OUR EDITORIAL BOARD A hearing impaired writer and artist adopted in Luxembourg, Kelly Sargent is an awardwinning author of two memoirs in verse, a haiku and senryu poetry collection, and a children’s storybook. Recent honors include: Firebird Book Award winner, The Rash Award in Poetry finalist, Eric Hoffer Award nominee, Touchstone Award for Individual Poems nominee, and Best of the Net nominee. Her other works have appeared in more than eighty literary journals. She also serves as the creative nonfiction editor of The Bookends Review. Visit www.kellysargent.com to learn more about her. K.D. Zwierz is a lecturer, musician and poet. His poetry was recently featured in the anthology Ukraine in the work of international poets (Literary Waves). His writing explores themes of displacement, cultural identity and historical relativism, explored through the analysis of his own experiences growing up in a migrant farming community. Of PolishItalian descent, he lives and writes between Croatia, Kuwait and the UK. Colby Flade (he/him) is a queer writer, artist, avid drinker of coffee, and student based in Chicago. He is the author of The Smell of the Light Blue House in Summertime (2021), Menthol (2022), Fear Home (Oyez Review, Vol. 49, 2022), Short Sweet Simple: Love Poems (Bottlecap Press, 2022), Ignis Fatuus (Beyond Words Literary Magazine, Issue 35, 2023) and The Fly & Odor (Beyond Words Press, 2023). Colby’s work can be found online, at bookshops like This Old Book in Grayslake, Illinois & The Book Teller in Whitewater, Wisconsin, and elsewhere. Flade attended DePaul University, studying Writing, Rhetoric & Discourse, and is currently pursuing a degree in Early Childhood Education. Find him on Instagram @theflade and on www.theflade.com Noah Evan Wilson is a writer and musician based in New York City. His stories have been published in Beyond Words, Dreamers Creative Writing Magazine, and Prime Number Magazine, among others, as well as the anthology, Ten Ways the Animals Will Save Us, from Retreat West Books. Noah is currently an MFA candidate at Rutgers University-Newark. His latest record, The View from the Ground – EP, is now available on all major streaming platforms. Candi Martin is a Creative Writing tutor and published writer/editor who writes on social equality and our roots in this world. She holds MA Creative Writing and Wellbeing from Teesside University and has always written for her own wellbeing. She can usually found listening to BBC6 music with a huge cup of tea. IG: @candi_says_ Brian "Brie" Sheridan is a writer and editor existing on the East Coast. They are currently trying to publish their first chapbook. In their free time, the enjoy playing nostalgic video games, planning out tattoos, and drag. Roberta Laurie is the author of Weaving a Malawi Sunrise. She holds an MA in Environmental Education and Communication and teaches in the Bachelor of Communication Studies program at MacEwan University. Roberta writes about writing, nature, sustainability, and sustainability communication. She is currently writing a memoir inspired by a box of letters left behind by her father.
WRITERS Stephen Priest—once Student Body President of Fairmont High School in Dayton, Ohio— now navigates the rat-race from Greenpoint (Brooklyn), New York. His poems have appeared in 32 Poems, Barrow Street, The Birmingham Poetry Review, Subtropics and other print and online journals, and are forthcoming in Cleaver, Cloudbank, and Chiron Review. His first poetry manuscript has been shortlisted for a number of book awards. Benjamin Rose is an MFA student at the University of St. Thomas, Houston. B. Anne Jarboe Jennings is a visual artist and cellist in Louisville, Kentucky with a poet's spirit. She loves reading and taking walks in cemeteries with her family. Her website is: www.ba-jennings-art.com Rhys Ford is a queer, non-binary writer and educator living in southern Maine. Dick Altman writes in the thin, magical air of Old West’s high desert plains, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in the American Journal of Poetry, Santa Fe Literary Review, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Landing Zone, Cathexis Northwest Press, Humana Obscura, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The Ravens Perch, Beyond Words, New Verse News, Wingless Dreamer, Blueline, Sky Island Journal and others here and abroad. His work also appears in the first edition of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry, published by the New Mexico Museum Press. Pushcart Prize nominee and poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexico’s literary competition, he has authored some 300 poems, published on four continents. Jaime Rodríguez is a Chicano poet from the Rio Grande Valley. His work explores queer intimacy, masculinity, and cultural silence. Blending English and Spanish, his poems follow the coded languages of desire, survival, and sacred disruption. Richard Cummins lives in the Pacific Northwest in the United States with his wife and dog. Their children are both successful writers living in New York City. Kevin Schumaker was educated to be a philosophy professor and then made a number of bad choices. Born in Wisconsin in a subdivision in the middle of nowhere, Kevin has tried through writing to craft a world capturing the existential heart of American hopes, dreams, addictions, loves, danger, and lies. Steven Churchill is a philosopher and writer living in Melbourne, Australia. Steven has lectured in the Melbourne School of Continental Philosophy, and has also served as Tutor in Philosophy at La Trobe University. Steven's writing is informed by themes of disability and mental health, art and politics. Timothy Rolands is a writer and artist who lives in central Wisconsin with his wife and daughter. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The New Territory, New Plains Review, Paintbrush, and The New Press Literary Quarterly. He was a finalist for the 2017 Lascaux Prize in Poetry.
