Cover Artist: Joseph Anthony Mykut is a multidisciplinary creator from Alabama and the founder of Cosmic Creation Station (cosmiccreationstation.com) and its Shopify store. A multi‑spirited LGBTQ2+ artist, Mykut works across writing, illustration, photography, editing, and spiritual artistry, with publications and exhibitions throughout the U.S. and Canada. Their children’s books, including Beautiful Boy and There’s a Me Under My Bed, explore identity, courage, and the magic in everyday life. They also serve as Creative Director and Associate Editor with I Ain’t Your Marionette Press and as Vice President of the Lambda Chapter of Phi Theta Kappa at Bevill State Community College.
Claire Lee
Claire Lee is a writer and filmmaker from Memphis, currently residing in LA. Their work has been featured in Ninth Letter, the Pinch, Little Engines, Pictura Journal, and more. Find them at claireblee.com.
Sandra Langer
Sandra Langer is a writer, poet, artist, and lesbian feminist from Miami. Her writing has been featured in Ms., The Gay and Lesbian Review, Sinister Wisdom.
M.W. Lee
After living for several years in Hawaii, M.W. Lee relocated to Mesa, AZ. He received his BA from Limestone College in SC, and his MA from DePaul University in Chicago. His work can be found in the Love Knows No Boundaries anthology, JMS Books, and elsewhere.
Eden Bartlett
Eden Bartlett is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Alabama. Propelled by her experiences coming of age in the Deep South, she is Interested in themes of mystic thought, surrealism, and lesbian desire.
Elisheva Fox
Elisheva Fox is a queer poet with roots firmly planted in Texan soil. A finalist for the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize, she has also been nominated for Best of the Net and twice for the Pushcart Prize; her work has appeared in Image, Otherside, Rust + Moth, Paper Brigade, Strange Horizons, Salvation South, and Lavender Review, among others. Spellbook for the Sabbath Queen, from Belle Point Press, is her first collection of poems.
Chella Courington
Chella Courington is a cis bisexual woman, born and raised in Southern Appalachia in a storytelling family who taught her how to value the word. Courington’s creative publications include one novel, one novella, several chapbooks of poetry and fiction, and innumerable poems and stories in journals and anthologies.
Ella Kindt
Ella Kindt is a poet and writer originally from South Carolina. She is currently pursuing an MFA in poetry at North Carolina State University. Their work appears in Susurrus Magazine, Carolina Muse, The Lavender South, and Spare Parts Literary, among others. Two of her poems were finalists for the 2026 Dorianne Laux Poetry Prize, judged by Megan Pinto. Find Ella watching nature documentaries or near a large body of water, preferably surrounded by oak trees.
Sean Bugg
Sean Bugg is a poet from Virginia who currently lives in the Midwest. He writes (mostly) about desire, pop-culture, and queerness at large. And occasionally the divine. Sean’s work was recently published in Assaracus No. 28 and New River Journal Iss. L, and has previously appeared in Volume Poetry. He does not have a website, but he is working on it. You can follow him on Instagram (@homofarben).
Christopher Grady
Christopher Grady is an LGBT Black teenager from the United States, residing in Virginia. He is an emerging writer experimenting with traditional and nontraditional ways of writing stories for the purpose of entertaining readers and growing in his craft. Some publications include The Disappointed Housewife and Bending Genres.
Micky Bayonne
Micky Bayonne is an artist and educator from the Gulf Coast. In 2020, they earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop. Their work has been published by the Academy of American Poets and The Rumpus. They currently live in Western Massachusetts.
Spencer Jewell
Spencer Jewell is a writer originally from Nashville, Tennessee and an MFA candidate in poetry at LSU. She was a semi-finalist for the 2022 National Student Poets Program and received a National Silver Medal from Scholastic for her series of haikus. Her poems and lyric essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Brink, Chestnut Review, Bluestem, Radar Poetry, Delta Poetry Review, Poetry South, Jabberwock Review, and others. She loves writing on porches and going to music festivals. Proud owner of two cats and a well-stocked tea cabinet.
Christopher Soden
Christopher Stephen Soden is a queer poet from Dallas, Texas. He received his MFA in Poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts in January of 2005. He teaches craft, theory, genre and literature. He writes poetry, plays, literary, film and theatre critique for sharpcritic.com and EdgeDallas. Christopher’s poetry collection, Gusher, was recently released by QueerMojo. He received a Full Fellowship to Lambda Literary’s Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices in August 2010. His performance piece: Queer Anarchy received The Dallas Voice’s Award for Best Stage Performance. Water and A Christmas Wish were staged at Bishop Arts and Radio Flyer and Every Day is Christmas. In Heaven. at Nouveau 47. Other honors include: Distinguished Poets of Dallas, Poetry Society of America’s Poetry in Motion Series, Founding Member, President and President Emeritus of The Dallas Poets Community. His work has appeared in: Rattle, The Cortland Review, 1111, Peculiar, Briar’s Lit, Typishly, F(r)iction, G & L Review, Chelsea Station, Glitterwolf, Collective Brightness, A Face to Meet the Faces, Resilience, Ganymede Poets: One, Gay City 2, The Café Review, The Texas Observer, Sentence, Borderlands, Off the Rocks, The James White Review, The New Writer, Velvet Mafia, Poetry Super Highway, Gertrude, Touch of Eros, Gents, Bad Boys and Barbarians, Windy City Times, ArLiJo, Best Texas Writing 2.