Saida Agostini is a queer Afro-Guyanese poet whose work explores the ways that Black folks harness mythology to enter the fantastic. Her debut, let the dead in, was a finalist for the Center of African American Poetry & Poetics' 2020 Book Prize; other publications include the Black Ladies Brunch Collective anthology, Not Without Our Laughter, and STUNT, a chapbook. She is a Cave Canem Graduate Fellow. www.saidaagostini.com

Amy M. Alvarez is an Affrilachian Poet. Her first book, tentatively titled Makeshift Altar, will be released by University Press of Kentucky in 2024. She is co-editor of Essential Voices: A COVID-19 Anthology (WVU Press, 2023). Amy lives and teaches in West Virginia. For more information, visit amymalavarez.com.

Pam Anderson is the author of three poetry chapbooks, including Just the Girls (Poetry Box Press) and Widow Maker (Finishing Line Press), a chronicle of her husband’s cardiac arrests/recovery. Her poetic inspirations often come from practicing yoga or hiking. She has never owned a red swimsuit. pamelaranderson.org

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Ellen Austin-Li’s poetry appeared in Artemis, The Maine Review, Rust+Moth, Salamander, SWWIM, & elsewhere. Finishing Line Press published her chapbooks, Firefly & Lockdown: Scenes From Early in the Pandemic. She’s a Best of the Net nominee. Ellen earned an MFA in Poetry from the Solstice Low-Residency Program. She lives in Cincinnati.  

Subhaga Crystal Bacon is a Queer poet living in rural Washington. She is the author of four collections of poetry including Surrender of Water in Hidden Places, forthcoming, and Transitory, recipient of the Isabella Gardner Award for Poetry, forthcoming from BOA Editions.

Tina Banks has been teaching in the Youngstown City School district for 20 years. She is passionate about reading and writing education and uses YA literature as a way to motivate reluctant readers. She is a graduate of Ursuline High School and lives in Youngstown with her dog, Carson.

Tess Barry was shortlisted for the Manchester Poetry Prize, twice a finalist for North American Review’s James Hearst Poetry Prize and Aesthetica’s Poetry Award, and shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize. Her work has been widely published. A longtime Madwomen member, Barry directs Carlow University’s MFA in Creative Writing Program.

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Christopher Barzak is the author of four novels and two short story collections. His books have received the Stonewall Honor Award from the American Library Association, the Shirley Jackson Award, the Crawford Award, the Whippoorwill Award, and have been placed on the Human Rights Campaign list of books for LGBTQ welcoming school libraries. He grew up in rural Ohio. christopherbarzak.com

Sandra Beasley is the author of four poetry collections, most recently Made to Explode, as well as Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life, a disability memoir. She also edited Vinegar and Char: Verse from the Southern Foodways Alliance. She teaches with the University of Nebraska Omaha’s low-residency MFA program. She lives in Washington, D.C. SandraBeasley.com

B. Elizabeth Beck is the author of seven titles. Specializing in engaging inner-city, at-risk youth, she is the founder of Teen Howl and created Leestown OUTLOUD and The Tracks Literary Magazine in Cincinnati Public Schools. Her debut collection of short stories about women and their relationships to music will be released by Accents Publishing in 2024.  elizbeck.com

Adam Blackman, based in Brooklyn, New York, has taught writing workshops and civic engagement classes in elementary and middle schools and presented in schools and writer's conferences about writing, editing, and the publication process. He runs a community center with a middle school after school program, ran a nonprofit bookstore, and is an agented writer with an MFA in fiction.

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Kristy Boyce lives in Pickerington, OH and teaches psychology as a senior lecturer at The Ohio State University. When she’s not spending time with her husband and son, she’s using her travel experiences and academic background to write young adult novels about self-discovery, friendship, and love. kristyboyceauthor.com

Marion Starling Boyer’s collection, Ice Hours, won the Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize and was released in January 2023 by Michigan State University Press. A professor emeritus for Kalamazoo Valley Community College, Boyer currently conducts workshops for Lit Cleveland and lives in Twinsburg, Ohio. For more link to marionstarlingboyer.com.