Gordan Struić is a Croatian poet, lawyer, and musician whose work explores silence, memory, and fractured connections. Writing in both English and Croatian, he often blends digital imagery with emotional vulnerability. His poems have appeared in 34th Parallel, Half Mystic, Mediterranean Poetry, The Headlight Review, and two Beyond Words anthologies. Instagram: @gstruic Lina Buividavičiūtė was born on May 14, 1986. She is a poet and literary critic. Lina is author of two poetry books in the Lithuanian language. Her poetry is published in Matter, Masters and Proverse Poetry Prize anthologies, and the magazines: Drunk Monkeys, Beyond Words, The Dewdrop, The Limit Experience, Beyond Queer Words, Maudlin House, Cathexis Northwest Press, Poetry Online, Red Noise Collective, Sad Girls Diaries, as well as the Versopolis poetry platform. Upcoming publications include New Millennium Writings, Cathexis Northwest Press, Red Noise Collective, The Stardust Review and Beyond Words. Elizabeth Sundstrom earned a Post-Baccalaureate Writing Certificate from UC Berkeley and studied creative writing at Oxford University. Her work has been published in Half and One, Lunch Ticket, Blood+Honey, and Beyond Words Magazine. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and two Labradoodles. Dalton Vann is a writer from New Boston, Texas. Their work explores genres of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. He is a United States Army veteran who is a student at Full Sail University for Creative Writing. Donald Wildman is a retired English Instructor, having worked most of his career at Wake Technical Community College in Raleigh, NC. His poems have appeared in The Atlanta Review, The Bedford Competition Anthology (UK), Pinesong, The Tulip Tree Anthology, and The Tulip Tree Review. Ada Costea is a 23-year-old Romanian writer based in Amsterdam. She studied biomedical sciences, an influence that often shapes her interest in the body as both subject and setting. Her work gravitates toward body horror, intimacy, and the uneasy intersections between the two. Marcella Peralta Simon is a retired Latinx grandmother, splitting her time between Cambridge, UK and Kissimmee, Florida. She has been a diplomat, university professor, and instructional designer. Her poetry and short fiction pieces have appeared in The Weighing of the Heart, An Anthology of Emerging Western Australian Poets, Pank, Poets Choice, Flash Fiction Magazine, Beyond Words Literary Magazine, The Acentos Review, On the Run, and
Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine. Debra Tracy is a Puerto Rican–American writer based on Florida’s Space Coast. She is currently at work on a memoir exploring family, memory, and the delightful, messy details of life. She shares her writing and lots of food pictures on Instagram @debinthemoon Catherine Davidson is a writer, editor and teacher who lives in London and has dual US/UK citizenship. This piece came to her years ago and she wrote and filed it away in horror. Lately it has insisted on its authority, a development she truly regrets.
