Cover art by Hallie Fogarty – Don’t miss her poetry in the issue, too!
Jacob Sharp
Jacob Lyle Sharp is a fiction writer from the Appalachian Mountains of western North Carolina. He is based in northern Virginia where he is pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at George Mason University, alongside his partner and two cats, Beelzebub and Basil. His work engages queer literary lineages and the revolutionary currents of queer history. He serves as the editor-in-chief of Phoebe Journal.
Naomi Quedensley is a poet by necessity and Classics MA student at Texas Tech University. Perhaps best described as Southern raised if not born, her first poetry was composed as a child in rural Georgia who learned about haiku while sitting in the branches of a magnolia tree. She has now lived in Texas for well over a decade as a child, teenager, and young adult who learned what it means to be queer while growing up in a state you love that doesn’t always love you back. Her poetry is perhaps best described as confessional and has been previously published in Truman State University’s Windfall Magazine (2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025).
m.e. gamlem is a non-binary queer anarchist and writer from New Mexico. They are a MFA Fiction candidate in the Low Residency MFA program at the University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe. Their work most recently appears or is forthcoming in Hello America Stereo Cassette, The Potomac Review, Bull, and Eckleburg.
Makenzie Anderson is a writer from South Carolina. She is currently an MFA candidate at Virginia Tech and an editor for The New River Journal. Her poetry explores themes of womanhood, sapphic identity, and familial relations across South Carolina’s distinct coastal environment.
Beth’s work has appeared in Fourth Genre (Editor’s Prize), Solstice: A Magazine of Diverse Voices, Talking Writing, the Cincinnati Review (Schiff Prize), and Twin Flame Literary and in three anthologies: Coming Out in the South, Into Sanity, and The Masters Review. She earned an MFA from the Solstice MFA in Creative Writing Program at Lasell University.
Ran Brady (any pronouns) is a queer poet home-grown in the foothills of Appalachia, who spends most days puttering in a garden or consuming candied words at any chance. Previously published in Screen Door Review, Stone of Madness Press, and the anthology “S/He Speaks 2: Voices of Women, Trans & Nonbinary Folx,” Ran takes inspiration from southern pride and the experience that comes from taking root in that culture.
Philosopet is a queer writer living in Texas. Their work explores Southern landscapes, memory, intimacy, and survival through a lyric lens shaped by philosophy, place, and lived experience. They write toward tenderness, clarity, and the quiet thresholds where belonging is tested and remade.
Hallie Fogarty is a poet, teacher, and artist from Kentucky. She received her MFA in poetry from Miami University, where she was awarded the 2024 Jordan-Goodman Graduate Award for Poetry. Her poetry has been published in Poetry South, Hoxie Gorge Review, The Lindenwood Review, and elsewhere. Her art has been published in Tulsa Review and Harpur Palate. Her debut chapbook CARAPACE is out now from And Then Publishing. She is currently a PhD student at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and you can find her online:www.halliefogarty.com .
Rusty Alexandra Ferrel is a queer, brown, Austin-based author writing at the intersection of body, power, and truth. Her work is rooted in postmenopause—not as a polite “phase,” but as a lived transformation that exposes what society would rather keep quiet: desire, rage, stamina, tenderness, and the refusal to disappear. She publishes both nonfiction and fiction, and is building a body of work that treats postmenopausal people as intelligent, complex, and fully alive.
Bree Atkins (she/her) is a queer Southern poet. She was born and raised in Alabama, completing her Undergraduate degree in Creative Writing at The University of Alabama at Birmingham. She is now an MFA candidate at Louisiana State University. Her poetry follows themes of loss, queer identity, religious deconstruction, and healing. She has been published in The Torch, Sanctuary, and Aura literary magazines. When she is not writing, she enjoys being with her cat, Clary, frequenting concerts, loving her friends, and binge-watching the same shows over and over and over.