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Conor Bracken is a poet and translator. He is the author of Henry Kissinger, Mon Amour (Bull City Press, 2017) and The Enemy of My Enemy is Me (Diode Editions, 2021), as well as the translator of Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine's Scorpionic Sun (CSU Poetry Center, 2019) and Jean D'Amérique's No Way in the Skin Without This Bloody Embrace (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2022). He teaches at the Cleveland Institute of Art. conorbracken.com

Liz Breazeale is an NEA 2020 Creative Writing Fellow and won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize for her first story collection, Extinction Events. Her work has appeared in Kenyon Review Online, Best Small Fictions, Best of the Net, Joyland, Columbia Review, and many others. lizbreazeale.com

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K.J. Bryant is a recent graduate of Carlow University MFA in Creative Writing Program. She has been published in Pittsburgh Magazine, Pittsburgh Quarterly, Table Magazine, and others. As Bryant searches for a publisher for her debut novel Reclaiming Grace, she supports Carlow’s MFA community with her marketing skills.

John Burroughs: I was born on the banks of the Cherry River in Richwood, West Virginia, in 1966. When I was a toddler, we moved to Ohio where Dad took a job at the Lorain Ford plant and I grew up Southern Baptist in Elyria before embarking on my own journeys. But my family visited our hometown several times a year and much of my heart has remained there.

Sheila L. Carter-Jones is the author of Three Birds Deep, the 2012 winner of the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Book Award judged by Elizabeth Alexander. Her next volume of poetry is forthcoming from BOA Editions. She is a fellow of Cave Canem, Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop and a Walter Dakin Fellow of the 2015 Sewanee Writer’s Conference. Sheila holds an MFA from Carlow University and facilitates writing workshops in the Madwoman in the Attic Program.

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Julie Centofanti is a junior biology major in the BaccMed pre-medical program at the Youngstown State University Sokolov Honors College. Julie founded the Transcribing Club as a method for students to volunteer and build community during the pandemic and co-authored a publication in a peer-reviewed academic journal detailing the Transcribing Club.

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Kim Chinquee has published flash fiction in NOON, CONJUNCTIONS, THE NATION, DENVER QUARTERLY, STORY; and eight books including debut novel PIPETTE. She's received three Pushcart Prizes and a Henfield Prize; is editor of NEW WORLD WRITING QUARTERLY, MIDWEST REVIEW, and ELM LEAVES JOURNAL (ELJ), and co-directs SUNY-Buffalo State University's writing major. She is a triathlete and lives with three dogs in Tonawanda, NY.  kimchinquee.com

Bob Craven is a writer, musician, and scholar from rural Western Pennsylvania. Studying English literature, he earned his M.A. at Duquesne University (2015) and his Ph.D. at the University of Oregon (Eugene, 2022). He serves as Assistant Professor of English at Westminster College (New Wilmington, PA).

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Jessica Cuello’s most recent book is Yours, Creature (JackLeg Press). Her book Liar, selected by Dorianne Laux for The 2020 Barrow Street Book Prize. Cuello has been awarded The 2022 Nina Riggs Poetry Prize, two CNY Book Awards, The 2016 Washington Prize, The New Letters Poetry Prize, a Saltonstall Fellowship, and The New Ohio Review Poetry Prize. She is poetry editor at Tahoma Literary Review and teaches French in Central NY.  jessicacuello.com

Jelisa Dallas, M.S. Ed. is an author, educator and empowerment coach.  With over 12 years of experience in education, Jelisa is a sought after contributor on topics related to authorship, emotional intelligence, belonging and personal development. gobravellc.com

Allison Pitinii Davis, PhD, is the author of Line Study of a Motel Clerk (Baobab Press, 2017), a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award and the Ohioana Book Award. She is a visiting assistant professor of English at Bethany College.

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James De Monte is the author of Where Are Your People From? (Cornerstone, 2023) and teaches English at Lakeland Community College. He graduated from the NEOMFA and holds a PhD from the University of Toledo. Along with his wife and sons, he lives a short walk from the Cuyahoga River.