Stephen Abraham is a student of history and literature who is worried about the future of humanity. He often wonders why science fiction movies always show an emperor of galaxies and not a prime minister! Garret Allen Waugh, a proud native of Wadsworth, Ohio, now calls Cleveland Heights home. After a failed career as an academic, he decided to be happy and is now employed as a donor relations professional and technical writer in the language services industry. His work appears in Half and One, Neon Origami and Lake Erie Ink. He holds his BA from Kent State University and his MA from Case Western Reserve University. J.M.C. Kane is an autistic writer from England, though now claimed by New Orleans, who has spent most of his adult life trying to fit long stories into short boxes. He has worked as a paperboy, a contracting executive, and an amateur cataloguer of human regret—none of which he was formally trained for. He was formally trained as a lawyer, but he is, frankly, a better cataloguer. His fiction has appeared in Beyond Words and almost three-dozen other journals that appreciate compression—and his willingness to obey word counts. Kane was Shortlisted for the 2025 Letter Review Prize for Short-Fiction, Shortlisted for 32nd Annual Robert J. DeMott Short Prose Contest (2025), Longlisted for the L’Esprit Leopold Bloom Prize for Innovative Narration, and has recently been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His most recent work, After the Cut, was published in Palisades Review in December 2025. G. M. Rowbotham is a writer of fiction and essays from the north-east of England. His work has featured in Blood + Honey and Beyond Queer Words. His debut novel Lover has been shortlisted for the Uncharted Novel Excerpt Prize. Alongside his writing, he lectures in fashion, has worked as a couturier, and is retraining as a psychotherapist.
VISUAL ARTISTS Cover art: Ferris Wheel #4 by Xinyi Cindy Zhang. Xinyi Cindy Zhang (b. 1998) is a visual artist whose practice integrates figurative painting with socio-political critique. Currently an MFA candidate at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an alumna of California College of the Arts, Zhang constructs symbolic fables that imply historical recurrence and the expression of humanity. Her work is anchored by the metaphor of the ferris wheel— reimagined not as a site of leisure, but as a symbol of the cyclical tragedies inherent in human history. Nate Zipper, Rest Stop. Photography is a creative vehicle that Nate uses to tell the unique story behind the seemingly mundane. Through photography, he has noticed the things around him that easily could be overlooked: light, emotions, timing, and the subtle elements that give meaning to objects and people. Nate’s journey as a photographer has fueled his passion for visual storytelling and inspired him to experiment with other forms of media, such as filmmaking. He constantly experiments with lighting, composition, and subject placement and movement, weaving them together into coherent narratives to better connect with his audience. Nate regularly participates in regional and national photography contests where he has earned several awards. Michele D’Acosta creates to recalibrate and transform the trauma of past atrocities against BIPOC people into empowered envisioning and deep remixing in a bold attempt to loosen the bonds of normative structure to create a space for the celebration of BIPOC neurodiversity. Andrea Jones, The Protector. Andrea is a visual artist and a qualified tattoo artist from Liverpool, England. For the past fourteen years she has worked as an art teacher in a prison. Her artwork has featured in several art and literature magazines in the U.K, U.S.A, Berlin, Stockholm, Lisbon and Japan. Kristen Herrington, FruitSmoothie. Growing up in a farming community where cows outnumber people, abstract artist Kristen Herrington draws upon life’s simple moments as inspiration for her paintings. She has collaborated with more than 50 artists throughout her career and has work showcased around the globe. C. L. Lunn, Into the Waves. Charles Lenny Lunn is a nonspeaking autistic poet and painter. Not using speech like other children, he spent years hiding in his imaginary universe and thinking about a truly just space in stark contrast to the ones that exist in the boarding schools and autism specialty centers in the real world. Learning to communicate on letterboards opened new tasks of high artistry for Charles. His ideas come more when he thinks of his words. Painting is not about thoughts; it’s his body moving freely. Now Charles uses everyday things to inspire his reality-driven poems and art. From noisy mouth-talkers in line at Target to snippets of conversations with joyful minds to shadows on the drive home, Charles believes there is beauty in most places, if one has the eye constantly trained - looking, looking, looking. Website: https://www.cllunn.com/; IG: cl.lunn.art Heath Johnston has been a self-taught working artist for nearly a decade. His works have been displayed throughout multiple venues including The Cottonwood Club, Bozeman, MT; Downtown Artery, Fort Collins, CO; Bellwether, Denver, CO; and Rayback Collective, Boulder, CO. He was born and raised in Johnson City, TN and is currently living in Fort
