A COMPLETE LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS TO AMERICA’S FUTURE

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AMERICA’S FUTURE CONTRIBUTORS

Fran Abrams has had poems published in numerous journals and anthologies and in three books—the full-length collection, I Rode the Second Wave: A Feminist Memoir, and two chapbooks, The Poet Who Loves Pythagoras, and Arranging Words. Gargoyle Magazine nominated one of her poems for a Pushcart Prize. She can be found at franabramspoetry.com.

Jessie Atkin writes fiction, essays, and plays. Her work has appeared in The Rumpus, HerStry, The Writing Disorder, Space, and Time Magazine, and elsewhere. Her full-length play, Generation Pan, was published by Pioneer Drama. She can be found online at jessieatkin.com.

Miguel Avero is a poet, narrator, essayist, teacher, and researcher whose work has been translated into English and French. He writes literary reviews for the weekly Brecha and has appeared in various national and international anthologies. Since 2011, he has published nearly a dozen books of poetry and fiction. His first poetry collection in English, Aguas, was published in 2025 by the Washington Writers’ Publishing House. He lives in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Naomi Ayala is the author of Wild Animals on the Moon (Curbstone Press) and Calling Home: Praise Songs and Incantations (Bilingual Press, University of Arizona). She translated La sombra de la muerte/Death’s Shadow, a novel by His Excellency José Tomás Pérez, and Luis Alberto Ambroggio’s poetry collection La arqueología del viento/The Wind’s Archeology. She is also the co-editor of The Skinny Poetry Journal.

Zeina Azzam is a Palestinian American poet, writer, editor, community activist, and poet laureate emerita of Alexandria, Virginia (her term was 2022-25). She has published widely in literary journals and anthologies and has two poetry collections: Some Things Never Leave You (2023) and Bayna Viento, In-Between (2021). She can be found at www.zeinaazzam.com.

Eric Julian Baker is a Korean Jewish writer originally from New York who currently lives in the Washington, DC area. He studies and teaches creative writing at the University of Maryland in College Park. His work has been featured in Tupelo Quarterly and other publications.

Nicole Bazemore currently resides in Vienna, Virginia, with her two royal feline overlords, nuclear-fusion-powered progeny, and life partner in crime.

Edward Belfar is the author of the novel A Very Innocent Man and the short story collection Wanderers. His fiction and essays have appeared in numerous literary journals, including Shenandoah, The Baltimore Review, Schuylkill Valley Journal, and Tampa Review. He lives with his wife in Maryland and can be reached through his website at www.edwardbelfar.com.

Adrienne Benson is a DC native who grew up in Sub-Saharan Africa. She’s the author of the novel The Brightest Sun (Park Row Books). Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Foreign Service Journal, ADDitude Magazine, and several anthologies. She lives in Washington, DC with her kids and her cats.

K. Avvirin Berlin is a poet and painter who has recently begun writing prose. She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia with her husband and two cats. Birdie’s Flight is her first published short story.

Teresa A. Blair has devoted the past year after she retired from the Montgomery County Government to writing courses and other creative pursuits. She has a BA in Theater from California State University and later obtained her MS degree from Springfield College. Having

taught English in several countries, Teresa is committed to fusing social justice and the arts to centralize our collective humanity.

Hildie S. Block (she/her) is a night owl, a writer, a teacher, and a little obsessed with the weather. She lives in Virginia with her family and her axolotl named Xipe! Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, Salon, Cortland Review, and Gargoyle and in WWPH Writes, winning the 2022 holiday contest award. Learn more at www.hildieblockworkshop.com.

Caroline Bock is the author of Carry Her Home, Before My Eyes, and LIE. The Other Beautiful People, her first novel for adults—a workplace love story— will be published in June of 2026. Her micro, “American Lament,” is part of her work-in-progress entitled: I Should Have Slept With Them All. She is the co-president/prose editor at the Washington Writers’ Publishing House.

Judith Bowles lives, writes, and gardens in Maryland. She received her MFA from American University where she taught. She has authored two books, The Gatherer and Unlocatable Source, both with Wordtech Turning Point. She led a poetry group with Iona Social Services for ten years and was Poet in Residence at the Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island, Washington.

Mark Brazaitis is the author of nine books, including The River of Lost Voices: Stories from Guatemala, winner of the 1998 Iowa Short Fiction Award, The Incurables: Stories, winner of the 2012 Richard Sullivan Prize and the 2013 Devil’s Kitchen Reading Award in Prose, and the novel American Seasons.

Dwayne Lawson-Brown is a father, host, and Crochet Kingpin. His publications include One Color Kaleidoscope, Twenty:21, and Breaking The Blank (with Rebecca Bishophall; Day Eight Books). He can be found at www.crochetkingpin.com.

Elizabeth Bruce’s Universally Adored & Other One Dollar Stories, was recently released by Vine Leaves Press. Her debut novel, And Silent Left the Place, won Washington Writers’ Publishing House’s Fiction Prize, with Foreword Magazine and Texas Institute of Letters’ distinctions. She’s been published in stories in the USA and thirteen countries.

Jacob Budenz is a queer author, multidisciplinary performer, and witch with an MFA from University of New Orleans and a BA from Johns Hopkins University. The author of Tea Leaves (Bywater Books 2023), Budenz has work in Taco Bell Quarterly, Wussy Mag and anthologies by Unbound Edition and Mason Jar Press, and The Walters Art Museum.

Patricia Fuentes Burns has been published in Fictive Dream, TriQuarterly, Quarter After Eight, Jellyfish Review, and Quarterly West, among other journals. Her work has been anthologized in two volumes of Grace and Gravity and Shut Down Strangers & Hot Rod Angels. She holds an MFA from George Mason University and lives in Arlington, Virginia with her husband and three daughters.

Regie Cabico was born in Baltimore, Maryland and divides their time between the DMV and New York serving as a lead teaching artist for the Kennedy Center and executive director of A Gathering of the Tribes. He’s the author of A Rabbit in Search of a Rolex (Day Eight, 2023).

