Shedrack Opeyemi Akanbi (he/him) is a writer and dreamer from North-Central Nigeria. A 2022 resident at the Library of Africa and the African Diaspora (LOATAD), he was a finalist for the 2023 Kendeka Prize for African Literature, and was longlisted for the 2024 Toyin Falola Prize. He is an alumnus of the Flame Tree Writers’ Workshop facilitated by Abubakar Adam Ibrahim and Chika Unigwe. His writings appear in Shenandoah, Chestnut Review, Popula, etc. He lives in Providence, RI, where he is a Literary Arts MFA candidate at Brown University.

Abdu (Mongo) Ali is a musician, writer, cultural organizer, and multidisciplinary artist who works in sound, collaboration, video, and performance art. Ali sees their work as poetic inquiries of identity and often interrogates binary ideas of race, gender, and sexuality. They are in the midst of creating work that speaks to the interiority of Black (butch queen) queer life, unpacking the aesthetics of Black femininity and investigating for them, what it means to show up as one's authentic self.

Ali has exhibited performances and work at MoMa PS1, the Carnegie Museum of Art, The Baltimore Museum of Art, The Andy Warhol Museum, and The Kennedy Center. They have residencies with Red Bull Music, Pioneer Works, Surf Point Foundation, and was a visiting artist at the Brown Arts Institute. Ali was featured in Cultured Magazine's Young Artists 2020 list, was a recipient of the 2023 Mary Sawyers Baker Prize and is a 2023 USA Fellow. Ali is a Literary Arts / Cross-Disciplinary MFA Candidate at Brown University.

Sloan Asakura (she/he/they) is a poet and memoirist from Los Angeles. They were named a '22 Periplus Fellow and awarded a '23 Tin House Residency. Their work has been published in magazines such as Rigorous, Rogue Agent, The Lantern Review, Zone 3, Joyland, and more. They are a current MFA candidate at Brown University. Their writing is informed by conversations with trees, meditations on lineage and grief, and contemplations forward into radical joy. 

Andres Cordoba is a Massachusetts-born writer. He has received honors such as the Thayer Fellowship and the Patricia Kerr Ross Award, named a 2019 Breakout 8 Writer in poetry by Epiphany: A Literary Journal, named a finalist in Black Warrior Review's 2020 Poetry Contest, was a scholarship recipient and graduate of the Brooklyn Poets 2022 Mentorship program, and was named a 2023 Periplus Mentorship Fellow. Some of his work can be found in The Gandy Dancer, As it Ought to Be, Subnivean, and Epiphany: A Literary Journal. He is currently a MFA candidate in poetry at Brown University. A real self-starter, a go-getter–– a team player, if you will–– his mother refers to him as the Michael Jordan of mutual losses. 

Alana Craib (they/she) is a writer and student from upstate New York. Her work is often concerned with matters of love, grandmothers, ghosts and memory, the kitchen, smells and sound, and the bog. Her writing has most recently been featured in Cleaver Magazine and the 2024 Brooklyn Poets Staff Picks Reading. Alana is a recipient of the 2024 Andrea K. Willison Poetry Prize. Alana currently lives in Providence, RI, where she is an MFA candidate in Fiction at Brown University.

Roman Johnson, PhD  is a writer and scientist from Memphis, TN. He is a Master of Fine Arts scholar in poetry at Brown University. He has a Ph.D. in Medical Sociology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, a M.A. in African American Studies from Georgia State University and obtained a B.A. in Political Science from Morehouse College. He is the co-founder of the New England Hoodoo Society.  He is the current Radical Reversal Poet in Residence at the Suffolk County House of Corrections in Boston, Massachusetts. He is the winner of the Lucille Clifton Poetry Prize from Backbone Press,  a past winner of the Clark Atlanta University Poetry Prize and has received fellowships from Harvard University, Northwestern University,  the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Brown University, the National Institutes of Health, Breadloaf, Tin House, the Writers’ Studio, Martha Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, Obsidian Foundation United Kingdom,  the City of Boston, Massachusetts Cultural Council, the New England Poetry Club, the Palm Beach Literary Festival, the Hudson Valley Writers Center, the Poets and Scholars Summer Writing Retreat at Rutgers University, and the Watering Hole. His work has received both Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations and concerns itself with grief, longing, masculinity, violence, and connection. His work can be found in Obsidian. African Voices Magazine, and elsewhere. He can be found online at @SonoftheDelta on Twitter and thefreedomdoctor on Instagram.