Darren C. Demaree is the author of eighteen poetry collections, most recently “the luxury”, (January 2023, forthcoming from Glass Lyre).  He is the recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, the Louise Bogan Award from Trio House Press, and the Nancy Dew Taylor Award from Emrys Journal.  darrencdemaree.com

Matt Dettmer is a writer, musician, and physician currently practicing in Cleveland, OH.  He is also a creative writing student in the Northeast Ohio MFA program with a focus in poetry.  His work has previously been published in The Harpy Hybrid Review, Olney, and Bacopa Literary Review.

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Joanna Eleftheriou is the author of This Way Back (West Virginia University Press, 2020). She has published essays and poems in Arts & Letters, CutBank, Bellingham Review, and Sweeter Voices Still: An LGBTQ Anthology from Middle America. A contributing editor at Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies, she teaches at Christopher Newport University and the Writing Workshops in Greece. Find her at https://www.joannaeleftheriou.com/.

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Nikki Ericksen is a part time English instructor at Youngstown State University, Eastern Gateway Community College, and Southern New Hampshire University, and is a coordinator for the YSU English Festival. Nikki has an MFA in Creative Writing for Children and Young Adults and an MA in English literature, both have focused on neurodivergence representation in literature.

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Dr. Christina Fisanick is professor of English at PennWest California. With Robert Stakeley of the Heinz History Center, Dr. Fisanick co-authored Digital Storytelling as Public History: A Guidebook for Educators (Routledge 2020). She is author or editor of more than thirty and books and nearly 100 articles, essays, and creative works. Dr. Fisanick is president of Writers Association of Northern Appalachia (WANA) and co-chair of Northern Appalachian Network.  ChristinaFisanick.com

Dom Fonce is the author of the two chapbooks Here, We Bury the Hearts and Dancing in the Cobwebs. He is an MFA candidate at the NEOMFA. His poetry has been published in Gordon Square Review, Rappahannock Review, Delmarva Review, Jenny Magazine, Obra/Artifact, and elsewhere. He lives and writes in Youngstown, Ohio.

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Sarah Freligh is the author of five books, including Sad Math, winner of the 2014 Moon City Press Poetry Prize, and A Brief Natural History of Women, published in 2023 by Harbor Editions. Among her awards are poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Saltonstall Foundation. sarahfreligh.com

Jane Ann Fuller's work appears or is forthcoming in On The Seawall, Verse Daily, Shenandoah, Ekphrastic Review, Blue Earth Review, Calyx, and elsewhere. Fuller's Half-Life (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2021) was a finalist for the National Indie Excellence Awards, and she is a recipient of the James Boatwright III Poetry Prize. janeannfullerpoetry.com

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Molly Fuller is the author of For Girls Forged by Lightning and Always a Body. She recently won the Gris-Gris Literary Journal Summer Poetry Contest. Her work has appeared in Nothing to Declare: A Guide to the Flash Sequence, New Poetry from the Midwest, 100 Word Story, and Bellingham Review.

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Pamela Gay's writing has been published in many journals including Iowa Review, Brevity, & Midway Journal and her memoir I'm So Glad You're Here (2020) won several awards. She is professor emerita at Binghamton University, State University of New York, where she taught courses in flash fiction and flash memoir. pamela-gay.com

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Stacy Gnall is author of poetry collections DOGGED (winner, 2021 Juniper Prize for Poetry from University of Massachusetts Press) and HEART FIRST INTO THE FOREST (Alice James Books, 2011). Gnall holds a PhD in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Southern California and is a graduate of the University of Alabama’s MFA in Creative Writing and Sarah Lawrence College. From Cleveland, she is Poet-in-Residence at University of Detroit Mercy. stacygnall.com

Kari Gunter-Seymour: I am a ninth generation Appalachian. My people, Welsh, Irish, Dutch, have lived, prayed and died within Appalachia’s borders, worked the land, the mines, served their country, a few going off to the factories, never giving up—from Virginia to North Carolina, down into South Carolina, up and across to Tennessee and finally southeastern Ohio. It’s their voices I hear as I write.