Tara Campbell is a writer, teacher, Kimbilio Fellow, and fiction co-editor at Barrelhouse. She teaches flash and speculative fiction and is the author of several works including her sixth book, City of Dancing Gargoyles (SFWP), which is a finalist for the 2025 Philip K. Dick Award and on Reactor Magazine’s and Locus Magazine’s 2024 Recommended Reading List. Find out more at www.taracampbell.com.

Doritt Carroll is a native of Washington, DC. She is the winner of the Stephen Meats poetry prize and the chapbook prize from Harbor Review for A Meditation on Purgatory.

Grace Cavalieri was Maryland’s tenth Poet Laureate. She’s the author of several books and produced plays. She’s the founder and producer of The Poet and the Poem, now from the Library of Congress, celebrating 48 years on air. Two hundred and fifty of her poetry podcasts went to the moon on Lunar Codex from NASA, landing in the Ocean Of Storms.

Sunu P. Chandy (she/her) is a social justice activist as a poet and a civil rights attorney. She is the daughter of immigrants from India and lives in Washington, DC with her family. Sunu’s award-winning collection of poems, My Dear Comrades, was published by Regal House. Sunu is a Senior Advisor with Democracy Forward and serves on the board of the Transgender Law Center.

Myna Chang is the author of The Potential of Radio and Rain (CutBank Books). Her writing has been selected for Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, and WW Norton’s Flash Fiction America. She can be found at MynaChang.com or on Bluesky at @MynaChang.

Marlena Chertock is a disabled, lesbian, Jewish poet with two books of poetry, Crumb-sized: Poems (Unnamed Press) and On that one-way trip to Mars (Bottlecap Press). She uses her skeletal dysplasia as a bridge to scientific poetry. She can be found at marlenachertock.com and @mchertock.

Jona Colson is the author of Said Through Glass, and the translator of Aguas/Waters by Miguel Avero. His poems, translations, and interviews have appeared in Ploughshares, The Southern Review, LitHub, and elsewhere. He is co-president of Washington Writers’ Publishing House and edits the bi-weekly journal, WWPH Writes. He is a professor of ESL at Montgomery College and lives in Washington, DC. www.jonacolson.com.

Serena Agusto-Cox’s poetry has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She’s a Mid- Atlantic Review editor, the Gaithersburg Book Festival poetry programming coordinator, and a featured reader at the Gaithersburg’s DiVerse Poetry reading series and DC’s Literary Hill BookFest. Her poems appear in multiple magazines and anthologies. She can be found on her websites, Savvy Verse & Wit and Poetic Book Tours.

Henry Crawford is the author of two collections of poetry, American Software (CW Books, 2017), and the Binary Planet (The Word Works, 2020). A third book, Screens (Broadstone Books), is due out in 2025. His poem, “The Fruits of Famine,” won first prize in the 2019 World Food Poetry Competition. He is a co-director of the Café Muse literary salon.

Christina Daub is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominated poet whose work can be found in several anthologies and literary journals. Founder of The Plum Review, its reading series and annual retreats, she has taught poetry and creative writing at various schools in the DC area. She can be found at christinadaub.com.

Heather L. Davis is a mom, poet, activist, and serious coffee lover. Her book, The Lost Tribe of Us, won the Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award. She lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania with her husband the poet Jose Padua and their two kids. She spent many years in Virginia and Washington, DC.

Tracy Dimond is a 2016 Baker Artist Award finalist. She is the author of the full-length poetry collection, Emotion Industry (Barrelhouse), and four chapbooks, including Sorry I Wrote So Many Sad Poems Today (Ink Press), winner of Baltimore City Paper’s Best Chapbook. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Smartish Pace, Lines + Stars, The Nervous Breakdown, Barrelhouse, The Little Patuxent Review, Sink Review, and other places.

Emma DiValentino is a writer from the Hudson Valley, New York. She graduated from American University with a Bachelor’s in Literature, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the university’s undergraduate literary magazine, American Literary (AmLit). Her work has been

published in AmLit and Giving Room Mag. She is currently based in Washington, DC.

Linda Dreeben is an attorney living in Chevy Chase, Maryland. She writes with a group of

talented, supportive women and has published pieces in Wild Greens, Months to Years, Roi Fainéant Press, and Five Minutes 100 Words.

Kay White Drew, aka Katherine White, MD, is a retired neonatologist. Her work appears in several anthologies, including This Is What America Looks Like, and online journals, including Gargoyle, New Verse News, and Loch Raven Review, where her essay was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her memoir, Stress Test, was published in 2024 by Apprentice House Press.

David Ebenbach is the author of ten books of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, winners of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize, the Juniper Prize, and the WWPH Fiction Prize, among others. He lives with his family in Washington, DC. He can be found at davidebenbach.com.

Mel Edden is a British poet based in Maryland. Her writing can be found in The Loch Raven Review, Gargoyle, Meat For Tea, WWPH Writes, and Welter. She hosts the poetry open mic night series at Manor Mill in Monkton, Maryland, and is an editor of the anthology Poets of Manor Mill.

Michele Evans is the author of purl (Finishing Line Press, 2025). This fifth-generation Washingtonian (DC) is a writer, teacher, and adviser for an award-winning high school literary magazine. She can be found online at www.awordsmithie.com.

Danielle Evennou (she/her/hers) is a writer who grew up in suburban New Jersey. For over a decade, she has kept herself busy by hosting poetry readings, workshops, and open mics in Washington, DC. Her poetry and memoir appear in apt, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Dryland, and Split Lip Magazine. Her chapbook, Difficult Trick, is available from dancing girl press. She can be found at www.whatevennou.com.

E. Falk lives just outside of DC with family members who keep their passports current and periodically debate how they will know when it is time to leave.

Erik Fatemi lives in Arlington, Virginia. First a journalist, then a Senate staffer, he now lobbies the federal government on behalf of nonprofit health and immigration groups. His work has been published in JMWW, Bending Genres, and Westchester Review, among others.

