Susan Messer
An Extended Definition of Unclassifiable Knowing

Susan Messer - An Extended Definition of Unclassifiable Knowing

Creative Nonfiction
Susan Messer has had fiction and nonfiction published in Triquarterly, Glimmer Train Stories, North American Review, After Hours, Colorado Review, Creative Nonfiction, Fourth Genre, and Another… Read more »
Kim Roberts
Benjamin Banneker at Jones Point

Kim Roberts - Benjamin Banneker at Jones Point

Poetry
Kim Roberts is the editor of the anthology By Broad Potomac’s Shore: Great Poems from the Early Days of our Nation’s Capital (University of Virginia Press, 2020), and the author of A Literary… Read more »
Shailen Mishra
Between Bears and Bees

Shailen Mishra - Between Bears and Bees

Fiction
Shailen Mishra holds a PhD in English Studies from Illinois State University and an MFA in Creative Writing from North Carolina State University. At Illinois State University, his work was recognized… Read more »
Gregory Byrd
Dita e Verës

Gregory Byrd - Dita e Verës

Fiction
A Fulbright fellow (Albania, 2011) and Pushcart nominee, Gregory Byrd’s poetry and prose have appeared widely, recently in Apalachee Review and forthcoming in Saw Palm. His current projects are the… Read more »
Jill McDonough
Drunk Driving

Jill McDonough - Drunk Driving

Poetry
Jill McDonough’s books of poems include Here All Night (Alice James, 2019), Reaper (Alice James, 2017), Where You Live (Salt, 2012), and Habeas Corpus (Salt, 2008). The recipient of three Pushcart… Read more »
A. J. Bermudez
Fall

A. J. Bermudez - Fall

Creative Nonfiction
A. J. Bermudez is an award-winning writer and filmmaker based in Los Angeles, California. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in McSweeney’s, Hobart, The Masters Review, Fiction International,… Read more »
Alden M. Hayashi
Finding the Right “Keiko”

Alden M. Hayashi - Finding the Right “Keiko”

Fiction
Alden M. Hayashi has been an editor and writer at Scientific American, the Harvard Business Review, and the MIT Sloan Management Review. After more than thirty years covering science, technology, and… Read more »
Trapper Markelz
First Snow

Trapper Markelz - First Snow

Poetry
Trapper Markelz is a poet, musician, and cyclist, who writes from Boston, MA. You can learn more at https://trappermarkelz.com. Read more »
LeRoy Sorenson
Hometown

LeRoy Sorenson - Hometown

Poetry
Main Street Rag published LeRoy Sorenson’s poetry collection, Forty Miles North of Nowhere. His chapbook Railman’s Son will be published in 2021. He won The Tishman Review 2019 Edna St. Vincent… Read more »
Basmah Sakrani
Intersection

Basmah Sakrani - Intersection

Contest - 1,000 Words or Less - Fiction
Basmah Sakrani is a Pakistani-Canadian writer living in Memphis TN, with her husband and two dogs. Her work has appeared in Woven Tale Press, Past Ten, Noble Gas Quarterly, and other journals. Most… Read more »
Mary Ardery
Kawana Campsite

Mary Ardery - Kawana Campsite

Poetry
Mary Ardery is originally from Bloomington, IN. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Missouri Review’s “Poem of the Week,” Fairy Tale Review, Cincinnati Review’s “miCRo” series, Prairie… Read more »
Caroline Miller
Mosaic

Caroline Miller - Mosaic

Creative Nonfiction
Caroline Miller is an essayist and poet who writes about art, landscapes, and femininity. She has an MFA in nonfiction from the University of Wyoming and enjoys tap dancing, hiking, and drinking far… Read more »
Tara Lynn Masih
Notes to THE WORLD

Tara Lynn Masih - Notes to THE WORLD

Fiction
Tara Lynn Masih is a National Jewish Book Award Finalist and winner of the Julia Ward Howe Award for Young Readers for her debut novel, My Real Name Is Hanna. Her anthologies include The Rose Metal… Read more »
Annie Sheppard
One Peach

Annie Sheppard - One Peach

Creative Nonfiction
Annie Sheppard’s essays can be found in Phoebe, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Fourth Genre, and The Pushcart Prize XLV, among others. She lives in Oregon. Read more »
Star Su
Properties of Light

Star Su - Properties of Light

Fiction
Star Su grew up in Ann Arbor and is currently an undergraduate at Brown. Her fiction is forthcoming in Waxwing, SmokeLong Quarterly, Wildness Journal, and elsewhere. Find her on Twitter: @stars_su. Read more »
John Van Kirk
Sea Fog: A History

John Van Kirk - Sea Fog: A History

Fiction
John Van Kirk is the author of the novel Song for Chance (Red Hen Press). His short fiction has won the O. Henry Award and the Iowa Review Fiction Prize and has been published in numerous magazines… Read more »
Bryce Emley
St. Felicity Watches St. Perpetua’s Executioner

Bryce Emley - St. Felicity Watches St. Perpetua’s Executioner

Poetry
Bryce Emley is the author of the prose chapbooks A Brief Family History of Drowning (winner of the 2018 Sonder Press Chapbook Prize) and Smoke and Glass (Folded Word, 2018). A Narrative 30 Below 30… Read more »
Emily James
The Reckoning

Emily James - The Reckoning

Contest - 1,000 Words or Less - Creative Nonfiction
Emily James is a former high school teacher and writer in NYC. She is the submissions editor at Pidgeonholes and the CNF Editor at Porcupine lit. She’s a Smokelong Flash 2020 Finalist, and the… Read more »
M. M. De Voe
The Scissors of Hope and Despair

M. M. De Voe - The Scissors of Hope and Despair

Fiction
M. M. De Voe has won more than a dozen writing awards for short fiction and poetry. Anthologized in Delirium Corridor (Borda Press), Twisted Book of Shadows (winner of a Shirley Jackson Award for Best… Read more »

Hometown

LeRoy Sorenson

Take my hometown where boys become drunks and girls become escapees from bad marriages, too many children. Take my hometown where you learn to speak— shithead, dickhead, motherfucker— and study, on paydays, lines outside liquor stores. As a child, I kept a leery eye out for everyone: the fat mailman; the holy roller preachers; my drunk uncles. An eye out for the fast hand of my father. For the town drunks, the next day only a gin bottle away. Dragged out of my mother at the local hospital, the hospital with the Jesus Saves signs, crucifixes in every room. The town a mini-Pittsburgh, a hole carved out of prairie sludge, so American the streets burned my eyes even at night.
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