Fullamusu Bangura is a queer, Sierra Leonean poet originally from Washington, DC, and currently residing in Chicago, IL. Her work has been featured in Memoir Mixtapes, Peach Mag, and TRACK//FOUR (forthcoming).

Sasha Banks is a Pushcart nominated-poet whose work has appeared in RHINO, Kinfolks Quarterly, Poor Claudia, Zocalo Public Square, Spoon River Poetry Review, OBSIDIAN, BODY Literature, and The Collagist. Sasha is the creator of Poets for Ferguson. She received her MFA at Pratt Institute.

Sheila Pree Bright is an acclaimed fine art photographer known for her photographic series Young Americans, Plastic Bodies, Suburbia, and #1960Now. She describes herself in the art world as a visual cultural producer portraying large-scale works that incorporate a wide-range of knowledge of the contemporary culture. Bright’s work has been exhibited at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta; Smithsonian National Museum of African American History in Washington, DC; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland; The Art Gallery of Hamilton in Ontario, Canada, and the Leica Gallery in New York. She is the recipient of several awards including the 2006 Center Prize. Her work is included in numerous private and public collections. She is the author of #1960Now: Photographs of Civil Rights Activists and Black Lives Matter Protest published by Chronicle Books.

Imani Elizabeth Jackson is a poet from Chicago. Some of her writing appears in or is forthcoming from Gramma Press Weekly, Flag + Void, Triple Canopy, and HOLD. She is an MFA candidate in Literary Arts at Brown.

Victoria Brown is an assistant professor at Rollins College. Her novel, Minding Ben, was published by Hyperion in 2011. She has published nonfiction in Apogee Journal, the Guardian, New York Magazine, Lenny Letter, and elsewhere. Her Caribbean-themed short fiction has been published extensively.

Claudia Cortese is a poet, essayist, and fiction writer. Her debut full-length collection, Wasp Queen (Black Lawrence Press, 2017), won Southern Illinois University’s Devil’s Kitchen Award for Emerging Poetry. Her work has appeared in Blackbird, Black Warrior Review, Crazyhorse, Gulf Coast, and The Offing, among others, and she writes reviews for Muzzle Magazine. Cortese is a recipient of the 2018 OUTstanding faculty ally of the year certificate from the LGBTQ+ Center at Montclair State University. The daughter of Neapolitan immigrants, Cortese grew up in Ohio, and lives in New Jersey. She can be found online at claudia-cortese.com.

Justin A. Davis earned a BA in literature and creative writing from Rhodes College, where he received the Anne Howard Bailey Prize in Poetry. A 2018 Pushcart nominee, his poems and fiction are published or forthcoming in FreezeRay Poetry, BOAAT, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, decomP, and Bodega. He works as a community organizer in Memphis, TN.

shelley feller is a figure skater living in Atlanta. They hold an MFA from the University of Alabama and are currently pursuing a PhD in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Emory University. Their manuscript, Dream Boat, was named a finalist for the CSU Poetry Center First Book Competition and Rescue Press’s Black Box Poetry Prize.

Naima Green is a Brooklyn-based artist and educator currently living in Mexico City. She holds an MFA in photography from ICP–Bard, an MA from Teachers College, Columbia University, and a BA from Barnard College, Columbia University. Green presented two solo exhibitions in 2018, All the black language and A Collective Utterance. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at MASS MoCA (2018), International Center of Photography (2019, 2018), Houston Center for Photography (2017), Bronx Museum (2017), BRIC (2019, 2016, 2015), Arsenal Gallery (2018, 2015) and Macy Gallery (2014, 2013). Green has been an artist-in-residence at the Bronx Museum (2016), Vermont Studio Center (2015), and the recipient of the Myers Art Prize at Columbia University (2013). Her artist books are collected by MoMA Library and International Center of Photography Library. Green’s work has been published in Arts.Black, California Sunday, Cultured, The Fader, New York Magazine, The New York Times, Spot Magazine, and SPOOK, amongst others.