Suzanne Feldman received her Master’s in Creative Writing from Johns Hopkins University. She is the author of five novels, including Absalom’s Daughters (Holt, 2016, starred review in Kirkus). In 2022, she was awarded a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council and won the Washington Writers’ Publishing House Fiction Prize for her short story collection The Witch Bottle.

Cesar Felipe is a data scientist writing from a home office somewhere in DC. His work has been nominated for Best of the Net and published by (among others) the Washington Writer’s Publishing House, Apocalypse Confidential, and Metachrosis Magazine. He can be found at cesarfelipe.substack.com.

Brandel France de Bravo’s third collection of poems, Locomotive Cathedral, was published in March 2025 by Backwaters Press, an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press. Her poems have recently appeared in Best American Poetry, 32 Poems, Barrow Street, Conduit, Southern Humanities Review, and elsewhere.

Zorina Exie Frey is an educator, content writer, and Pushcart Prize Winner. Her writings are featured in Shondaland, Glassworks Magazine, The Journal of Poetry for Therapy (Routledge Taylor & Francis, 2024), Introduction to Afrofuturism: A Mixtape in Black Literature & Arts (Routledge Taylor & Francis, 2024), and Chicken Soup for the Soul.

Sara Furdui, MSW, lives in Maryland and is a mother of five. She writes creative nonfiction and humor pieces. Her writing interests include travel, immigration, adoption/foster care, and special needs parenting. She is currently working on a collection of nonfiction narratives exploring the experiences of individuals in Romania.

Varun Gauri was born in India and raised in the American Midwest. He now teaches at Princeton University and lives with his family in Bethesda, Maryland. His short fiction was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and recognized in Best American Nonrequired Reading. His debut novel, For the Blessings of Jupiter and Venus (WWPH 2024), won the Carol Trawick Fiction Prize and was selected for NPR’s Books We Love 2024.

Jason Gebhardt’s poems have appeared in many journals, including The Southern Review, Poet Lore, Gargoyle, and Tinderbox Poetry Journal. His chapbook, Good Housekeeping, won the 2016 Cathy Smith Bowers Prize, and he is the recipient of multiple Artist Fellowships from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. He lives in DC and works as a preschool teacher.

Gabby Gilliam is a mother, teacher, and poet who lives in the DC metro area with her son. Her chapbook, No Ocean Spit Me Out, was released by Old Scratch Press. Her poems and short stories have appeared in multiple journals both online and in print.

Barbara Goldberg, award-winning poet, translator, and speechwriter, has authored eight books of poetry, most recently Breaking & Entering: New and Selected Poems. The recipient of two fellowships from the NEA, her work appears in The Paris Review, Gettysburg Review, and elsewhere. As Series Editor of International Editions for the Word Works, she has selected for publication poets translated from the Kurdish, Croatian, and Ancient Greek.

Sid Gold is the author of five books of poetry, including Very Eyes (Poets’ Choice, 2023) and Working Vocabulary (Washington Writers’ Publishing House, 1997, reissued in 2021). He is a twice recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award for Poetry, and his work has appeared in a variety of journals, reviews, and anthologies for more than forty years. A native New Yorker, he now lives in Hyattsville, Maryland.

Hannah Grieco is a writer in Washington, DC. She can be found at www.hgrieco.com and on most social media @writesloud.

Daien Guo is a writer based in Washington, DC. She has been a resident at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts and has published her writing in Lunch Ticket, Bodega, Furious Gravity, Little Patuxent Review, and 3Elements Literary Review.

Jayla Hart is a Harlem-born, Las Vegas-bred, DC-based writer. Her work centers on freedom dreaming, historical truth telling, and radical healing. Her writing has appeared in the Virginia Literary Review, V Mag, and the edited volume, After Emancipation. Jayla is a graduate of the University of Virginia.

Melanie S. Hatter is the author of Malawi’s Sisters, which was selected by Edwidge Danticat as the winner of the inaugural Kimbilio National Fiction Prize and published by Four Way Books in 2019. Her debut novel, The Color of My Soul, won the 2011 Washington Writers’ Publishing House Fiction Prize, and Let No One Weep for Me: Stories of Love and Loss was released in 2015.

Robert Herschbach is the author of Loose Weather (Washington Writers’ Publishing House, 2013) and A Lost Empire (Ion Books, 1994), with new work forthcoming in Southern Poetry Review and The Southern Review. He lives in Laurel, Maryland with his wife and four cats.

Matt Hohner’s poems have won numerous awards. His publications include Rattle: Poets Respond, The Baltimore Review, New Contrast, Live Canon, Passengers, Vox Populi, and Prairie Schooner. An editor with Loch Raven Review, Hohner’s second collection, At the Edge of a Thousand Years, won the Jacar Press Book Prize in 2023.

Emily Holland (they/she) is a genderqueer lesbian writer. Their work appears in publications including Shenandoah, DIALOGIST, and Black Warrior Review. She is the author of the chapbook Lineage (dancing girl press, 2019). They also are the editor of Poet Lore, America’s oldest poetry journal, and a creative writing instructor.

Robert Hubbard’s childhood interest in animals grew into biological research and lab work in neuroscience. That choice supported his thinking about the ways simpler components combine into systems of emergent properties. He is interested in exploring systemic ideas in science fiction and fantasy.

Lindsey Smith Hull grew up on the edge of Appalachia in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. As a poet, storyteller, and journalist, she seeks to highlight the diverse people and culture of the region. For Hull, there’s nothing better than solving the world’s problems over coffee and a slice of pie.

Donald Illich has published poetry recently in The Southern Review, B O D Y, Gargoyle, Atlanta Review, and The Louisville Review. His book is Chance Bodies (The Word Works, 2018). He lives and works in Maryland.

Natalie E. Illum (she/her) is a poet, disability activist, and singer living in Washington, DC. She is the recipient of multiple Poetry Fellowship Grants, a former Jenny McKean Moore Fellow, and a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize Nominee. Natalie has an MFA in Creative Writing from American University. She can be found on Instagram as @poetryrox, and as one half of the band All Her Muses.