Katie Hartsock is the author of Wolf Trees (2023) and Bed of Impatiens (2016), both from Able Muse Press. Her poetry appears in journals such as Kenyon Review, Ecotone, Poetry, The Threepenny Review, 32 Poems, Pleiades, and RHINO. She is an associate professor of English at Oakland University in Michigan.  katiehartsock.com

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Mollie Hartup serves as director of Youngstown State University’s Sokolov Honors College. She teaches honors seminars, including Magazine Editing and Production, which provides students opportunities to publish their work in the award-winning With Honors magazine. She holds bachelor’s degrees in Telecommunication Studies and Geography and an MBA from YSU.

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Hayley Mitchell Haugen is a Professor of English at Ohio University Southern. Her latest chapbook, The Blue Wife Poems, is from Kelsay Books (2022). She edits Sheila-Na-Gig online and Sheila-Na-Gig Editions.

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Jocelyn Heath is an Associate Professor in English at Norfolk State University. Her debut poetry collection, In the Cosmic Fugue, came out in November 2022. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Crab Orchard Review, Poet Lore, Sinister Wisdom, Fourth River, and elsewhere. She is an Assistant Editor for Smartish Pace. Find her at jocelynheath.wordpress.com.

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Nora Hickey lives in Springfield, Ohio. She writes about comics and poetry comics on her substack "Autobiographix." Her poetry, nonfiction, and reviews appear in Guernica, Diagram, the Rumpus, and elsewhere. norahickey.contently.com

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Erin Hill is a writer, educator, and director of Champion City Write Now at Wittenberg University. A resident of Yellow Springs, Ohio, she also serves on the Little Art Theater board, is a first reader for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and definitely wants your recommendations for good local tacos.

John Hoppenthaler’s books of poetry are Domestic Garden, Anticipate the Coming Reservoir, Lives of Water, and Night Wing over Metropolitan Area, all with Carnegie Mellon UP. His poetry, essays, and interviews have appeared in Ploughshares, Virginia Quarterly Review, New York Magazine, Southern Review, Poetry Northwest, Southern Humanities Review, etc.

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Ann K. Howley is an award-winning writer for Pittsburgh Parent Magazine. Her debut novel, The Memory of Cotton, was a finalist in the Family Saga category of the 2022 American Fiction Awards and her memoir, Confessions of a Do-Gooder Gone Bad, won a TAZ Award in 2014. annkhowley.com

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Jason Irwin is the author of the three full-length poetry collections, most recently The History of Our Vagrancies (Main Street Rag, 2020). He was a 2022 Zoeglossia Fellow and has also had nonfiction published in various journals including the Santa Ana Review, & The Catholic Worker. He lives in Pittsburgh. jasonirwin.blogspot.com

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Kim Jacobs-Beck is the author of Luminaries, and a chapbook, Torch. Her poems can seen at Museum of Americana, Great Lakes Review, West Trestle Review, Nixes Mate, Gyroscope, SWWIM, and Apple Valley Review, among other journals. She is the founder and editor- in-chief of Milk & Cake Press. kimjacobsbeck.com

Born in Germany during WWII, Clarissa Jakobsons is a poet, book artist, and painter whose visual and written art is inspired by her Lithuanian heritage and her family’s history. Her 2023 book, Baltic Amber in a Chest, is published by Bird Dog Press.

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Mitchell James: After living the first twenty-five years of my life in rural locations in Illinois, Arkansas, and South Dakota, I lived nearly a decade in rural Appalachia and have for the past six years lived in Northeast Ohio. It’s a bit different up here. I miss the country and mountains, but the Great Lakes region has its own beauty and draw.

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Jessica Jones (MA, University Montana) is full-time faculty at Kent State University at Stark, where she teaches poetry, Native American Literature and composition courses that focus on social justice. Her work has been published in numerous journals and anthologies and her book, Bitterroot (2018), can be found at Finishing Line Press.

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Jeremy Jusek is Parma’s poet laureate. He has authored three books: We Grow Tomatoes in Tiny Towns, The Less Traveled Street, and The Details Will Be Gone Soon. He hosts the Ohio Poetry Association's podcast Poetry Spotlight, runs the West Side Poetry Workshop, and founded the Flamingo Writers’ Guild. www.jeremyjusek.com

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Jason Kapcala is the author of the rust belt noir novel Hungry Town and the short story collection North to Lakeville. His writing has been nominated for numerous prizes, including the Pushcart Prize. He grew up in northeastern Pennsylvania, near the ruins of the Bethlehem Steel Works, and now lives in northern West Virginia. For more information, visit jasonkapcala.com.

