ISSUE NO. 20

NONFICTION

Kim Liao - her writing has appeared in Lit Hub, Catapult, The Rumpus, Salon, The Millions, River Teeth, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Another Chicago Magazine, Fringe, Brevity's Nonfiction Blog, Fourth River, and others. She received an MFA in Creative Nonfiction Writing from Emerson College, and teaches writing at Catapult, Gotham Writers' Workshop, and at Baruch and City Tech colleges. She is currently revising a family memoir about the Taiwanese Independence Movement.

Holly Werner-Thomas grew up in Portland, Oregon, and has lived in San Francisco, New York City, Washington, D.C., and abroad three times. She is a graduate of the Oral History Masters Program at Columbia University, where the Oral History Archives has recently accepted her collection, “The 40 Percent Project: An Oral History of Gun Violence in America,” an ongoing effort to capture stories of gun violence survivors. She is also a research historian, and previously worked as a reporter and editor.

Rachel Veroff has been published in Guernica, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Literary Hub, Catapult and Vol. 1 Brooklyn. She is working on a novel.

FICTION

Tanushree Baidya is a Kweli fellow, a graduate of the Yale Writers’ Workshop and a member of the (GrubStreet supported) Boston Writers of Color group. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Creative Nonfiction, Pangyrus, Kweli, Florida Review- Aquifer, 2040 Review, London Journal of Fiction, the Wrong Quarterly, GrubWrites, and Half the World Global Literati. She recently won an honorable mention in Tom Howard/John H. Reid Fiction & Essay Contest 2018. Born in India, Tanushree has lived in Boston since moving there from Bombay seven years ago. In her parallel life, she's a business data analyst with a degree in engineering and MBA in Finance. She can be found on Twitter (@tanushreebb) and Instagram (@tinksfloyd). 

Joseph Cáceres is a writer from New York whose fiction has been published in Slice Literary Magazine and Cosmonauts Avenue. An alumni of the Yale Writers’ Workshop, Joseph is also a recipient of the Bronx Recognizes Its Own grant from the Bronx Council of the Arts for Fiction. He is currently working on a novel that intersects race, (homo)sexuality, class and capitalism.

POETRY

Joseph Chaney - his poems have appeared in many journals, including The Nation, Yankee, Prairie Schooner, Beloit Poetry Journal, Wisconsin Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, and Crazyhorse. Recent work can be accessed online at Off the Coast, The Ekphrastic Review, Shark Reef, The Cresset, and The Apple Valley Review. Chaney teaches writing and literature at Indiana University South Bend, where he's the publisher of Wolfson Press.

Bob Coles is currently teaching part time at The New School in the MFA Creative Writing Program. I have published eighty-plus poems since 1990 in numerous publications. I recently published a poem in Peregrine, vol.XXXI, and In 2018 two of my poems appeared in Mudfish, vol. 20. I also have a forthcoming poem in A Garden of Black Joy Poetry Anthology.

Heather Dubrow, John D. Boyd, SJ, Chair in Poetic Imagination at Fordham University, is the author of Forms and Hollows (Cherry Grove Collections) and two chapbooks; one of her plays was produced by a community theater. Among the journals where her poetry has appeared are Prairie Schooner, Southern Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and The Yale Review; her other publications include seven single-authored volumes of literary criticism, a co-edited collection of essays. and an edition of As You Like It. She is director of Fordham's Poets Out Loud reading series.

Robin Happel is a freelance writer and Fordham student originally from East Tennessee, and her work has previously appeared in McSweeney’s, America Magazine, and other presses.

Joylanda Jamison currently resides in Virginia with her blind cat, Stevie, and non-blind cat, Blackjack. She has considered adopting a dog, much to their horror. Her poems are featured in Lamp and Rogue Agent. She can be found on Instagram @itsjoylanda.

Hope Jordan is a candidate for an MFA in Creative Writing at UMass Boston, where she won the 2018 Academy of American Poets University and College Poetry Prize. Her chapbook, The Day She Decided to Feed Crows, was published in 2018 by Cervena Barva Press. Her poems have appeared/are forthcoming in Split Rock Review, Woven Tale Press, Nine Mile, and Comstock Review. She was the first official poetry slam master in New Hampshire.

Renaldo McClinton is an actor, writer, and musician from Shreveport, Louisiana. Renaldo's areas of interest include African and African American history, Black literature, gender and sexuality, and African oral traditions. He is currently studying oral history at Columbia University.

Rhiannon McGavin has failed the driver’s license test three times so far. She has performed from the Hollywood Bowl to the Library of Congress, as well as on NPR. Her work has been featured by Tia Chucha Press, Teen Vogue, and Button Poetry. Rhiannon was the Youth Poet Laureate of Los Angeles in 2016, and currently studies literature at UCLA.

Alexandra Silber is an international actress, Grammy-nominated singer, and writer. In London’s West End she played starring roles The Woman in White, Fiddler on the Roof, Kiss Me Kate and Carousel. In New York she’s appeared in Hello Again, Master Class, She Loves Me, Song of Norway, Arlington, and the 2016 Broadway revival Fiddler on the Roof. Alexandra is a Grammy-nominee for her portrayal of Maria in the symphonic recording of West Side Story, with San Francisco Symphony. Her debut novel "After Anatevka,” and memoir "White Hot Grief Parade" are both published by Pegasus Books. @alsilbs

Becky Thompson Ph.D. is a scholar, poet, yogi, and activist. Her recent books include Teaching with Tenderness: Toward an Embodied Practice, Zero is the Whole I Fall into at Night (poetry) and Making Mirrors: Righting/Writing by and for Refugees (with Palestinian poet, Jehan Bseiso). Her honors include Rockefeller and Ford Fellowships, the Gustavus Myers Award for Outstanding Books on Human Rights, the Creative Justice Chapbook Poetry Prize, and the Mosaic Award for Excellence in Teaching. She teaches poetry workshops for people in transit in Greece, for community workers in China, and elsewhere. For more information please see www.beckythompsonyoga.com or write: Becky.thompson@simmons.edu.

FILM

Javier Barboza is an award-winning filmmaker, Creative Director, Animator, Educator, Founder of Kaleidoscope Media and co- director of the Los Angeles institute of experimentation(L.I.E). His work tackles the complexity of the identity and migration, using surreal, magical realism, narrative and documentary method to engage the audience in an experience best described as visually immersive. From Los Angeles CA currently based in Boston MA, He studied at East Los Angeles College, dedicating himself to fine arts, animation and graffiti. He continued his studies at Cal Arts majoring in Character Animation. He received his MFA at U.S.C, School of Cinematic Arts. He was awarded the Princes Grace Film Grant, was a Annenberg Fellow, and has showcased at a variety of film festivals. Javier continues to pitch at studios, lecture at various Universities nationally and internationally, freelance at several studios Netflix, MTV,ACLU,Buck, PBS,Google, Playboy, Nickelodeon, Sony Animation and Disney. T.V. He is currently experimenting with new ways of telling stories through V.R, A.R, projections, installations, performance art, muppets, graffiti and animation.