Humberto Ak’abal (1952–2019) was a K’iche’ Maya poet from Guatemala. His book Guardián de la caída de agua (Guardian of the Waterfall) was named book of the year by Association of Guatemalan Journalists and received their Golden Quetzal award in 1993. In 2004, he declined to receive the Guatemala National Prize in Literature because it is named for Miguel Ángel Asturias, whom Ak’abal accused of encouraging racism. Ak’abal, a recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, passed away on January 28th, 2019.
Michael Bazzett is the author of four books of poetry, most recently The Echo Chamber. His work has appeared in Granta, The Threepenny Review, The Sun, The Nation, The Paris Review and Ploughshares, and his verse translation of the Mayan creation epic, The Popol Vuh, (Milkweed, 2018) was longlisted for the National Translation Award as well as named one of 2018’s best books of poetry by the NY Times. A folio of his Ak’abal translation recently won the Gabriel Garcia-Marquez Prize in Translation from Lunch Ticket Review, Antioch University.
Michaela Chan grew up the fifth of six siblings in a town between Rochester, NY and the Finger Lakes. Earlier installations of Lab Rat have appeared at The Rumpus and The Offing Magazine, and Chan has several comics in the American Medical Association Journal of Ethics. Chan currently lives in Chicago. www.michaelachan.com
Isabella Corletto is a literary translator from Spanish and Italian. Born in Guatemala City, Guatemala, she holds a literary translation MA from the University of Rochester and a BA from Wesleyan University, where she studied English and Italian studies. Her translations include Amalia Andrade’s Things You Think About When You Bite Your Nails (Penguin Books, 2020) and work published in the Cincinnati Review, Latin American Literature Today, and the Arkansas International, among other publications. She is the recipient of the 2023 PEN Grant for the English Translation of Italian Literature. www.isabellacorletto.com
C. Francis Fisher is a poet and translator based in Brooklyn. Her writings have appeared or are forthcoming in Copper Nickel, Beloit Poetry Journal, and The Los Angeles Review of Books among others. Her poem, “Self-Portrait at 25” was selected as the winner for the 2021 Academy of American Poets Prize for Columbia University. Her first book of translations, In the Glittering Maw: Selected Poems of Joyce Mansour is forthcoming with World Poetry Books in 2024. She teaches undergraduate composition at Columbia University.
Giulia Sara Miori is from Milan and lives in Utrecht. She published her debut short story collection Neroconfetto with Racconti Edizioni in 2021. Her short stories have appeared in leading Italian literary magazines including Nazione Indiana and Minima et Moralia Indiana.
Megan Morrison is a multi-disciplinary writer and artist living in northern New Mexico, USA. She holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from Carnegie Mellon University and is the co-creator of the podcast Nobody Reads Short Stories. Her screenplay HIKING BUDDIES was a finalist for the Vail Screenplay Competition, Vancouver Horror Show Film Festival, and her short film DEAD COLOR screened in festivals across the country including the Catalina Film Festival and the Crossroads Film Festival. Her drama screenplay, BREATH OF LIFE, received an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation screenwriting award. Megan was a finalist for the Warner Brothers TV Writer’s Fellowship, the ABC Writer’s Fellowship, and The Orchard Project TV Lab. As a puppeteer, Megan’s work has been shown at the O’Neill National Puppetry Conference, the Puppet Happening of Pittsburgh, and Puppet Arts Theater in Jackson, Mississippi. Megan is a member of the Writer’s Guild of America West and Puppeteers of America. When not creating, Megan enjoys hiking and backpacking and thru hiked the John Muir Trail NOBO.
Elizabeth Muscari is a poet from Fayetteville, Arkansas. She is currently a Master of Fine Arts candidate at the University of Arkansas and serves as the Development Director for the Arkansas International. Her poetry most recently appeared in Waccamaw Journal, was a finalist for the Mid-America Alliance’s 2021 Artists 360 grant, and a recipient of the 2022 Felix Christopher McKean Award, judged by Sarah Blake.
Andrew Najberg is the author of the collection of poems The Goats Have Taken Over the Barracks (Finishing Line Press, 2021), and the forthcoming novels Gollitok (Cactus Moon Press, 2023) and The Mobius Door (Wicked House Publications, 2023). His poems have appeared in dozens of journals online and in print, including North American Review, Asheville Poetry Review, Louisville Review, Nashville Review, Cimarron Review, Another Chicago Magazine, and Good River Review. Currently, he teaches for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and is serving as a senior editor for Symposeum magazine.
Joel Peckham JR has published seven books of poetry and nonfiction, most recently Bone Music (SFAU) and Body Memory (New Rivers). Individual poems and essays have appeared recently in or are forthcoming Prairie Schooner, The Southern Review, The Sugar House Review, Cave Wall, and The Beloit Poetry Journal. Currently, Peckham Jr is editing an anthology of ecstatic poetry for New Rivers Press, titled Wild Gods: The Ecstatic in American Poetry and Prose.
Megan Ritchie is a Michener Fellow at the University of Miami. Her stories have been published or are forthcoming in Denver Quarterly, Southern Indiana Review, Hobart, and elsewhere. She was a finalist in the Northwest Review and Carve fiction contests. Currently, she’s at work on her first novel. You can find her at megan-ritchie.com
Amanda Maret Scharf (she/her) is a queer poet from Los Angeles. Her writing has been supported by Lambda LitFest, Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, Tin House, and The Home School. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in Pleiades, Poetry Northwest, The Iowa Review, Fugue, Sixth Finch, Willow Springs, Meridian, and elsewhere. She is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at Ohio State University where she serves as poetry editor for The Journal.
Susan Solomon is a freelance paintress living in the beautiful Twin Cities area of Minneapolis/Saint Paul. She has art in the permanent University Collections of Metropolitan State and Purdue. She recently showed work at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wisconsin in their annual Birds in Art Exhibition.
Cheyenne Taylor is a poet based in Birmingham, AL. She received her MFA in poetry from the University of Florida, and her BA and MA in English from UAB. Her poems have appeared in Birmingham Poetry Review, Cimarron Review, The Cincinnati Review, NELLE, Poet Lore, Quarterly West, Raleigh Review, and The Times Literary Supplement, among others.
Meghan Louise Wagner is a writer from Northeast Ohio. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from such places as AGNI, Autofocus, Okay Donkey, Story Magazine, and The Best American Short Stories 2022.