Originally from North Carolina and raised in Oklahoma, Nicole Callihan writes poems and stories. Her poetry books include SuperLoop and Translucence, a dual-language, cross-culture collaboration with Palestinian poet Samar Abdel Jaber; and the chapbooks: A Study in Spring (co-written with Zoë Ryder White), The Deeply Flawed Human, Downtown, andAging. A frequent collaborator with artists, actors, and writers, Nicole's work has appeared in Tin House, Sixth Finch, and as a Poem-a-Day selection from the Academy of American Poets. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and daughters, and is a Senior Language Lecturer in the Expository Writing Program at New York University. Find her on the web at www.nicolecallihan.com.

Jaime Fountaine was raised by "wolves." Her work has appeared in places like JMWW, Paper Darts, X-R-A-Y, and Barrelhouse, where she writes the “Fountaine of Advice” column. She lives in Philadelphia, where she co-hosts the Tire Fire reading series with Mike Ingram at Tattooed Mom. You can find her on the internet at jaimefountaine.com, and @jaimefountaine on Twitter and Instagram.

Tomas Moniz edited Rad Dad and Rad Families. His novella Bellies and Buffalos is about friendship, family and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. He’s the recipient of the SF Literary Arts Foundation’s 2016 Award, the 2016 Can Serrat Residency, the 2017 Caldera Residency and others. He’s recently been published by Barrelhouse, Spring 18, and was awarded the 2018 SPACE on Ryder Farm residency. In 2019, he’ll release a chapbook with Mason Jar Press in July and his debut novel, Big Familia, on Acre Books, the book publishing offshoot of The Cincinnati Review in the Fall. He has stuff on the internet but loves letters and penpals: PO Box 3555, Berkeley CA 94703. He promises to write back.

Malka Older is a writer, aid worker, and sociologist. Her science-fiction political thriller Infomocracy was named one of the best books of 2016 by Kirkus, Book Riot, and the Washington Post. With the sequels Null States (2017) and State Tectonics (2018), she completed the Centenal Cycle trilogy, a finalist for the Hugo Best Series Award of 2018. She is also the creator of the serial Ninth Step Station, currently running on Serial Box, and her short story collection And Other Disasters will come out in November 2019. Named Senior Fellow for Technology and Risk at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs for 2015, she is currently an Affiliated Research Fellow at the Center for the Sociology of Organizations at Sciences Po, where her doctoral work explored the dynamics of post-disaster improvisation in governments. She has more than a decade of field experience in humanitarian aid and development.

Image by Allana Taranto of Ars Magna Studio

Elizabeth Deanna Morris Lakes was born in Harrisburg, PA and has a BA in Creative Writing from Susquehanna University and an MFA from George Mason University. She has appeared in Always Crashing, The Rumpus, Cartridge Lit, Crab Fat Magazine, SmokeLong Quarterly, and cahoodaloodaling. She has chapbook, Patterning, from Corgi Snorkel Press. She is co-host of The Smug Buds, a podcast.

Justin Sanders is a ghost from Baltimore and the author of for all the other ghosts. His words have appeared most recently in American Short Fiction and on the city’s walls.

Danny Caine is the author of the chapbook Uncle Harold's Maxwell House Haggadah (Etchings Press, 2017). His poetry has appeared in Hobart, Mid-American Review, DIAGRAM, and New Ohio Review among other places. He received an MFA in poetry from the University of Kansas in 2017. He hails from Cleveland and lives in Lawrence, Kansas, where he owns the Raven Book Store. More at dannycaine.com.

Tyrese L. Coleman is a writer, wife, mother, attorney, and writing instructor. She is also the reviews editor at SmokeLong Quarterly, an online journal dedicated to flash fiction. An essayist and fiction writer, her prose has appeared in several publications, including Catapult, Buzzfeed, Literary Hub, The Rumpus, and the Kenyon Review. Her essay "How to Mourn" is listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2018. She is an alumni of the Writing Program at Johns Hopkins University and a Kimbilio Fiction Fellow. She can be reached at tyresecoleman.com or on twitter @tylachelleco.

How to Sit is available now from Mason Jar Press.

dave ring is the chair of the OutWrite LGBTQ Book Festival in Washington, DC. He has stories featured or forthcoming in a number of publications, including Speculative City, GlitterShip, and A Punk Rock Future. He is the publisher and managing editor of Neon Hemlock Press, as well as the editor of Broken Metropolis: Queer Tales of a City That Never Was from Mason Jar Press. More info at www.dave-ring.com. Follow him on Twitter at @slickhop.

Erin’s writing has been featured in Amazon’s Day One, Passages North, Bone Bouquet, Juked, Hobart, Paper Darts, The Found Poetry Review, The Pinch, Painted Bride Quarterly, and Birdfeast, among other publications.

She is the recipient of a 2017 Artist Career Development Grant from the Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council/McKnight Foundation; a 2017 Emerging Artist Residency at Tofte Lake Center; a 2016 Spruceton Inn Artist Residency; and was the first Modern Worker: Writer in Residence at Modern Art in Lancaster, PA. Her literary erasure art was featured during the summer of 2017 as part of Made Here: Future, an urban walking gallery in the West Downtown Minneapolis Cultural District.

Erin is one half of FEAR NO LIT, former poetry editor for Third Point Press, founder emeritus of The Triangle, and volunteers with VIDA: Women in Literary Arts. Reach her at erindorney.com or @edorney.

(Photo credit Michelle Johnsen)

Dave K. writes for Adweek and Barnes & Noble, and his fiction/essays/poetry have appeared in Front Porch Journal, Battered Suitcase, Cobalt, Artichoke Haircut, The Avenue, Welter, TRUCK, and on the LED billboard in the Station North neighborhood of Baltimore, MD. He is also the author of stone a pig and MY NAME IS HATE, both self-published. He is also a very large outer main-belt asteroid.

His novel, The Bong-Ripping Brides of Count Drogado, follows a homeless, one-armed man haunted by both his own past and the brides of a debauched plutocrat who steal him away to a party that never, never ends.

Check it out here.

The Black Ladies Brunch Collective's Poetry Anthology, “Not Without Our Laughter,” is a collection of humorous and joyful poems, riffing on Langston Hughes’s novel “Not Without Laughter.” It explores topics of family, work, love and sexuality. The women of BLBC believe, like Hughes, that even in these currently tense racial times, laughter and the celebration of life is crucial. Historically, it is what African Americans have done and will continue to do, no matter what challenges face them.

Check it out here.

The Black Ladies Brunch Collective is (clockwise from top-left): Teri Cross Davis, Anya Creightney, Katy Richey, celeste doaks, Saida Agostini, and Tafisha Edwards. 

Michelle Junot is the author of and the floor is always lava. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland. Her latest collection, Notes From My Phone (A Self-Portrait in Her Twenties), is available now through Mason Jar Press. Check it out.

You can read more about and from Michelle at michellejunot.com.

Stephen Zerance’s poems have appeared in journals such as West Branch, Prairie Schooner, Quarterly West, Assaracus, Knockout, and others. He has also been featured on Lambda Literary and Split This Rock. He received his MFA from American University where he received the Myra Sklarew award. He resides in Baltimore, MD.

Caligula's Playhouse is available now. Check it out.

Born in Wisconsin in the 1970s, Mathew Falk has lived in Baltimore since 2010. He is a musician, editor, college writing instructor, armchair phenomenologist, and cat person.

Nihilist Kitsch is available now. Check it out.