Nicole Klostermann is a writer and theater artist from Iowa. She is an MFA candidate in Fiction at Brown University. 

Cheyenne Mann is a surrealist fiction writer from Iowa. They’re a two-time winner of the Iowa Chapbook Prize and their work explores the intersection of love and violence through the lenses of religion, biochemistry, and nature. Recently they’ve been obsessed with writing about fish, stars, and teeth. When they’re not napping, you can find them getting knocked over by waves at the beach, or getting knocked over by their teammates at rugby practice. 

Tiffany Mi is a Chinese-American poet interested in collective memory and the archive. Her work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Nimrod, Pithead Chapel, and elsewhere. She lives in Providence, where she is pursuing an MFA in Literary Arts at Brown University. 

Imani Nikelle (she/her) is a poet and award-winning filmmaker from Dallas, Texas. Her poetry can be found in Lucky Jefferson, Sweet Tree Review, Changing Wxman Collective, and Wax Nine Journal.

Her written work explores the sacred, the daily, and the many landscapes of the self.

Imani holds a Bachelor of Arts in Dramatic Writing & Film Production from Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts at the New School. She is currently earning an MFA in Literary Arts from Brown University.

Adeniyi Odukoya is a Nigerian Poet and Essayist. He holds a B.A. Ed degree in Education and English from the Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria. His works appear/are forthcoming in the Guardian UK, National Museum of Language, Maryland, USA, Palette Poetry, The Cincinnati Review, and so many more. He’s currently an MFA Graduate Student at the Literary Arts Department in Brown University, living in Providence, Rhode Island.

Lindsey Pannor is a poet and essayist whose work can be found in Annulet, bæst: a journal of queer forms & affects, DIAGRAM, Fence Digital, Tagvverk and elsewhere. Their latest, titled “A Land of Easy Collective,” is out now with Belladonna* Collaborative. They are an MFA Candidate in Literary Arts at Brown.
 

Damon Phạm is fond of music, sound, language, digital rendering, interiority, artifice, pleasure, twists, and consideration. At different hours he thinks of what he makes as balm, propaganda, memorial, or invite. 

Damon grew up in California suburbs and most recently lived in Hồ Chí Minh City—Delta Yokuts and Ohlone land, and Chăm land, also, respectively. He has a Statistics BS from Indiana University and is a Literary Arts MFA candidate on the cross-disciplinary track at Brown. His writing has been shared by the digital review, miniMAG, MudRoom, Overheard, Taper, Digital America, Soupbone Collective, Cadence Video Poetry Festival, and Third Coast International Audio Festival. He can be found on music platforms as ‘Especially.’

Ishara Serrette (she/her) is a fiction writer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where she studied Creative Writing at the University of the Arts. She was the fiction editor for the creative writing program’s literary magazine, Underground Pool in 2021. She was also awarded the Excellence in Service & Leadership in the Visual Arts award and the Student Leader of the Year award in 2021. She often writes with an emphasis on speculative fiction, but her focus is frequently placed on relationships and the intimacy between her characters. She takes inspiration from writers such as Octavia E. Butler, Carmen Maria Machado, Toni Morrison, and Edwidge Danticat, who are fearless with their craft. She currently resides in Providence, Rhode Island, where she is pursuing her MFA in the Literary Arts Program at Brown University.
 

Owen Torrey is a writer from Toronto. His work can be found in The Literary Review of Canada, Canadian Literature, Gulf Coast, Maisonneuve, Oxonian Review, Columbia Journal, and Best Canadian Poetry. He has been nominated for the CBC-Radio Canada Poetry Prize and the Montreal International Poetry Prize, and awarded the Roger Conant Hatch Prize for Lyric Poetry. His debut collection, Unseasonal, is forthcoming from Véhicule Press. Owen is an MFA candidate in poetry at Brown University, where he lives near the water.

Ellen Whiteside is a poet and artist from New Jersey. She is passionate about teaching, literacy, and ethics, and gained her BA in Philosophy from Princeton University in 2022. Her poetry explores the limits of surrealism, the importance of confession, and the value of speculation. She is currently pursuing her MFA in Poetry from Brown University's Literary Arts Program.