Garinè Isassi is a recovering journalist and the author of the award-winning novel Start with the Backbeat, winner of the IPPY Silver Medal for contemporary fiction. Her additional fiction publications include short stories in anthologies, This is What America Looks Like (2021) and Grace in Love (2023), and a variety of online publications. She currently serves as the Gaithersburg Book Festival Workshops Chair.

Trelaine Ito is originally from Hawaii, but, true to form, he saw the line where the sky meets the sea, and it called him, so he currently lives and works in Washington, DC. He enjoys origami, washing dishes, and taking pictures of clouds and sunsets (but never sunrises because he’s not a morning person).

Jaime Lee Jarvis (she/they) is a technical writer, editor, poet, and massage therapist who has long called DC her chosen hometown. Jaime’s previous work appears in Ghost Fishing: An Anthology of Eco-Justice Poetry and online at The Quarry and Beltway Poetry Quarterly.

Kim A. Jensen is a Baltimore-based poet, professor, and translator whose books include The Woman I Left Behind, Bread Alone, and The Only Thing that Matters. Active in transnational social movements for decades, Kim’s writings appear in Gulf Coast, MQR, Anthropocene, Boulevard, Modern Poetry in Translation, Transition, Anomaly, Extraordinary Rendition: Writers Speak Out on Palestine, Gaza Unsilenced, Bomb Magazine, and Electronic Intifada, among many others.

W. Luther Jett is the author of six poetry chapbooks, most recently The Colour War, released by Kelsay Books in late 2024. His full-length collection, Flying to America, was released by Broadstone Press in 2024. His most recent project is a novel.

Sebastian Johnson is a native of Takoma Park, Maryland, with roots in our nation’s capital. His writing has been featured in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Detroit Free Press, and Pangyrus, among other publications. Sebastian is a graduate of Georgetown University and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Marvin Kalb, CBS’s first diplomatic correspondent, Murrow professor emeritus at Harvard, is author of eighteen books, including his most recent A DIFFERENT RUSSIA: Khrushchev and Kennedy on a Collision Course.

Beth Kanter’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in a range of publications, including X-R-A- Y Literary Magazine, Whale Road Review, and Cease, Cows. Her chapbook Slasher was shortlisted in the Yellow Arrow Publishing and Black Sunflowers Poetry Press contests, and she won a UCLA James Kirkwood Literary Prize for her novel-in-progress, Paved With Gold. She can be found at bethkanter.com.

Holly Karapetkova is Poet Laureate Emerita of Arlington, Virginia, and recipient of a 2022 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship for her work with young poets. Her most recent book of poetry is Dear Empire (Gunpowder Press), winner of the 2025 William Meredith Prize and the Barry Spacks Poetry Prize.

Oliver Kass is a civil servant and former journalist. A lifetime resident of the Washington, DC area, he has written on politics, culture, and life for local newspapers and magazines. Flirting in Church is his first published work of fiction. Oliver Kass is a pen name.

David Keplinger is the author of eight collections of poetry and several collaborations in translation from Danish and German. He teaches at American University.

Dorian Elizabeth Knapp is the author of three poetry collections: Causa Sui (forthcoming 2025), winner of the 8th Annual Three Mile Harbor Book Award; Requiem with an Amulet in Its Beak, winner of the 2019 Jean Feldman Poetry Prize; and The Spite House, winner of the 2010 De Novo Poetry Prize. She is the founding director of the Low-Residency MFA at Hood College and lives in Frederick, Maryland with her family.

G.R. Kramer has been writing for publication for the last eight years. He has published one chapbook, and his work has appeared in several dozen journals. More information on him and where he’s been published is on his website, grkramerpoetry.substack.com.

Len Kruger’s debut novel, Bad Questions, was the winner of the 2023 Washington Writers’ Publishing House Fiction Award and a 2023 Foreword INDIES finalist. His short fiction has appeared in Zoetrope-All Story, The Barcelona Review, The Potomac Review, Gargoyle, Splonk, and elsewhere. He lives in Washington, DC.

Mary Ann Larkin authored That Deep and Steady Hum (Broadkill River Press), six chapbooks, and has appeared in New Letters and other journals. She co-founded the Big Mama Poetry Troupe performing from Chicago to New York and attended Yaddo and the Jentel Foundation.

She also co-founded Pond Road Press, which published Jack Gilbert’s Tough Heaven.

Courtney LeBlanc is the author of Her Dark Everything, Her Whole Bright Life, winner of the Jack McCarthy Book Prize, Exquisite Bloody, Beating Heart, and Beautiful & Full of Monsters. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Riot in Your Throat, an independent poetry press. She can be found at www.courtneyleblanc.com.

Kateema Lee is the author of three chapbooks: Almost Invisible, Musings of a Netflix Binge Viewer, and Mundane Things. Her full collection, Transcript of the Unnamed, explores joy, identity, violence, and the “brief, bright lives” of missing and forgotten Black women in Washington, DC.

Nathan Leslie won the 2019 Washington Writers’ Publishing House prize for fiction for his satirical collection of short stories, Hurry Up and Relax. He is also the series editor for Best Small Fictions. He is the author of thirteen books including Invisible Hand, A Fly in the Ointment, Sibs, and The Tall Tale of Tommy Twice.

Steven Leyva was born in New Orleans, Louisiana and raised in Houston, Texas. He is the author of The Understudy’s Handbook, which won the Jean Feldman Poetry Prize from Washington Writers’ Publishing House. His second book of poems, The Opposite of Cruelty, was published by Blair Publishing in spring 2025.

Steve Loiaconi is a journalist and a graduate of George Mason University’s MFA program. His fiction previously appeared in Griffel, the Mystery Tribune, Mythaxis, Zooscape, and the Saturday Evening Post, as well as the anthologies Open All Night, Why Didn’t You Just Leave, and Found 2.

Gregory Luce is a poet living in Arlington, Virginia who has published six chapbooks and numerous poems in print and online. He serves as Poetry Editor of The Mid-Atlantic Review. In addition to poetry, he writes a monthly column for the online arts journal Scene4.