Matan Gold is a writer from the San Fernando Valley. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Waxwing, Quarterly West, and Track//Four, among others. He lives with his partner in Portland, Oregon. Visit his website www.matangold.com. 

Sophia Lara is a poet, artist, and student from the California valley. Her literary works navigate the world of teenage sexuality and her immigrant father. “Am I Writing Stand Up Shit Now?” is her own testimony to valley girls and sexual assault, and is her first publication in a magazine. You can follow her on Twitter (@sophiiaiara) and Instagram (@sophiiamlara) for more updates on her journey to be an established writer.

Kaja Rae Lucas is a poet from Laurel, MD. She is a 2018 Baltimore Youth Poet Ambassador, and a finalist in the 2017 DC Youth Poet Laureate competition. She has been published in L’Ephemere Review, Cholla Needles, The Big Windows Review, Greenspring Review, and has work forthcoming from Riggwelter.

Lora Mathis is a writer, visual artist, zine maker, and musician living in San Diego. Their work examines the ways we internalize social myths; she treats art and writing as a way to heal and unlearn engrained ways of thinking. They have two collections of poetry published; their third is forthcoming. Their work has been featured at The Poetry Foundation, Skidmore University, SUNY: Fredonia, Adbusters, and in many basements.

Tiona Nekkia McClodden, born in 1981, in Blytheville, AR (AFB), lives and works in North Philadelphia, PA. She is a visual artist, filmmaker, and curator whose work explores and critiques issues at the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and social commentary. Her interdisciplinary approach traverses documentary film, experimental video, sculpture, and sound installations. Themes explored in McClodden’s films and works have been re-memory and narrative biomythography. McClodden’s work explores shared ideas, values, and beliefs within the African Diaspora, or what she calls, “Black mentifact.”

Jesús Mendoza Downey is a writer from San Diego, CA. He teaches in the High Tech High network of schools and is working on a collection of stories.

Ashley Danielle Moore was born and raised in Harlem. She was a 2018 Kimbilio Fiction Fellow, and she is a Vaclav Havel scholarship recipient for the 2019 Prague Summer Program for Writers. Ashley’s work has also appeared in Timbooktu.

Feliz Moreno earned her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of San Francisco and is currently working on a collection of linked stories. Her work has appeared in The Acentos Review, Sparkle + Blink, and Longreads.

Avi Prager is a poet and fiber artist in Seattle, WA. They are a proud art school dropout who creates as a way to survive. Their poetry has been featured in The Gateway Review, Claudius Speaks, and more. Avi is always hoping you have a good day.

Gustavo Rivera is a radical educator, Boricua Bestial, feral dog, and former Master Courier. He
teaches in CUNY colleges. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Em Rose has organized and worked around housing justice and land use issues in New York City for over a decade. She also teaches creative writing at City College, CUNY, where she got her MFA. Her fiction has appeared in Aster(ix), and an excerpt from her translation of Nochebuena Negra by Juan Pablo Sojo is in the current issue of Transition.

Aya Satoh received her MFA in poetry at the University of Montana, where she was a poetry editor for CutBank. She has been published or has work forthcoming in Anomaly’s folio Radical: Avant Garde Poets of Color, Bennington Review and Grimoire Magazine.

Adora Svitak is a Bay Area writer. She received her BA from UC Berkeley, where she majored in development studies and minored in South Asian studies and creative writing. She was Editor-in-Chief of the Berkeley Political Review and has previously contributed to Bust, TED, Social Science Matrix, Women’s Media Center, the Bold Italic, Slackjaw, Edutopia, and the Huffington Post.

Spencer Williams is currently a poetry MFA candidate at Rutgers University-Newark. She is the author of Alien Pink (The Atlas Review Chapbook Series, 2017) and has work featured in Powder Keg, ANMLY, Hobart, [PANK], and Always Crashing. She tweets mostly nonsense @burritotheif.