abouttheartists

Michelle Zacarias is an award-winning writer and adjunct instructor at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Born and raised in Chicago, Michelle currently resides in Southern California. As a queer disabled Latina she is passionate about issues surrounding accessibility, abolition and topics impacting marginalized communities. She has previously written for Teen Vogue, CALO News, The Triibe, City Bureau, People’s World, and more. In 2018, Michelle was awarded the Saul Miller Excellence in Journalism Award and in 2020 she was inducted into Chicago’s LGBT Hall of Fame for her contributions to the field. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in English and Philosophy at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign and her Masters in Studies of Law from USC Gould School of Law.

Nick Van Zanten (they/them) is a nonbinary artist born in Chicago and now based in Brooklyn. They received their BFA from Pratt Institute and their MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Their work has been shown throughout the United States, and been written about in Art in America.

Marta “Elena” Cortez-Neavel (she/her/they/them) is a queer, neurodivergent, MexicanAmerican artist, designer, and activist based in Austin, Texas. Her work focuses primarily on disability, gender, and size inclusion in fashion and the creative industries. Elena is the creative director and lead designer of Abilitee Adaptive Wear, and the founder of Futurekind Studio, an inclusive creative home for other marginalized artists.

SG Huerta is a queer Xicanx writer from Dallas. They are the poetry editor of Abode Press and author of the chapbooks The Things We Bring with Us (Headmistress Press 2021) and Last Stop (Defunkt Magazine 2023). Their work has appeared in The Offing, Split Lip Magazine, Infrarrealista Review, and elsewhere. SG lives in Texas with their partner and two cats. Find them at sghuertawriting.com or tweeting @sg poetry.

Alison Lubar teaches high school English by day and yoga by night. They are a queer, nonbinary, mixed-race femme whose life work (aside from wordsmithing) has evolved into bringing mindfulness practices, and sometimes even poetry, to young people. Their work has been nominated for both the Pushcart & Best of the Net, and they’re the author of four chapbooks: Philosophers Know Nothing About Love (Thirty West Publishing House, 2022), queer feast (Bottlecap Press, 2022), sweet euphemism (CLASH!, 2023), and It Skips a Generation (Stanchion, 2023). You can find out more at alisonlubar.com or on Twitter @theoriginalison.

Ashish Kumar Singh (he/him) is a queer Indian poet whose work has appeared in Passages North, Chestnut Review, Fourteen Poems, Foglifter, Banshee and elsewhere. Currently, he serves as an editorial assistant at Visual Verse and a poetry reader at ANMLY.

Cara Pleym could tell you many things about herself, most of which are true but few that would make sense. Her work is often uncomfortably, brutally honest and interrogates trauma in a way which might not be completely healthy. The poetry is melancholy and angry but tells the story of evolving identity and the ever-present spectrum of mental health.

Aubry Threlkeld (they) grew up in and around Charleston, SC and currently live in Boston, MA with their spouse Erik and two cats, Mia and Boris. They identify as a white person of Roma(ni) descent, queer, and genderqueer. Their writing is typically autoethnographic and/or ekphrastic and centers on mental illness, disability, and 2SLGBTQIA issues. They have poetry featured in Stone to Stone: A North American Romani Women’s Anthology (Propertius) and a recent memoir in Tinfoil Hats: Stories by Mad People in an Insane World (Autonomous Press). They grew up with their grandmother and mother speaking Angloromani, playing cards, and laughing whenever possible.

Erik Fuhrer is a queer, nonbinary poet, playwright, and scarf tie aficionado whose fashion sense is part Buffy Summers, part Blanche Devereux, and part the lion from The Wizard of Oz. Their most recent book, Gellar Studies (Spuyten Duyvil, 2023) hailed as “exceptionally delectable and devastating” by Addie Tsai, creatively engages with the work of icon Sarah Michelle Gellar to unfold personal narratives of queer trauma. Erik is also the author of 6 additional books of poetry and one play. Their memoir, My Buffed Up Life, which features Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a fictional interlocutor is forthcoming in 2024 from Spuyten Duyvil Press. A combination of My Little Pony and watching Sarah Michelle Gellar chew the scenery in All My Children, and everything since, solidified their queerness at a young age. Their Tenderheart Bear obsession may or may not be over.

Davin Makokha writes fiction and non-fiction drawing from Queer and African experiences featuring thought provoking anecdotes, dazzling multi-cultural references, and strong relationships. She promises to pull heart strings, offer a few laughs, and share tidbits of relatable experiences.

Ethan Wood is a recent graduate from University of North Texas with a BA in English/Creative Writing. His writing has also appeared in Volume 22 of North Texas Review and NTR Online. His personal essay “Lapse” was nominated for the 2022 Norton’s Writer’s Prize. He currently lives in Denton, Texas with his cat, Ollie. You can find him on Instagram @ethantw00.

lauren samblanet is a hybrid writer who cross-pollinates with other forms of making & other makers of forms. her book, like a dog, is forthcoming from punctum books. some of her writing has been published in a shadow map: an anthology by survivors of sexual assault, fence, dreginald, entropy, bedfellows, the tiny, crab fat magazine, and aglimpseof. she facilitates workshops through reinventing creative process.

