Jaime Rodríguez
Jaime Rodríguez writes what queer men carry in silence. A Chicano poet from the Rio Grande Valley, he weaves memory and ritual into poems about intimacy, masculinity, and survival.
Charlotte Van Schaack
Charlotte Van Schaack hails from Greensboro, North Carolina, and has spent the last three years studying Literature and Creative Writing at American University in Washington, D.C.. Their writing has been published in AmLit Mag and WWPH Writes. In 2024, they were an Inner Loop writer-in-residence at the Woodlawn and Pope-Leighey Houses. As a queer poet, her work often explores the relationship between identity, memory, and landscape.
Rebecca Moore
Rebecca Moore has published in Oldster Magazine, The Village View, GrokNation, Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, and Sassy. A frequent contributor to the Sundial Writers Corner on public radio station WLRH, she also participates in spoken word performances with OutLoud Huntsville. She is a founding member of Scribe South, a writers’ collective and is currently at work on a memoir about the loss of her husband of 25 years, her second marriage to a transgender woman and their life together in the socially and politically conservative South. She has an MFA in fiction from Columbia University. You can find her on Substack and Bluesky @rebeccamoore.
J.K. Petrie
J.K. Petrie (they/them) is a bisexual, nonbinary author currently living in Oklahoma. Their work examines queerness, distortion, and the absurdity and fear that hum beneath the ordinary. They also enjoy music production, LGBT advocacy, and the visual arts. You can find them at @j.k.petrie on Instagram or @jkpetrie on Bluesky.
Mary Meriam
Mary Meriam studied poetry at Columbia University (MFA) and Bennington College (BA). She works as an editor and publisher of lesbian poetry and art, and teaches in the MFA program at the University of Arkansas. Her most recent poetry collection is Pools of June (Exot Books, 2022). Her poems have appeared in Literary Imagination, Literary Matters, Poetry, Post Road, Prelude, Rattle, Subtropics, and The Poetry Review. She wrote “Cherries in the Snow Tree” in one of Jan Freeman’s Writing Through Art poetry workshops.
Rachael Brooks
Rachael is a PhD student in Epidemiology at the University of Michigan. She grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, and spends far too much time looking at code and not enough time reading or writing. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in Neologism Poetry Journal, NonBinary Review, and elsewhere.
CJ Scruton
CJ Scruton is a trans writer from Tennessee who is currently living on the Great Lakes. Their work has previously appeared in New South, The Cincinnati Review, Shenandoah, and other journals. They have been nominated for Best New Poets, Best of the Net, and a Pushcart Prize and their full-length poetry manuscript has been a finalist for prizes from YesYes Books and Willow Springs Books.
J. Adam Collins
J. Adam Collins is a writer, editor, and creative director in Portland, Oregon. Originally from the foothills of West Virginia, he finds inspiration in nature, intimacies of queerness, and the intersections of the two. He holds an MA in Publishing and Writing from Portland State and is a founding member of the Writers.com Writing Community. His poetry has been featured in Assaracus, The Tishman Review, Pathos Literary, Bodega Magazine, The Maynard, and others. He’s currently working on his first manuscript. Learn more about Adam at jadamcollins.com.
JSA Lowe
JSA Lowe’s new book of poetry, Internet Girls, was published in 2023 by Finishing Line Press. Her poems have recently appeared in Laurel Review, Michigan Quarterly Review’s Mixtape, Missouri Review, Sinister Wisdom, and Superstition Review, as well as previously in AGNI, Black Warrior Review, Chicago Review, DIAGRAM, Harvard Review, Hobart, Salamander, and Versal, and her lyric essays in Denver Quarterly and The Rupture. She is an adjunct professor of film and literature at the University of Houston Clear Lake, and she lives on Galveston Island. She is a native Texan and a disabled lesbian.
Ryan Babcock
Ryan Babcock is a Virginia-based writer and educator. He studies fiction and poetry online at UCLA Extension and UC Berkeley Extension, and recently graduated with an M.A.Ed. in ESL and Bilingual Education at The College of William and Mary. In 2019, he thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail. His work appears in Bright Flash Literary Review and Eunoia Review.
Ashton Freeman
Ashton Freeman is a Miami-born, Brooklyn-based writer and artist. They are the nonfiction editor for Waxwing Literary Journal and a poetry reader with Pigeon Pages. Freeman’s work has appeared in Foglifter, Milk Press, and Love & Squalor. They were nominated for the 2025 PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. They received their BA from Sarah Lawrence College in 2023. To find their work– search under rocks, in your sock drawer, and the late afternoon.
Victoria Hoover
Victoria Hoover (she/her) is a queer poet and writer of short fiction marooned in the East Texas Pineywoods. Her work has been featured in academic journals, literary magazines, and short fiction collections. She is currently a graduate student of English and creative writing at Stephen F. Austin State University. You can read more of her work at www.imaginaryletters.com.
Kristia Vasiloff
Kristia Vasiloff is a disabled, queer poet living in North Carolina with her amazing Spouse. She writes about joy, mortality, and disability. She has appeared in presses, anthologies, magazines, and is a Poet Laureate 2024 Award Finalist for North Carolina. Kristia is honored to share her poetry with y’all.
Andrea Garrigos
Andrea Garrigos (she/her) is an emerging Latina queer poet from the Rio Grande Valley region in South Texas. Her poems, the Face of the Sculpture and A Juncture have been previously published in the Spring 2017 Issue of New Literati.
Dee Harper
Dee is a writer of short fiction and poetry; her work exists within the sphere of the nostalgic and the macabre and the intersections of queerness and black womanhood. She is pursuing her Master of Arts in creative writing and hopes to gain footing in the publishing industry upon graduation. Her work has been published in Feminist Spaces, The Malu Zine, Same Faces Collective, and The Troubadour.
Zoë Fay-Stindt
Zoë Fay-Stindt is a queer, land-based poet and essayist with roots in both the French and American south. Their work has been Pushcart, Best of the Net, and Best New Poets nominated, featured or forthcoming in places such as Southern Humanities, Ninth Letter, VIDA, Muzzle, Terrain, and Poet Lore, and gathered into a chapbook, Bird Body, winner of Cordella Press’ inaugural Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize. They are a student of belonging and embodied relationship to land who believes in slowness, reciprocal relationship with place and people, and queer, kincentric futures.
jp thorn
jp thorn is a queer, neurodivergent artist raised in & returned to the bible belt. advocate for destigmatization & radically open communication, their work is inspired by humanness, reframing traditionalism, therapeutic processes, unlearning patriarchy, identity, & global patterns. you can find more of their work here.
April Michelle Bratten
April Michelle Bratten is the editor of Up the Staircase Quarterly. Her poetry has appeared in Southeast Review, Cartridge Lit, Zone 3, Thrush, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, and more. April’s latest chapbook, Anne with an E, was published by dancing girl press. You can follow her on bluesky @aprilmbratten.bsky.social.