Collins, CO, where he works as a screen printer at Pine Printshop, a creative company specializing in the design and production of water-based screen prints. Sarah Venaccio, Portrait. Sarah is a writer, painter and zine-maker living in Appleton, Wisconsin. She has three children and two Siberian Huskies. She finds clarity in walks by the river, steamy baths with fat novels and visible mending. Jan Kluveld is a Rotterdam-born visual artist working in Maastricht The Netherlands: https://www.jankluveld.com Bruce Magnotti, Sticks and Stones. Bruce is an author, poet, jeweler, and practicing mystic. His memoir of the American road years, On Earth as it is in Heaven, 1969–1971, is in progress. He has been a goldsmith for three decades and an apprentice in a Visigoth priestess lineage for longer, and he divides his time between the Pacific Northwest and a Renaissance village in southwest France where human have lived for eons – in the trees, caves, then castles, and now in stone houses with red clay roofs. Sticks and Stones was photographed in the Boynton Canyon Vortex, Sedona, Arizona, where he had gone to clear, charge, and activate jewelry in the ancient, magic Visigothic methods. Liz Darrell, Yack in the Box. Liz is a multidisciplinary artist born and based in New York City. A lot of the darkness we face throughout life targets the deepest parts of ourselves, and to Liz, many of the deepest parts of herself are bound to her childhood. So, she’s become interested in exploring adult concepts through a playful lens. Mackenzie Rose, To Begin. Mackenzie is a survivor. On August 26, 2017, only two days after her 28th birthday, the man with whom she shared a home plunged a chef’s knife into her throat, past her tongue, and through the roof of her mouth. After eight days of recovery in the hospital, Mackenzie re-entered the world with a limited ability to speak, a PEG feeding tube, and PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). After relentless therapies, she began to reclaim some semblance of normality and retrained her voice to carry her new narrative. Bahar Calis, Surrender. Bahar is an illustrator based in New York and originally from Istanbul, Turkey, currently completing her studies at the School of Visual Arts. Her practice uses saturated, vibrant color as an emotional language, translating inner states, fleeting thoughts, and intimate reflections into bold, dreamlike images. Working at the intersection of memory, feeling, and intuition, Calis creates ethereal, pop-infused compositions that invite viewers to project, relate, and connect through shared human experience. Elaine B. Chao, Echolocation #8. Elaine is a New York based artist working in mixed mediadigital printmaking. After earning a B.A. in Video Art from Rutgers University she discovered painting. Her unique process of digital printmaking draws on visual, cultural and stylistic elements from artists like Klee and Gerhard Richter as well as Classical Chinese art. Robert Lee Contreras II, Grab My Hand PLS. Robert Lee Contreras II was born to Ecuadorian and Mexican-American parents in Los Angeles, CA and was raised in the suburb of Houston, TX. Despite having Latino parents, Contreras’ parents never taught him Spanish because his grandfather felt it would be a disadvantage. Influenced by this experience, Contreras’ work often examines generational differences in relation to identity, culture, conformity and his own feelings of alienation between him and his immigrant mother and MexicanAmerican father and Contreras’ adolescence growing up in the quiet oppressiveness of Texas suburb. Working in photography and video, Contreras work is built off producing
surreal effects by composing images through material objects, self-portrait and images from his cell phone. What results is the development of an uneasy, often absurd “inbetween” that reconstructs public and private space. Here Contreras attempts to take agency and autonomy over an identity that doesn’t fit easily or categorize into a consensus box, while simultaneously challenging perceptive prejudices. Tianyagenv Yan, Nightmare. Tianyagenv lives in a difficult-to-define diaspora. She uses light clay to make mini-dolls and tells stories about the lived experiences of isolation, alienation, and being haunted by spiritual beings that are thorny to rationalize. Sara Allen Prigodich is a mixed-media artist who received her BFA from the Hartford Art School in Connecticut and her MFA from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Her recent exhibitions include shows in Philadelphia, New York, Chicago & Baltimore. Sara is an Assistant Professor and Chair of the Ceramics program at Anne Arundel Community College in Maryland, where she focuses on sustaining a creative practice while educating those around her about the importance of making and experiencing art. Ji Young Yoon, Colorful Day. Ji Young Yoon is a painter based in Jersey City, New Jersey. Born and raised in Seoul, South Korea, she moved to the United States at a young age and spent her young adult years in the San Francisco Bay Area. Characterized by vibrant colors, geometric forms, and an attention to light, Yoon's work explores the intersection of urban environments and human experience. She received her bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from UC Santa Barbara (2009), a master's degree in Fashion Merchandising