Max Stone is a poet from Reno, Nevada. He has an MFA in poetry and a BA in English with a minor in Book Arts and Publication from the University of Nevada, Reno. He was born and raised in Reno but has lived in various other places including New York City, where he played soccer at Queens College. Max is passionate about building the literary community in Reno, he frequently organizes poetry readings and he worked with Nevada Humanities to plan the 2022 Literary Crawl. He is the author of two chapbooks: The Bisexual Lighting Makes Everyone Beautiful (Ghost City Press, forthcoming Summer 2023) and Temporary Preparations (Bottlecap Press, 2023). His writing has appeared in & Change, fifth wheel press, Bender Zine, Night Coffee Lit, Black Moon Magazine, The Meadow, Caustic Frolic, Sandpiper, and elsewhere.

Gion Davis is a trans poet from Española, New Mexico where he grew up on a sheep ranch. His writing has been featured in HAD, MAYDAY Magazine, Sprung Formal, and others. His debut collection Too Much (2022) was selected by Chen Chen for the 2021 Ghost Peach Press Prize. Gion can be found on Instagram @starkstateofmind & on Twitter @gheeontoast.

Pim Halka (ze/zir or he/him) is a visual artist with connections to the ancestral lands of the Monacan Nation (Lynchburg, VA, USA) and Pataxó (Salvador, Bahia, Brasil). Ze are committed to creating community artwork. Collaborating to build youth mural projects, an anti-racist sewing circle, intergenerational storytelling program and free online art learning communities to name a few. Ze have traditionally created using paint and am currently playing with mixed media and animation. Zir work is inspired by divine intervention, moments of supreme clarity, and spontaneous creation.

Brody Parrish Craig is the author of Boyish, the winner of the 2019 Omnidawn Poetry Chapbook Contest, and editor of TWANG, a regional collection of trans, gender nonconforming & nonbinary creators. Their first book, The Patient is An Unreliable Historian, is forthcoming from Omnidawn in 2024. Find more on their work at brodyparrishcraig.com.

J Frausto (they/them, he/him) is a Mexican/Puerto Rican Chicago native who identifies as queer. They found their style through their gender expression that led to being an androgynous thrift stylist. After styling people who identified as queer they realized there is a need to bridge the gap to make clothes gender affirming.

Angel Leyba is a queer, Latinx writer and creative from South Bay San Diego currently located in Oakland. They received their BA in English from UC Berkeley where they also served as the Managing Editor of Berkeley Poetry Review. Her words have appeared in Honey Literary, Perhappened Mag, and Soft Quarterly. You can find them on Twitter @xspacebar.

Steph Scott (she/her) is a queer writer and former middle and high school English teacher. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing Young Adult Literature and believes all stories should have an element of hope, no matter how dark. Her novel Come Back Alive was recently longlisted for the Voyage Literary “Love & War” contest, and her poem, “Bacon,” is published on SadGirlsClub.com. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her spouse, their teenager, and two dogs too big for their house. She is represented by Lizz Nagle at Victress Literary and can be found at skscottwriter.com and on Twitter and Instagram as @skscottwriter.

J.D. Gevry (they/them; he/him; fae/faer) is an emerging poet from Vermont whose writing is heavily influenced by their experiences as a queer, polyamorous, non-binary and trans person with a disability. Their work has appeared or is forthcoming in several journals, including The Write Launch, Spillwords, and Lit Shark. J.D. is currently on the long-list for the 2023 erbacce-prize. Fae has a bachelor's degree in human sexuality and Master of Public Health, focused on sexual health and LGBTQ+ community wellness. They reside in Massachusetts with their husband and several slowly dying plants.

Alex Carrigan (he/him) is a Pushcart-nominated editor, poet, and critic from Virginia. He is the author of May All Our Pain Be Champagne: A Collection of Real Housewives Twitter Poetry (Alien Buddha Press, 2022), and Now Let's Get Brunch: A Collection of RuPaul's Drag Race Twitter Poetry (Querencia Press, forthcoming 2023). He has had fiction, poetry, and literary reviews published in Quail Bell Magazine, Lambda Literary Review, Barrelhouse, Sage Cigarettes (Best of the Net Nominee, 2023), Stories About Penises (Guts Publishing, 2019), and more. For more information, visit carriganak.wordpress.com or follow him on Twitter @carriganak.

River (they/them) is a queer poet. They have fabulously queer children and a cat who does all the magnificently cat things that cats do.

Maggie Chirdo (she/her(s)) is a writer from a humid slice of southeast Texas. Her poetry and journalism appears in Texas Observer, Entropy Magazine, Bitch Media, Little Blue Marble, and elsewhere. If Twitter still exists, come chat with her about fashion and the queer southern gothic @maggiechirdo.

Gabe Montesanti is the author of the roller derby memoir, BRACE FOR IMPACT (2022). Her work has been published in HuffPost, LitHub, Creative Nonfiction Magazine, Electric Literature, and Brevity. Her essay, “The Worldwide Roller Derby Convention” was recognized as a notable essay in The Best American Essays 2020.

Holly Genovese (they/them) is a non-binary neurodivergent Austin-based writer, artist, content creator, and very tired Ph.D. Candidate in American Studies at UT Austin. Their visual art is primarily collage, mixed media, and acrylics and they served as art director for the 2021 issue of PubLab and have shown their work at the Da-Vinci Art Alliance in Philadelphia. Their writing has been published all over the internet and you can find out more at holly-genovese.com.

Clara Otto (she/they) is a queer writer living on the unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəyəm (Musqueam), Sḵwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (TsleilWaututh) Nations. Their writing has appeared in The Ex-Puritan, Plenitude Magazine, Foglifter and elsewhere. When not writing, they are scouring thrift stores for pottery and drinking bubble tea. Find them on social media: @claraotto411.