Chanlee Luu is a writer from Southern Virginia. She received her MFA in creative writing from Hollins University and her BS in chemical engineering from UVA. She won the 2024 Jean Feldman Poetry Award from the Washington Writers’ Publishing House, which published her debut collection, The Machine Autocorrects Code to I. One of her poems was on display at “50 Years of HOPE and HA-HAs,” a Vietnamese American art exhibition.

Mohini Malhotra, originally from Nepal, is a DC-based writer, adjunct professor, and founder of a social enterprise. Her fiction has appeared in several anthologies (This is What America Looks Like, 2021; Essential Voices: A COVID-19 Anthology, West Virginia University Press 2023; Stories for Home, U.K, 2018) and literary journals.

Nick Manning lives with his husband, dog and, sometimes, stepson in Washington, DC and New York. He retired from the World Bank where he was the author of a large number of distinctly dry technical books and papers about governments and their dysfunctions. He has had several short stories published and is, inevitably, working on a novel.

Annie Marhefka is a writer in Baltimore, Maryland, and Executive Director at Yellow Arrow Publishing, a nonprofit empowering women-identifying writers. Annie has a BA in creative writing from Washington College and an MBA, and is an MFA candidate at the University of Baltimore. Follow Annie on Instagram @anniemarhefka and at anniemarhefka.com.

Nate McIntyre is a DC-based sci-fi/fantasy writer originally from California. He’s also a Marine veteran and holds a master’s in science and technology policy from Arizona State University.

Nate’s prior work has been published in After The Storm magazine. His other interests include baseball, national parks, and playing the guitar.

Tony Medina, Associate Chair and Director of Creative Writing in the Department of Literature & Writing at Howard University, is a multi-genre author and editor mostly of books for adults and young people, the most recent of which are Resisting Arrest: Poems to Stretch the Sky, I Am Alfonso Jones, and Thirteen Ways of Looking At a Black Boy.

Leeya Mehta is a prize-winning poet, fiction writer, and essayist. Her novel, Extinction, is forthcoming in 2026. Mehta is the Director of the Cheuse Center. In 2024, she received George Mason’s Faculty Civic Excellence Award for the Baldwin100, which celebrates James Baldwin by imagining a world that deepens our individual humanity.

Miho Kinnas and E. Ethelbert Miller co-authored a book of Twoness poems, We Eclipse into The Other Side (Pinyon Publishing, 2023). They have now written over 500 poems together. Recent publication includes Kind of Cool: Interactive Jazz Poetry Anthology (2025), The Weird Times (2025), and Pulsations 4 (2024).

Chloe Yelena Miller is the author of Perforated (2026) and Viable (2021), both published by Lily Poetry Review Books. Along with Shasta Grant, she co-founded Brown Bag Lit, an online writing community. She writes and teaches writing in Washington, DC. www.chloeyelenamiller.com.

Jyoti Minocha is a DC metro area writer and educator who loves long, contemplative walks where she practices stringing words into long, contemplative sentences. Minocha received a Masters in Creative Writing from Johns Hopkins and currently teaches at Montgomery College. She lives in Virginia with her wonderfully supportive family.

Neha Misra (she/her) is an award-winning poet, contemporary eco-folk artist, and climate justice advocate. Her interdisciplinary studio builds bridges between private, collective, planetary healing and justice. A first-generation immigrant from India, Neha calls a solar- powered community on the border of Washington, DC and Maryland her beloved adopted home here in America. Learn more at nehamisrastudio.com.

Susan Bucci Mockler’s poetry has appeared in the Mid-Atlantic Review, Maryland Literary Review, Maximum Tilt, and elsewhere. Her full-length poetry collection, Covenant (With) was published by Kelsay books. She teaches writing at Howard University in Washington, DC.

Sean Murphy is the founder of the non-profit 1455 Lit Arts and director of the Center for Story at Shenandoah University. His poetry collections include: The Blackened Blues (2021), Rhapsodies in Blue (2023), and Kinds of Blue (2024). This Kind of Man, a collection of short fiction, was published in 2024. He’s been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize and twice for Best of the Net. Visit seanmurphy.net.

Madeleine Mysko is the author of two novels, Bringing Vincent Home and Stone Harbor Bound, and a poetry collection, Crucial Blue. A past recipient of two Individual Artist Awards from the Maryland State Arts Council, she has taught writing in the Baltimore-Washington area for years, most recently at Goucher College.

Yvette Neisser is the author of two poetry collections, Iron into Flower (2022) and Grip (2011 Gival Press Poetry Award), and translator of two collections from Spanish. Founder of the DC- Area Literary Translators Network, she has taught writing at The George Washington University and The Writer’s Center.

Jean Nordhaus’s eight volumes of poetry include The Porcelain Apes of Moses Mendelssohn, Innocence, and The Music of Being. She directed the Folger Library’s poetry programs in the early ’80s, served for five years as President of WWPH, and for eight as review editor of Poet Lore.

Robert Michael Oliver is a creativist. He is a theatre artist, cultural critic, fiction writer, educator, father, and playwright. He has published dozens of poems and stories in journals. In 2023, Finishing Line Press published his first book of poetry, The Dark Diary in 27 Refracted Moments. He also has a poetry-in-performance podcast launching spring 2025.

Tanya Olson lives in Silver Spring, Maryland. She is the author of Boyishly, Stay, and Born Backwards, all out from YesYes Books. She has received a Discovery/Boston Review prize and an American Book Award and has been named a Lambda Fellow by the Lambda Literary Foundation. Her poem “54 Prince” was chosen for inclusion in Best American Poems.

Kathleen O’Toole is the author of four poetry collections, most recently THIS FAR (2019). She is a resident of Gaithersburg, Maryland and the former Poet Laureate of Takoma Park, Maryland. Find her at www.kathleenotoolepoetry.com.

Bethanne Patrick is a writer, author, and critic whose memoir, Life B, is out (Counterpoint Press). She has served on the boards of the National Book Critics Circle and the PEN/Faulkner Literary Foundation. Her work has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, the Grace & Gravity anthologies, and The Rumpus, among others.

