Shea Socrates (they/them) is a teacher and emerging writer. Their work has appeared in HAD, Passages North, and JAKE. They live in Detroit with their partner Felicia and three pets, Vashti, Coney, and Vern.

James Fleet Underwood is a long-time teacher whose poems often arise from the classroom and the quiet, ordinary moments that shape a life in education. His work reflects on work, place, and the small gestures that connect people to each other and to their days. X: @jamesfleetpoems

Candice M. Kelsey (she/her) is a bi-coastal writer and educator. Her work has received Pushcart and Best-of-the-Net nominations, and she is the author of eight books. Candice reads for The Los Angeles Review and The Weight Journal; she also serves as a 2025 AWP Poetry Mentor.

Amy Wise Rothschild’s poetry appears in Tupelo Quarterly, ONE ART, Maudlin House, HOOT, and the Bellevue Literary Review, where she was the 2024 winner of the John & Eileen Allman Prize for Poetry. She taught pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten for more than twelve years, mostly in Washington, DC. She now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Evan Freemyer is (still) an English teacher, working at Thomas Jefferson High School in Council Bluffs, IA. This is his first publication!

An educator, writer, and poet, M.B. McLatchey is the author of six books, including the award-winning titles The Lame God (Utah State University Press), Smiling at the Executioner (Kelsay Books), and Beginner’s Mind (Regal House). Her poetry has been published nationally and internationally and has won several awards, including the American Poet Prize. Formerly Florida's Poet Laureate for Volusia County and currently a Poetry Reader for the Miami-based literary journal SWWIM.

An Arkansas native, Sarah Watkins is an educator by trade and a writer by necessity. She currently resides in northeast Arkansas with her husband. Her work has recently been featured in several publications, including Menagerie, Moss Puppy Magazine, and Heart of Flesh Literary Journal. Instagram: @sarahwatkinspoetry

Garth Robinson lives and teaches in Annapolis, Maryland. He holds an MFA from Hollins University. His work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in DIAGRAM, Oyster River Pages, Iron Horse Literary Review, Kestrel, Variant Literature, and elsewhere.

Joanne Esser is the author of the poetry collections "All We Can Do Is Name Them," (Fernwood Press, October 2024), "Humming At The Dinner Table," and the chapbook "I Have Always Wanted Lightning." Her new book of poems, "Nothing Is Stationary," will be released by Holy Cow! Press in June 2026. Recent work appears in Great Lakes Review, Humana Obscura, I-70 Review, Dunes Review, The Main Street Rag, and Orca, among other journals. She earned an MFA from Hamline University.

Fred Shaw is a Visiting Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Pittsburgh and was recently named to the Advisory Board for the International Poetry Forum. His first collection, Scraping Away was published by CavanKerry Press in 2020. A second book is in the works.

J.D. Isip’s collections include Reluctant Prophets (Moon Tide Press, 2025), Kissing the Wound (Moon Tide Press, 2023), and Pocketing Feathers (Sadie Girl Press, 2015). He is the editor for the upcoming anthology, American Pop Culture Almanac: 1776-2026 (Moon Tide Press, 2026). J.D. teaches in South Texas where he lives with his dogs, Ivy and Bucky.

Christina M. Rau, The Yoga Poet, leads Meditate, Move, & Create workshops for various organizations worldwide. Her collections include How We Make Amends and the Elgin Award-winning Liberating The Astronauts. She moderates the Women’s Poetry Listserv and has served as Poet in Residence for Oceanside Library (NY) since 2020. Her poetry airs on Destinies radio show (WUSB) and appears in various literary journals like fillingStation and The Disappointed Housewife.

David Rosenthal is a public school teacher in Berkeley, California. His poems and translations have appeared in Rattle, HAD, Rust & Moth, Birmingham Poetry Review, Eclectica Magazine, Teachers & Writers Magazine, Measure, and many other journals. He has been a Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award Finalist and a Pushcart Prize Nominee. His collection, The Wild Geography of Misplaced Things, was published by White Violet Press (Kelsay Books).

Violeta Garcia-Mendoza is a Spanish-American poet, teacher, and suburban wildlife photographer. Her poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals, and in 2022, she received a grant from the Sustainable Arts Foundation. Violeta lives with her husband, teenage children, and pack of rescue dogs on a small certified wildlife habitat in western Pennsylvania. SONGS FOR THE LAND-BOUND (June Road Press, 2024) is her first book.

Deirdre Faughey’s essays have been published in Identity Theory and Mr. Beller's Neighborhood; her academic writing has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as the English Journal, and her book, Restorative Literacy Practices: Cultivating Community in the Secondary ELA Classroom, came out in 2023 from Teachers College Press.

Matt Dube teaches creative writing and American lit at a small mid-Missouri university, and reads submissions for JackLeg Press. His poems have appeared in Pictura, Lenticular Lit, Last Stanza, and elsewhere.

Dimitri Reyes is a Boricua multidisciplinary artist, content creator, and educator from Newark, New Jersey. He has been named one of The Best New Latinx Authors of 2023 by LatinoStories.com for his most recent book, Papi Pichón (Get Fresh Books, 2023) which was a finalist for the Omnidawn chapbook contest and the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize. His other books include Every First and Fifteenth, the winner of the Digging Press 2020 Chapbook Award, and the poetry journal Shadow Wo

Emily M. Goldsmith (they/them) is a queer Cajun-Louisiana Creole poet originally from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. They are a Ph.D. candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Southern Mississippi. Emily received their MFA in Poetry from the University of Kentucky in 2021. A Pushcart-nominated poet, their creative work can be found in or forthcoming from Zaum, The Penn Review, LaCreole Journal, Vagabond City Lit, Witch Craft Mag, and elsewhere.

Zalykha María Mokim is an educator and writer. She has worked in English as a New Language teacher, librarian and instructional leader in New York City public schools. The daughter of immigrants from Afghanistan and El Salvador, she has dedicated her career to working with multilingual and immigrant communities with a focus on social justice and equity. She lives in Los Jackson Heights with all the love in the world. She is a poet and posts on Instagram as @zalykhamaria.

Kalina is "mostly" a poet, but her fiction and creative nonfiction have also been published. She is a high school English teacher responsible for many courses, including creative writing. Kalina has previously been published in Nebo, A Literary Journal, Free Spirit, The Ignatian, FLARE: The Flagler Review, the Cackling Kettle, ONE ART: A Journal of Poetry, and RedRoseThorns. She is forthcoming in The Font.