somerset, Ky., and a native of Manitoba, Canada. She has had work accepted in North Dakota Quarterly, Straylight Literary Magazine, and Toasted Cheese Literary Journal.
Jason Katz is a writer and Miami, Florida local. His work has appeared in The Miami Rail, Miami Magazine, Community Newspapers, and The Seminole Tribune. He is currently a student in Florida International University’s MFA program and an associate editor of Gulf Stream Literary Magazine.
Sam Leon is an MFA candidate in poetry at Florida International University where she holds a teaching assistantship and helps organize the Writers on the Bay reading series. She is an Associate Editor for Gulf Stream Magazine, for which she also writes book reviews and conducts author interviews. Sam earned her BA in English Writing from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, where she was a two-time recipient of the Carroll Creative Writing Scholarship.
Ginny Levy is co-founder and editor-in-chief of Lime Hawk and producer of the award-winning documentary Cold Storage. She holds an MFA in creative nonfiction and fiction writing from Chatham University in Pittsburgh and formerly served as assistant editor for the international literary magazine Creative Nonfiction. She lives with her husband in a pre-revolutionary cottage on the edge of an abandoned quarry in Redding, CT.
Jennifer Litt is the sole proprietor of Jennifer Litt Writing Services (www.jenniferlitt.com) and taught writing at the Rochester Institute of Technology and SUNY Brockport. Jennifer’s work has appeared in several anthologies, journals and magazines, including Lumina, Mixed Fruit, Naugatuck River Review, nycBigCityLit and Stone Canoe. She is the author of the chapbook, Maximum Speed through Zero, published in 2016 by Blue Lyra Press in its Delphi Series, Volume 2. She lives in Fort Lauderdale.
Jayne Marek’s poetry collections are Company of Women: New and Selected Poems (co-authored with Lylanne Musselman and Mary Sexson, 2013), Imposition of Form on the Natural World (2013), Why Horses? (2017), and In and Out of Rough Water (2017), with another full-length book, The Tree Surgeon Dreams of Bowling, due in early 2018. Her poems and art photos appear in publications such as The Cortland Review, Raven Chronicles, Spillway, Amsterdam Quarterly, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Sin Fronteras/Writers Without Borders, Notre Dame Review, 3Elements, Watershed Review, Sliver of Stone, Camas, and elsewhere. She has provided color cover art for Silk Road, Bombay Gin, and The Bend. She was a finalist for the Ex Ophidia Press Poetry Prize, the David Martinson–Meadowhawk Prize, and the Ryan R. Gibbs Photography Contest; she has received two Pushcart Prize nominations.
Anna Martin is a visual artist and writer, native to Baltimore, Maryland, and currently based out of Salt Lake City, Utah. She is an avid explorer and much of her artwork is inspired by her travels and life experiences, and she strives to capture emotions and inspire others through her work. Her work has been previously exhibited in various galleries and museums, such as the Rosenberg Gallery, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and A.I.R. Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. She has also been published in various art magazines such as Grub Street, Litro, Green Writer’s Press, and Plenilune Magazine. Anna also frequently works under the pseudonym Vacantia, and more of her work can be found at her online gallery: http://www.vacantia.org.
Bryan Meador is an artist from Oklahoma currently living in the Catskill Mountains. His work investigates the mutations inherent in digital photography.
Freesia McKee is author of the chapbook How Distant the City from Headmistress Press. Her words have appeared in cream city review, The Feminist Wire, Painted Bride Quarterly, Gertrude, Huffington Post, and Sundress Press’s anthology Political Punch: Contemporary Poems on the Politics of Identity. She has performed poetry in bookstores, prisons, classrooms, summer camps, arts groups, and youth programs. Freesia lives in North Miami.
Carolyn Oliver’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in the Greensboro Review, Calamus Journal, Tar River Poetry, Frontier Poetry, and elsewhere. A graduate of The Ohio State University and Boston University, she lives in Massachusetts with her family. Links to more of her writing can be found at carolynoliver.net.
Steven Ostrowski is a poet, fiction writer, painter and songwriter. His work appears widely in literary journals and anthologies, including The Madison Review, The American Journal of Poetry, Wisconsin Review, and Raritan. He is the author of three published chapbooks–two of poems and one of stories. Fourth and fifth chapbooks, poetry collaborations written with his son, Benjamin Ostrowski, will be published in 2018.
Noah Otten is a visual artist from Peoria, Illinois. He recently received a BFA degree in Studio Art from Bradley University.