Richard Peabody has spent most of his life in the DMV. He wears many literary hats—poet, author, literary editor, publisher, teacher, mentor. He co-founded Gargoyle Magazine in 1976. His most recent books are Guinness on the Quay (Salmon Poetry, 2019) and The Richard Peabody Reader (Alan Squire Publishing, 2015).

Patric Pepper, a retired engineer, holds a BA in philosophy. He’s published two chapbooks, a collaboration with Mary Ann Larkin, and a full-length book, Temporary Apprehensions, winner of the WWPH Poetry Prize. His recent work has appeared in Innisfree Poetry Journal, Mid- Atlantic Review, Full Bleed and Backbone Mountain Review. He lives in Truro, Massachusetts.

Martheaus Perkins is the author of The Grace of Black Mothers (Trio House Press 2025). He loves milkshakes and long YouTube video essays. Currently, he teaches at George Mason University in Virginia. He can be found on Instagram and X @martheaus or martheausperkins.com.

Kirsten Porter is a teacher, dog rescuer, editor, and poet. Her poems have appeared in several journals and anthologies, including Poet Lore, The Limberlost Review, This Is What America Looks Like, and Voices of the Grieving Heart. Porter is the assistant to E. Ethelbert Miller and the editor of The Collected Poems of E. Ethelbert Miller.

Erika Raskin writes what she worries about. Her most recent novel, Allegiance, is about fascism coming here. Written well before the election, the book now tragically reads like a how-to, asking how far is too far when protecting family from authoritarianism. She’s the fiction editor of Streetlight Magazine.

Jamie Raskin has served as the Representative of Maryland’s 8th congressional district since 2017.

Rachel Reh is a writer and communications professional living in Washington, DC. She has been a featured reader for The Inner Loop and has been published in Cool Beans Lit, BULLSHIT LIT, Bloomin’ Onion, and more. You may find her work at www.rachelreh.com.

Mike Reis’s poems have appeared in Narrative Northeast, North of Oxford, Woven Tale, Crossways, in the anthologies Pandemic of Violence II: Poets Speak and Traitor/Patriot: A Reflection of January 6, and elsewhere.

Kim Roberts is the author of Q&A for the End of the World, a collaboration with Michael Gushue (WordTech Editions), her seventh book of poems; and Buried Stories: Walking Tours of Washington, DC-Area Cemeteries (Rivanna Books), her second guidebook. She has edited two anthologies of poems by Washington, DC authors.

Jessica Robinson is the Executive Director of Better Said Than Done storytelling. She has performed at the National Storytelling Festival, on WGBH’s “Stories from the Stage,” and the Women’s Storytelling Festival. Jessica is the author of the Guide to Personal Storytelling as well as Stages: My Life in Stories.

Jennifer McKeen Rodrigues lives in Fairfax, Virginia. She is trained as a certified yoga therapist and trauma informed yoga teacher, and is a queer, neurodivergent military spouse and mom. She has been featured in many lovely literary journals and anthologies, and has been nominated for Best of the Net with her photography.

Diana Rojas is the author of Litany of Saints: A Triptych (Arte Público Press, 2024). A one-time journalist, she grew up in Connecticut and New Jersey and graduated from NYU. Besides journalism, she’s dabbled in fundraising, real estate, and child rearing. Rojas lives, taxed and unrepresented, in Washington, DC.

Joseph Ross is the author of five books of poetry, most recently, Raising King (2020) and Crushed & Crowned, (2023). He teaches English and Creative Writing in a DC high school and writes regularly at www.josephross.net.

Tim Rowe grew up in the DMV when Ballston was called Parkington and the Crystal City Underground opened to an astonished public. This is his first published story, and he’s thrilled to have it appear in WWPH’s anthology. He lives in Fairfax and works in Washington, DC.

Heather Bruce Satrom teaches English at Montgomery College. Her oral history project, “History in the Making: Documenting Stories of Immigrant and Refugee Students,” won the American Association of Community Colleges’ Faculty Innovation Award in 2024. A believer in the healing power of storytelling, Heather writes poetry and creative nonfiction. Her work has appeared in WWPH Writes, Maryland Literary Review, and The Mid-Atlantic Review.

Jane Schapiro is the author of three volumes of poetry, Warbler (Kelsay Books, 2020 Nautilus Award), Let The Wind Push Us Across (Antrim House 2017), Tapping This Stone (Washington Writers’ Publishing House Award, 1995) and the nonfiction book Inside a Class Action: The Holocaust and the Swiss Banks (University of Wisconsin, 2003). Mrs. Cave’s House won the 2012 Sow’s Ear Poetry Chapbook competition. Her work has appeared in numerous journals. Schapiro lives in Fairfax, Virginia.

Madeleine Schneider is a data scientist excited about America’s leadership role in Artificial Intelligence research. She is also concerned with the trend to put progress and profit ahead of policy, safety, and security. When she’s not working on software development, Madeleine enjoys writing both short and long fiction. Her work has been published in Artists from Maryland and As You Were.

Patricia Schultheis is an award-winning author of over forty published short stories, and numerous essays and book reviews. Her history of Baltimore’s Lexington Market was published in 2007; her short story collection, St. Bart’s Way, was published in 2015; and her memoir, A Balanced Life, was published in 2018.

Adam Schwartz’s debut collection of stories, The Rest of the World, won the Washington Writers’ Publishing House 2020 prize for fiction. His non-fiction has appeared in Newsweek, Baltimore Sun, Baltimore Banner, and elsewhere. He has taught high school in Baltimore for twenty-seven years.

Ava Serra (they/she) is a disabled, non-binary writer exploring light topics such as disordered menstruation, displaced Boricua culture, abusive survival confessionalism, domestic sapphic joy, and cautionary eco-horror. They are a poetry student in the University of Maryland’s MFA program. For more about their work, visit avaserra.com.