Ed Karshner is an Associate Professor of English at Robert Morris University where he teaches writing and literature. A 2022 Summer Research Fellow at Berea College’s Special Collections and Archives, his creative non-fiction has appeared in the anthology Appalachian Reckoning and in Reckon Review where he is a featured columnist.

Hannah Allman Kennedy hails from the oil ghost towns of Venango County, Pennsylvania. Her debut novel, And It All Came Tumbling Down, was published in 2021 from the Watershed Journal Literary Group. She is a graduate of the Carlow University MFA in Creative Writing program. She lives in Pittsburgh. hannahakwrites.com

Rebecca Kilroy is a novelist, short story writer and writing teacher. Arden Young is a writer and visual artist. Both eager to explore their fears around mortality, they founded Thanatos Review with the goal of broadening conversations around death. thanatosreview.com

Bob King is an Associate Professor of English at Kent State University at Stark. He holds degrees from Loyola University Chicago and Indiana University (MFA, poetry), where he was Editor-in-Chief of Indiana Review. Bob’s poetry has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Narrative Magazine, The Spoon River Poetry Review, Northwest Review, Quarter After Eight, Allium: a Journal of Poetry & Prose, and Green Mountains Review, among dozens of other journals.

Jen Knox was a high school dropout who went on to find purpose through writing, which led her to earn a BA in English from Otterbein and an MFA from Bennington. Her short fiction and creative nonfiction are taught in classrooms and appear in over two hundred publications around the world. Jen's first novel, We Arrive Uninvited, won the Steel Toe Books Award in Prose. jenknox.com

Ellen Kombiyil is the author of Histories of the Future Perfect (2015), and a micro chapbook Avalanche Tunnel (2016). Her latest book, Love as Invasive Species, is forthcoming in 2024. A 2022 BRIO Award winner from the Bronx Council on the Arts, she teaches writing at Hunter College. ellenkombiyil.com

Virginia Konchan is the author of four poetry collections, including Bel Canto (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2022), and Hallelujah Time (Véhicule Press, 2021), a collection of short stories, Anatomical Gift, and is coeditor of Marbles on the Floor: How to Assemble a Book of Poems (University of Akron Press, 2023). virginiakonchan.com

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Kellie Rose Kordinak is a senior working towards her B.A. degrees in History and Applied Communications at Kent State University at Stark. She is an active member of the Honors Program, Chairman of the KSU Stark Anti-Human Trafficking Committee (AHTC), Club Leader of the Creative Writing Club and currently works as a Talent Recruiter. 

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Paula J. Lambert has published several collections of poetry including The Ghost of Every Feathered Thing (FutureCycle 2022) and How to See the World (Bottom Dog 2020). Awarded PEN America's L'Engle-Rahman Prize for Mentorship and two Ohio Arts Council grants, she lives in Columbus with her husband Michael Perkins.

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Ananda Lima is the author of Craft (Tor Books, forthcoming 2024), Mother/land (Black Lawrence Press, winner of the Hudson Prize, 2021), and four chapbooks, including Amblyopia (Bull City Press). Her work has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Poets.org, Kenyon Review Online, Gulf Coast, Witness, Pleiades, and elsewhere.

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Crystal Lin is a sophomore Social Work and Spanish student in the YSU Sokolov Honors College. Crystal is a host for the Transcribing Club, the treasurer for Los Buenos Vecinos Student Club, and the treasurer for the Student Social Work Association.

Anne Garwig Lucas graduated from the NEOMFA and is currently a doctoral teaching fellow at Kent State University. She/they have published poetry in Abstract Magazine, Cleaver, TIMBER, The Mojave River Review, The Ekphrastic Review, and Jenny. Anne served on the Lit Youngstown board of directors from 2017-2019.

David Lucas has an MA in English from YSU. He currently teaches ELA, ELL, and Mythology at Boardman High School, and composition and rhetoric part-time online at Eastgate Community College.