from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco (2013), and later returned to the same institution for an MFA in Fine Art Painting (2021). She has exhibited across the United States. IG: @jiyoungyoonart; Website: www.jiyoungyoonart.com Tindaekwe Roberts, Haunting Woods. Tindaekwe is a self-taught photographer passionate about capturing nature's beauty and the simplicity of everyday life. Tindaekwe’s work aims to tell the stories of the natural and built world, drawing inspiration from the raw beauty surrounding us. David Dasharath Kalal combines video imagery with paint, wood and cloth to produce objects that splice original street art onto subway stations or construction sites part of an ongoing engagement with the difficult nature of desire, color and hybridity in worlds Old, New and Imagined. Kalal has been exhibited internationally including at the Kiasma Museum, National Gallery of Canada, The New Museum, Desh/Pardesh, Carrie Able Gallery, Upstream Gallery, LIC Arts Gallery, 440 Gallery, Allmänna Galleriet, Inside/Out Vienna, Frameline Festival, Mix Festival, Siddarth Gautam Festival, The Robert Flaherty Seminars and Nature Morte Gallery. IG: @davidkalal Holly Smith explores nature through color and composition. She strives to paint in the space between fully abstract and figurative. Movement, light and space are achieved through various brush strokes and color juxtapositions. Rae Stokes, Save Me. Because she grew up admiring the natural beauty of Colorado, a theme of natural elements can be seen throughout all of Rae Stokes’s ceramic artwork. When painting, she tends to focus on the human subject using vibrant color schemes with elements of surrealism sprinkled in to convey her messages. Even when she was young people began to see Rae’s creative potential, but she only viewed it as a hobby that allowed her to express herself and grapple with the complex issues surrounding her identity as a
Queer, Black Biracial Woman. Rae has used her art to cope with her frustration about the structural inequities that exist in America and, more specifically, in New York City. Art has given her the ability to listen, self-reflect, rally others, and fight for equity and freedom. Jessica Macaluso, A New Day Brings New Hope. Jessica is a girl with a photography addiction. Electronic hoarding of images is a serious problem of Jessica. If you are in the know about support groups, please pass the information along to her! Stanley Horowitz, Rays and Water. Stanley is a retired Adjunct Professor at Farmingdale State College. His recent photography has been shown in exhibitions hosted by the New York Public Library, The Salmagundi Club, Long Island Art Educators, and The Art League of Long Island. His work has been selected as cover art for numerous publications including Rattle, Stand, The Cimarron Review and The Healing Muse. Guido B, September 1. Guido is an outdoor photographer based in northern Utah / Montana. @freethedust Myria Christophini, Angels of the pandemic. Myria is an ethnically mixed fine artist, experimental animator and researcher. Eli Heart, Horns. Eli is a student at Pitzer college in Los Angeles. Eli’s one true love in life is art. Eli is inspired by impressionism because of the uniqueness of each artist’s interpretation of life: the one experience we share. Jiao Deng, A Family at War. Jiao is an artist based in San Francisco working primarily in large-scale abstract oil painting. This work reflects on war and its impact on lived experience, exploring how it reshapes perceptions of life, intimacy, and human relationships. Patricia Cannon, Empty Chairs at Empty Tables. Patricia was a registered murse at UCSF for over two decades. She worked in various fields of critical care, including cardiac and neuro-intensive care, heme-oncology, and research. Patricia finds solace and creative expression in photography and poetry. Her artistry captures life's delicate interplay of light and shadow, resonating with themes of nature, love, and loss. As a poet and photographer, Patricia's creative work is deeply intertwined with her life experiences and faith. Her images and words invite readers and viewers to explore emotional landscapes, providing a tender yet powerful glimpse into moments of beauty and reflection. Patricia has the unique ability to transform her personal experiences into universal truths. The emotional depth of her photography, combined with her poetic insights, makes her a distinctive voice in both the art and literary worlds. Her book, Wild Heart, was published by The Poetry Box. Kristine Narvida, The Study of Annoyance (2023), Oil on linen, 80x100cm. Kristine Narvida is an independent, academic visual artist born in 1977. She graduated in 2006 as a Magister at the Latvian Art Academy in Riga. Since 2011 she is based in Germany. She is an active member of the German Association of Artists and the winner of prestigious art awards. She presents her fine artwork throughout Europe. Kristine Narvida prefers working with oil on linen, using models as her subjects. Her paintings explore the dynamics of human emotion through abstract figuration. Her series “Look how I move” and “Study of Annoyance” have been showcased at the Rhy Art Salon Basel, the Florence Biennale, the EXI Show in London. Her next solo exhibition begins on 19 September 2026 at the St. Nikolai Cathedral Church in Potsdam, Germany.