In 1998, Christopher Barnes won a Northern Arts writers award. In July 2000, he read at Waterstones bookshop to promote the anthology Titles Are Bitches. On Christmas 2001, he debuted at Newcastle’s famous Morden Tower doing a reading of poems. Each year he read for Proudwords lesbian and gay writing festival and partook in workshops. 2005 saw the publication of his collection LOVEBITES published by Chanticleer Press, 6/1 Jamaica Mews, Edinburgh.

Emily Bilman is an award-winning poet with seven books of poetry published by Troubador Books, UK. Her PhD dissertation, The Psychodynamics of Poetry, was published by Lambert Academic in 2010 and Modern Ekphrasis (2013) by Peter Lang in 2013. She teaches poetry in Geneva, CH and blogs on http://www.emiliebilman.wix.com/emily-bilman

Peter Cashorali is a neurodiverse pansy living at the intersection of rivers, farmland and civil war. He practices a contemplative life.

Ann Cefola is the author of When the Pilotless Plane Arrives (Trainwreck Press, 2021), Free Ferry (Upper Hand Press, 2017), and Face Painting in the Dark (Dos Madres Press, 2014); and translator of Alparegho, like nothing else (Beautiful Days Press, 2025); The Hero (Chax Press, 2018), and Hence this cradle (Seismicity Editions, 2007).

Douglas K Currier holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of Pittsburgh and writes poetry in English and Spanish.  He has published in several journals: Post Grad Journal, Comstock Review, Café Review, Main Street Rag, Stone, Poetica Review among others. Author of three collections of poetry in Spanish and two in English, he lives with his wife in Winooski, Vermont, and Corrientes, Argentina.

Ronald Fink’s creative writing has appeared or will soon appear in such publications as Alternate Route, BlazeVox, Calliope, DeComp, Fresh Words, Ginosko, Global City Review, North American Literary Review, and Tampa Review. He is a journalist as well as creative writer and serves as Senior Editor of Harvard Business Review Analytic Services. He resides in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Michael Flanagan was born in the Bronx, N.Y. and currently lives in Canada, on Prince Edward Island. His full length collection, Days Like These, is now out in select bookstores and on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.com. His chapbook, A Million Years Gone, won the 2009 Nerve Cowboy Chapbook contest. It is available from NC’s Liquid Paper Press.

George Freek’s poem “Enigmatic Variations” was recently nominated for Best of the Net. His poem “Night Thoughts” was also nominated for a Pushcart Prize. 

Oz Hardwick is a European poet and academic, whose work has been widely published in international journals and anthologies. He has published “a dozen or so” full collections and chapbooks, including Learning to Have Lost (IPSI, 2018) which won the 2019 Rubery International Book Award for poetry, and most recently Retrofuturism for the Dispossessed (Hedgehog, 2024). His manuscript Orion Highway won the 2024 Dolors Alberola International Poetry Prize and will be published by Dalya Press in 2025. Oz is Professor of Creative Writing at Leeds Trinity University (UK).

Madeline Izzo lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she runs a small flower farm with her daughter and helps out doing odd jobs at a local flower shop. Her short stories have appeared in the Licking River Review and Dream Weaver, her poems in Florida Writers Association Magazine, Abandoned Mine, Trajectory, Coneflower Cafe, Pudding Magazine, Mostly Maine, and Groundstar, and her nonfiction articles in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Shady Ave. Her novel Blood of the Inkas won the gold medal in historical fiction (unpublished) in the 2024 Royal Palm Literary Awards.

Llewellyn McKernan has a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing from Brown University. She has authored six poetry books for adults and four for children. Her poems have been published in many literary journals, fifty-seven anthologies, and have won over one hundred prizes in state, regional, and national poetry contests. Her poetry mantra is taken from a statement by the French novelist Colette: “Look long and hard at what causes you the most pleasure but look even longer and harder at what causes you the most pain.”

Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician, is a multiple Pushcart nominee with poems published in hundreds of magazines such as Poetry, Rattle, and North American Review. The winner of the 2020 Libretto prize and author of four poetry collections and seven chapbooks, his next book, Boxing In The Bone Orchard, is coming out in the Spring of 2025 via Frontenac House.

Kirby Olson studied poetry with Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso at Naropa Institute.  His first book of poetry is entitled Christmas at Rockefeller Center. His poems have appeared in Partisan Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Poetry East, and many dozens of others. He lives in upstate New York where he teaches at SUNY Delhi.

Nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Mykyta Ryzhykh has published in Dzvin, Dnipro, Polutona, Tipton Poetry Journal, Stone Poetry Journal, dyst journal, Superpresent Magazine, Allegro Poetry Magazine, Alternate Route, Better Than Starbucks, Littoral Press, Book of Matches, The New Verse News, Acorn, The Wise Owl, Verse-Virtual, Scud, Fevers of the Mind, Literary Yard, Plum Tree Tavern, Iterant, Fleas on the Dog, The Tiger Moth Review, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Angel Rust, Neologism Poetry Journal, Shot Glass Journal, QLRS, The Crank, Chronogram, The Antonym, Monterey Poetry Review, Five Fleas Itchy Poetry, Ranger, PPP Ezine, Bending Genres Journal, and many others.

Carl Scharwath has appeared globally in 180+ journals. He has published four poetry books—his latest book is The World Went Dark, published by Alien Buddha Press—and four photography books, published with Praxis and CreatiVingenuitiy. His photography was exhibited in the Mount Dora and Leesburg Centers for the Arts. He was nominated four times for The Best of the Net Awards (2021-25) and twice for the Pushcart Prize for his poetry and fiction. Carl is currently an art editor at Glitterati and former editor for Minute Magazine.