Issue 2 Contributors

Maggie Barnard is a literary writer and screenwriter currently living in London. She got her BA in Creative Writing from the Pratt Institute and her MA in Screenwriting from the London Film School. Her work has been previously published in Ubiquitous Literary Magazine and Mosaic Art and Literary Journal. She loves Waitress the Musical and once had a drinking game created in her honor. Find her on Twitter: @maggiebarnyard.

Kelle Schillaci Clarke is a Seattle-based writer and journalist with L.A. roots. Her recent work has appeared in Barren MagazineThe Citron ReviewGhost ParachuteMothers Always Write, and Pidgeonholes. She has an MFA from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, but is happy to now call the rainy PNW home, where she lives with her husband and daughter. She’s on Twitter @kelle224.

Amanda A. Gibson has transitioned to writing from a career as an environmental lawyer. Her work has appeared in The Common, Under the Gum Tree, Little Patuxent Review, Six Hens, and The Sunlight Press.  She lives in Maryland with her husband, two children, their dog, Sadey, and their cat, Zoe.

Rosalind Goldsmith lives in Toronto. She has written radio plays for CBC Radio Drama and a play for the Blyth Theatre Festival. She has also translated and adapted short stories by the Uruguayan writer, Felisberto Hernandez, for CBC Radio. She began writing short fiction four years ago. Since then her stories have appeared in Flash Fiction Magazine, Metafore, Litro UK (print and online), Popshot UK, Understorey, Filling Station, Spelk, and Burningword Literary Journal, among others.

Mary Grimm has had two books published, Left to Themselves (novel) and Stealing Time (story collection), both by Random House. Currently, she is working on a dystopian novel about oldsters. She teaches fiction writing at Case Western Reserve University. Twitter: @mcagrimm. Photo credit Joel Hauserman.

S A Hartwich lives outside of Bellingham, Washington with a spouse, two cats, an old dog, several hawks, countless voles, and one wily coyote. He roasts coffee to make ends meet, and is certainly the worst Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practitioner west of the Mississippi River. He has been published in such venues as Thrush, Bird’s Thumb, and Colorado Review, and his bucket list includes being weightless, learning to snowboard, and meeting Patrick Stewart. 

D. Nolan Jefferson is a writer and a member of the library faculty at American University. A California native, he won the AWP Intro Journal Project Award for his short story “South of Eight” in 2017. His fiction appears in Tahoma Literary Review, Red Savina Review, and South 85 Journal among other publications. He enjoys tacos, collecting records, and fellow introverts and tweets at @geekandahalf. 

Leslie Karen Lutz’s work has appeared in various journals, including Typishly, Kaaterskill Basin Literary Journal, Number OneThe Glass TesseractThe Lyric, and Raintown Review. She is also the winner of the 2018 Frisco First Chapter Contest and The Lyric’s Quarterly Award for Poetry. Her debut novel, Fractured Tide, is forthcoming with Blink YA, a Harper Collins imprint, in July of 2020. You can find her at lesliekarenlutz.com.

Sean Marciniak is a former borderlands crime reporter, and his nonfiction has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Dallas Morning News, the Houston Chronicle, and other newspapers. His fiction, meanwhile, has appeared in J Journal and has been shortlisted for Hunger Mountain’s Howard Frank Mosher Short Fiction Prize.

Loria Mendoza is a Chicanx writer, curator, musician, and performance artist. She hails from Austin, Texas, where she learned to keep it weird. Seeking the constancy of the bizarre, she once moved to San Francisco, where she earned her MFA at San Francisco State University. Her book, Life’s Too Short, won the Michael Rubin Book Award. She blogs infrequently at LoriaMendoza.com. She lives in Austin again with her husband and their rabbit, Cheeto.

J.L. Nevole lives in Omaha, Nebraska. Her fiction has also appeared in The Lascaux Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, and Arkana.

Marci Pliskin writes fiction and non-fiction. Her work has appeared in Cottonwood (University of Kansas) and on MSNBC.com. She lives with her family in Seattle.

Adam Stemple is an author, poet, and musician who lives in Minneapolis and spends too much time online. He can be found at adamstemple.comtwitter.com/adamstemple4, or facebook.com/adamstemple.

Xenia Taiga lives in southern China with a cockatiel, a turtle and an Englishman. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and is part of Best Microfiction 2019 Anthology. http://xeniataiga.com/.

Jacob van Berkum was born in New Hampshire and later spent four undergraduate years studying finance and accounting. In his final semester he took a creative writing class which, in retrospect, may have depreciated the value of his degree.

Thomas Wharton’s writing has been published in Canada, the US, the UK, Italy, and other countries. His first collection of fantastical stories, The Logogryph, was shortlisted the International Dublin Literary Award. He has also published a YA fantasy trilogy, The Perilous Realm, which is currently in development for television. Wharton lives near Edmonton, Alberta and teaches creative writing.

Cynthia Zhang is an aspiring writer, academic-in-training, and professional dog petter. Currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California, she divides her time between Los Angeles, Chicago, and St. Louis. Her work has previously appeared in The Other Stories, daCunha Global, Lunch Ticket, Leading Edge, and Coffin Bell. She intermittently complains about grad school at cz_writes on Twitter.