I try my first Strawberry Refresher with Leona at the mall. It’s her first too. Her brother and dad are away for a couple days and we’re having a “girls’ weekend.” Leona gets to choose what we do. So, here we are on a Saturday afternoon in a crowded Starbucks in a pretentious consumer hellscape and I’m moody and broody from long lines and packed parking lots. But here’s my girl, delighted with her cake pop and the fact that we’re actually at the mall, drinking the wonder-woma

Laurie King Billman is a poet and essayist. Her written work draws on her life experiences with diverse people and places, as a licensed professional counselor in schools, group homes, and on Native reservations. She’s traveled extensively, from Alaska to Peru, from New Mexico to Kenya. Her poetry has been published in numerous journals and anthologies including McGuffin, Forge, and San Pedro River Review. Originally from Colorado, she now lives in North Carolina.

Tess Kelly’s work has appeared in Sweet Lit, River Teeth, Passages North, Cleaver Magazine, and BULL, among other publications. She lives, writes, and teaches in the public schools in Portland, Oregon.

Donna Vorreyer is the author of Unrivered (forthcoming, 2025), To Everything There Is (2020), Every Love Story is an Apocalypse Story (2016) and A House of Many Windows (2013), all from Sundress Publications. Her poetry, fiction, and essay work have appeared in Ploughshares, Cherry Tree, Poet Lore, Salamander, Harpur Palate, Booth, and elsewhere. She lives and creates in the Chicago area where she hosts the monthly online reading series A Hundred Pitchers of Honey.

Kasumi Parker is a writer and high school English teacher. Her prose has been published Black Warrior Review, PRISM International, and more.

Adeeba Rana

Jennifer is a veteran English teacher (29 years) who found her writing voice somewhat later in life.

Helen Raica-Klotz teaches literature and composition courses at a regional university in Michigan.

Carolyn Alessio teaches high school on Chicago’s Southwest Side. Her work appears in The Pushcart Prize anthology, Chicago Tribune, & more.

Carolyn R. Russell’s latest novel is "Q & A," a humorous YA mystery which will be published by Vine Leaves Press in June of 2023.

Matthew E. Henry (MEH) is the author of the Colored page, Teaching While Black and Dust & Ashes (Californios Press, 2020).

Mike Keller-Wilson lives, writes, and teaches in Iowa City, Iowa. He is a founder & co-editor-in-chief of Vast Chasm Magazine.

Lisa K. Buchanan is a San Francisco prose writer, an adoptee, a melanoma survivor, and a lover of Lindy Hop.

Addie Tsai (any/all) is a queer nonbinary artist and writer of color who teaches creative writing at William & Mary.

In her youth, Ashley Mezzano would scrawl poems in her notebook and secretly wish her teacher would read them.

Nikki Schulak is a 1st grade teacher in Portland, OR. Her students sometimes call her "the real Ms Frizzle" because her bearded dragon.

Sara Behnke teaches high school English in North Carolina. Prior to teaching, she authored two books on Motherhood.

Kelsey Francis is a teacher living and writing in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York.

Retired from the Quebec public school system, Karen Zey now devotes her time to writing and leading memoir workshops in her community.

Diane Augustine has been teaching for 25 years in both private and public schools.