Dominic Quintana is a native of Colorado, graduate of Colorado State University, and resident of Astoria, NY. He is an active visual artist and has exhibited throughout the United States. His work is engaged with the concepts of narrative, the evidence of the world, desire, memory, and the resonance that exists between forms of communication. He is also a writer, with a story forthcoming in the journal Hotel Amerika. His artwork can be found at www.dominicquintana.com
David Rodríguez is from Spain and considers himself a lover of photography. He loves surreal photography and fashion photography. His main influences are Man Ray, Erwin Blumenfeld and above all Guy Bourdin. His last proyect is “Fresh II” (2017). In this series, he wants to explore the relationship between human and water as we are made of it too. There´s a material and spiritual relation between us and this element. It is fascinating to observe this relationship, to see how they move, what they do, what they may be thinking or feeling.
Scott Silsbe was born in Detroit and grew up down the river from there. He now lives in Pittsburgh. His poems have appeared in numerous periodicals and have been collected in the three books: Unattended Fire (2012), The River Underneath the City (2013), and Muskrat Friday Dinner (2017). He is also an assistant editor at Low Ghost Press.
Steve Simmerman creates his work with mixed media—typically ink, watercolor, acrylic, and found text—as well as using digital tools like Illustrator and Photoshop. He has illustrated two children’s books, completed a graphic novel, and exhibited artwork in North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. Having earned an M.F.A. from the Savannah College of Art and Design, he is currently Associate Professor of Graphic Design at the University of Mount Olive. http://simmerman.wixsite.com/sksimmerman
George L Stein is a writer and photographer living in Michigan City in Northwest Indiana. George works in both film and digital formats in the urban decay, architecture, fetish, and street photography genres. His emphasis is on composition with the juxtaposition of beauty and decay lying at the center. Northwest Indiana’s rustbelt legacy provides ample locations for industrial backdrops. George has been published in Midwestern Gothic, Gravel, Foliate Oak, After Hours, Hoosier Lit, and Darkside Magazine.
Lily Starr is an eager student of poetry from Cecil County, Maryland. She earned a BA in English from Washington College in the spring of 2017 and is currently pursuing an MFA at Florida International University in Miami. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in South Florida Poetry Journal and The Journal.
Chris Urisini is a Brooklyn-based fine artist whose works bring forth the idea of primitive parts creating complex wholes by exploring the dichotomy of surface in depth via multi media. Ursini graduated with a BFA in Drawing from the prestigious Pratt Institute. His pieces have been exhibited in many galleries citywide, and he has been honored to accept awards from such institutions as the Pepco Edison Place Gallery in Washington, DC among others. Visit his website at www.christopherurisini.net
Cady Vishniac studies Yiddish at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. Her work is forthcoming in Glimmer Train, and has won the contests at New Letters, Mid-American Review, Greensboro Review, and Ninth Letter.
Sara Moore Wagner is a poet, a mother, a copy editor for Midwestern Gothic, and a part-time instructor at various universities in the Cincinnati area. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in many journals, including Gigantic Sequins, Stirring, Alyss, The Pittsburgh Poetry Review, The San Pedro River Review, Illuminations, Vine Leaves, and The Yellow Medicine Review, among others. Her chapbook, Hooked Through, was published by Five Oaks Press in 2017. She has also been nominated for a Pushcart prize. She has a deep love for folklore, cheap antiques, and Tori Amos. Find her at www.saramoorewagner.com.
Jim Warner’s poetry has appeared in various journals including The North American Review, RHINO Poetry, New South, and is the author of two collections (PaperKite Press). His latest book, actual miles, will be released in late 2017 by Sundress Publications. Jim is the host of the literary podcast Citizen Lit and is a faculty member of Arcadia University’s MFA program.
Keith S. Wilson is an Affrilachian Poet, Cave Canem fellow, and graduate of the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop. He has received three scholarships from Bread Loaf as well as scholarships from MacDowell, UCross, Millay Colony, and the Vermont Studio Center, among others. Keith serves as Assistant Poetry Editor at Four Way Review and Digital Media Editor at Obsidian Journal. Keith’s work has appeared or is appearing in the following journals: Poetry, Adroit Journal, Crab Orchard Review, Little A, Narrative, 32 Poems, Rhino, Muzzle, Blueshift Journal, and Vinyl. Additionally, he has won a Best of the Net Award, placed as runner up for the 2016 Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady Chapbook prize and runner up in the 2017 Split This Rock poetry contest, and have had poems nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Gulf Stream Magazine 