Leona Sevick’s work appears in Orion, Birmingham Poetry Review, Blackbird, The Southern Review, The Sun, and Poetry Northwest. Leona serves on the advisory board of the Furious Flower Black Poetry Center and is provost and professor of English at Bridgewater College in Virginia, where she teaches Asian American literature. She is the 2017 Press 53 Poetry Award Winner for her first full-length book of poems, Lion Brothers. Her second collection of poems, The Bamboo Wife, is published by Trio House Press.

Gregg Shapiro is a poet, fiction writer, and entertainment journalist based in South Florida where he lives with his husband Rick and their dog Coco.

Lisa Jan Sherman is an improv teacher, cognitive skills coach, and has been a SAG-AFTRA member for over forty years. Lisa received a BA in Theatre and Speech from University of Maryland, and was a founding member of “‘NOW THIS!’ Improvised Musical Comedy Troupe.” Currently, she’s writing a musical Fern Fiddlehead & Fronds, portraying the empathic bond between humans and animals.

Laura Shovan is an award-winning children’s author, an educator, and a Pushcart Prize- nominated poet. Her chapbook, Mountain, Log, Salt, and Stone won the inaugural Harriss Poetry Prize. Laura teaches MFA students at Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Jessica Genia Simon is a poet and author of Built of All I Shape and Name (Kelsay Books, 2023). Her poem “Even After” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She works at Brady: United Against Gun Violence, volunteers as a writer-in-residence with Day Eight, and lives with her family in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Amber Bianca Smithers is an actor, playwright, and teacher in the DMV area. She recently has been seen on stage in Romeo and Juliet as well as Macbeth at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company. Her other credits include Arts on the Horizon and Olney Theatre Center.

Elnathan Starnes has participated in various poetry readings in the DMV for decades. His first published poem, “Items in a Neighborhood,” is featured in The Great World of Days (2021).

Elnathan self-published his first children’s book, Put Your Seat Belt On, and is currently working on his poetry comic book. Elnathan has his own children’s entertainment and teaching artist business under the moniker Groovy Nate.

Alice Stephens is the author of the novel, Famous Adopted People (Unnamed Press, 2018). She is also a book reviewer, essayist, and short story writer. Her historical novel, The Twain, is forthcoming from Regal House Publishing in 2027.

Danielle Stonehirsch holds a BA in English Literature with a focus on creative writing. Her fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in many online journals and print magazines as well as in anthologies Reflections, This Is What America Looks Like, Roar: True Tales of Women Warriors, and Grace and Gravity: Grace in Love. She was a 2021 Pushcart Prize nominee.

Laura-Gray Street is the author of Just Labor, Shift Work, and Pigment and Fume, and co-editor of three anthologies, most recently Attached to the Living World: A New Ecopoetry Anthology.

Street is the Mary Frances Williams Professor of English and edits Revolute at Randolph College in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Kristina Tabor (she/her) is a writer of short fiction and nonfiction. Her work appears in Best Microfiction 2023 and several literary journals. She is an MFA candidate at Randolph College and lives in the Washington, DC area.

Julia Tagliere’s work has appeared in Gargoyle Magazine, The Writer Magazine, and elsewhere. After earning her Master of Arts at Johns Hopkins, Julia joined The Writer’s Center as their Undiscovered Voices fellow. She hosts the MoCo Underground Writers Showcase and serves as an editor for Baltimore Review; she’s also a past Maryland State Arts Council grantee and a 2025 VCCA fellow. For more about Tagliere, visit justscribbling.com.

Yermiyahu Ahron Taub is a poet, writer, and translator of Yiddish literature into English. He is the author of two books of fiction and six volumes of poetry, including A Mouse Among Tottering Skyscrapers: Selected Yiddish Poems (2017). His recent translations include Dineh: An Autobiographical Novel by Ida Maze (2022) and Blessed Hands: Stories by Frume Halpern (2023). Visit his website at www.yataubdotnet.wordpress.com.

David Taylor’s collection, Success: Stories, received the WWPH fiction prize. His fiction has appeared in Gargoyle, Jabberwock, Washington City Paper, and elsewhere, and was nominated

for a Pushcart Prize. He received his MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop and is writer- producer for “The People’s Recorder,” nominated for Best Indie podcast in the 2025 Ambies.

Lisa V. Terry is a fourth generation native of Washington, DC and mother of two who spent thirty-four years practicing law in the District. She earned degrees from the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt Law School. Terry recently retired to devote more time to writing, including the completion of a memoir inspired by the loss of her beloved son.

Naomi Thiers is author of five poetry collections, including Only the Raw Hands Are Heaven (WWPH), In Yolo Count, and She Was a Cathedral (Finishing Line). Her poems and fiction have been published in Virginia Quarterly Review, Poet Lore, Colorado Review, and elsewhere. She works as an editor and lives on the banks of Four Mile Run.

Hayley Igarashi Thomas is a writer, content strategist, and unabashed idealist. Her work has been published by the New York Times, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, PBS, and others. She lives and writes in Maryland with her husband, two sons, and dog.

Piérre Ramon Thomas is a limp-wristed, white-mocha-latte drinking, Chocolate City native who writes whenever the queer spirits move him. Published works of his can be seen in The Mid- Atlantic Review, WWPH Writes, BlueInk, and The Nomadic Poet. Thomas holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and currently resides in Fairfax, Virginia.

Martha Anne Toll is a novelist and literary and cultural critic. Her second novel, Duet for One, was released in May 2025. Her debut novel, Three Muses, won the Petrichor Prize for Finely Crafted Fiction and was shortlisted for the Gotham Book Prize. Toll is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and serves on the Board of Directors of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation.

Sally Toner (she/her) is a Pushcart nominated writer and high school English teacher who has lived in the Washington, DC area for over twenty-five years. Her poetry, fiction, and non-fiction have appeared in Northern Virginia Magazine, Gargoyle Magazine, Watershed Review, and other publications. An empty nester with two grown daughters, she lives in Reston, Virginia with her husband.

