DAHLIA AGUILAR is an emergent Chicana writer and daughter of Corpus Christi, Texas. An educator of over 28 years, she now works as a consultant and writer. She has completedthree manuscripts of poetry Of Medicine and Monsters, Tidal Range and Cosmic Fire, Sacred War. She is an alum of Under the Volcano 2024 and 2025- a writing residency held in Tepoztlán, Mexico. Her poems appear in Naugatuck River Review, Somos Xicanas, Boundless 2024, The Skinny Poetry Journal and The Ac entos Review. She lives in the Deanwood neighborhood of Washington, D.C. with her son, two dogs and menopause.

​

MICHAEL BLAINE was born in Oxford, Mississippi in 1968 but grew up on the Eastern Shore in the mostly agricultural town of Laurel. He returned Oxford to study English at Ole Miss and holds a Master’s Degree in English from Salisbury University. He taught high school English for over twenty years and currently teaches English at Delaware Technical Community College. He lives in Seaford, Delaware with his family of five. 

​

WENDY BOOYDEGRAAFF's short fiction, poems, and essays have been included in Stanchion, Slag Glass City, CutLeaf, Ninth Letter online, and elsewhere. Her middle grade horror story is anthologized in The Haunted States of America (Godwin Books, 2024). Born and raised in Ontario, Canada, she now lives in Michigan, United States.

​

Raised on the rural coast of Oregon, JAMES JOAQUIN BREWER currently shelters in West Hartford, Connecticut while working on a novel about political protests on college campuses. Among other places, his writing in a variety of genres has appeared in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The Write Launch, LitBreak, The Hartford Courant, Aethlon, Jeopardy, Rosebud, The Poetry Society of New York, Closed Eye Open, The Manifest-Station, Quibble, Open: Journal of Arts & Letters, Blazevox.