Erica Simone Turnipseed authored Bigger Than Me (Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books, 2023),

A Love Noire (Amistad/HarperCollins, 2003), and Hunger (Amistad/HarperCollins, 2006). Turnipseed is also co-writer of an upcoming memoir, was anthologized in Children of The Dream, and is published in Killens Review of Arts & Letters and The Vincent Brothers Review. She holds anthropology degrees from Yale and Columbia universities.

Joanna Urban is an author and public relations strategist based in Washington, DC. Her short stories have appeared in numerous literary magazines and anthologies, and her writing has won awards and funding from the DC Commission on Arts & Humanities and the Leopardi Writing Conference. Read more of her work at penandprose.substack.com.

Dan Vera is a Borderlands-born, Queer-Tejano, DC-based writer and editor. Recipient of the Oscar Wilde Award for Poetry and the Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize, he’s the co-editor of Imaniman: Poets Writing In The Anzaldúan Borderlands (Aunt Lute) and author of two books of poetry, Speaking Wiri Wiri (Red Hen) and The Space Between Our Danger and Delight (Beothuk Books).

Cindy G. Wagner joined the staff of The Futurist magazine as an editorial assistant in 1981 and became its editor-in-chief in 2011 until it ceased publication in 2014. She has continued to write,

edit, and produce an email newsletter, Foresight Signals, until she fully retired in 2022. She’s now attempting to learn to play piano.

Claudia Wair is an African American writer living in Virginia. Her fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best Microfiction, Best of the Net, and Best Small Fictions. Her work has appeared in Pithead Chapel, Astrolabe, Writers Resist, and elsewhere. She can be found at www.claudiawair.com.

Jackie Walker received her MFA in fiction from George Mason University. She has studied writing at Hurston-Wright Writer’s Week and at the Jenny McKean Moore Community Writer’s Workshop. Her work has been published in Del Sol Review and Coming Off the Line: The Car in American Culture.

Laurie Ward is currently pursuing an MFA in the low-residency program at Hood College, where she is also the vice president for marketing and communications. She lives in Frederick with her rescue dog, Tino.

Raffi Joe Wartanian is a writer, musician, and educator who teaches writing at UCLA and serves as the inaugural Poet Laureate in the City of Glendale, California. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, University of Texas Press, No Dear Magazine, and elsewhere.

Bernardine (Dine) Watson is a nonfiction writer and poet who lives in Washington, DC. Dine’s book Transplant: A Memoir, won the 2023 Washington Writers’ Publishing House prize for nonfiction. Transplant was also chosen by National Public Radio as one of the 2023 “books we love” and featured in Poets and Writers Magazine as one of its 5 over 50 debuts. Her poetry has also appeared in numerous journals.

Christina M. Wells has published in the Northern Virginia Review, bioStories, Big Muddy, among other magazines. Her work also appears in collections, including Real Women Write: Seeing Through Their Eyes. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize twice. Find her at www.bychristinamwells.net.

Bernard Welt’s poetry and essays have appeared in many journals, art catalogs, and anthologies, including The Best American Poetry. He has an MA in Writing from The Johns Hopkins University and has a PhD in Literary Studies from The American University. He has also been nominated for National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writers Fellowship and the Lambda Literary Awards.

Kathleen Wheaton lived in Bethesda, Maryland for twenty-five years working as a journalist and as a Spanish and Portuguese interpreter. Her collection, Aliens and Other Stories, received the 2013 WWPH Fiction Prize; she was president of the press for eight years. She is a 2024-2026 Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.

Marceline White is a Baltimore-based writer, activist, and two-time Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. Her writing has appeared in trampset, Prime Number Magazine, SoFloJo, Feral, and elsewhere. Conferences and residencies include Aspen Words and Event Horizon.When she isn’t working, she takes pictures of her cat and reminds her son to text her when he gets to the party. Read more at www.marcelinewhitewrites.com.

DeBorah Gilbert White is a social psychologist, housing justice and homelessness advocate, and a triple-certified coach. She is lead practitioner at S.P.A.R.K Coaching LLC, host of the “Empowered For Change” YouTube channel, and author of Beyond Charity: A Sojourner’s Reflections on Homelessness, Advocacy, Empowerment and Hope.

Patience Williams works as a full-time Lecturer at Howard University. As an Interdisciplinary Fellow from Rutgers University, she completed an MFA in fiction writing and taught at Rijksuniversiteit Groningen in the Netherlands. Her creative nonfiction has been published in Amsterdam, Berlin, and the American Midwest, and her fiction has been published in Washington, DC.

Robert J. Williams is the author of Strivers and Other Stories, winner of the 2016 Washington Writers’ Publishing House (WWPH) Fiction Prize. His work has also appeared in the Callaloo literary journal. A 2024 Kimbilio Fiction Fellow, he is the recipient of four Larry Neal Writers’ Awards.

Cherrie Woods (aka Cherrie Amour) is an award-winning Baltimore-based poet known for her candid, narrative style. She is the author of Free to Be Me: Poems on Love, Life and Relationship and creator of the Words, Wine & Wings Poetry and Open Mic Show. Her work has been featured in Paterson Literary Review, Understorey Magazine, Poet’s Ink, and more. Cherrie is currently working on her second poetry manuscript, Sit Comfortably Elsewhere.

Katherine E. Young is the author of two poetry collections, Day of the Border Guards and Woman Drinking Absinthe, and editor of Written in Arlington. Her translations of Azerbaijani, Kazakh, Russian, and Ukrainian writers have received international recognition. From 2016– 2018, she served as the inaugural Poet Laureate of Arlington, Virginia.

Vonetta Young is a writer and strategy consultant based in Washington, DC. Her essays and fiction have appeared in Indiana Review, Barrelhouse, Lunch Ticket, Catapult, and elsewhere. She serves as Executive Editor and Nonfiction Editor at The Offing. Follow her on Instagram at @VonettaWrites.

Mary Kay Zuravleff is the award-winning author of American Ending, chosen for Oprah’s Spring Reading List. Earlier novels include Man Alive!, a Washington Post Notable Book, and The Frequency of Souls, winner of the American Academy’s Rosenthal Award and the James Jones First Novel Award. She lives in Washington, DC.