Jessica Bradshaw is a literary editor for Cicada Song Press. Jessica has experience working in higher education, community health, and politics. She currently works for the Illinois Domestic Violence Hotline. She also briefly owned her own bookstore. Jessica was elected to serve on the Carbondale City Council for two terms (2013-2021). Jessica received a Master's in Public Administration from Southern Illinois University and received a bachelor's degree from College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, ME. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, Jessica lives in Carbondale, Illinois with her dog and two cats.

Faith Canright is a multi-published, award-winning writer from Texas who now hangs her fedora in Oregon. Reading ahead of her peers, Faith became a lifelong storyteller. Influenced by the haunting Jane Emily by Patricia Clapp and the offbeat Revenge of the Lawn by Richard Brautigan, Faith learned early that her writing voice could both intrigue and unsettle. She is plotting a murder mystery novel where the mind becomes the crime scene, and each vision carries a body count. Also discover Carved in Our Bones, a collection of dark tales and poetry by Faith and JD Jentri. Faith follows Jesus. faithcanright.com

Wendy Cheairs lives with her husband and tailless cats, who all think they run the house. Now that she is writing full-time, her fiction runs the gamut of horror, fantasy, urban fantasy, and romance to whatever comes to mind in her over-caffeinated brain. Raised in the southwestern part of America, she hides from the desert sun in the writing cave, avoiding setting ablaze as a redhead. She also writes under W.M. Dawson and Sage Knight. Social Links: https://linktr.ee/wcheairs

Sam Davey: I write fantasy and speculative fiction – both short stories and novels. My new book is a feminist retelling of the origins of Camelot – entitled  The Chosen Queen (June 2025, Diversion Books/Simon & Schuster). My previous book, Angels of Islington (June 2017, Mirador), is a dark fantasy thriller.  I live by the sea in South East England, and am the founder of the Hastings Book Festival and chair of the Hastings Writers Group. ::https://www.samdaveyroughmagic.net/

Jude Deluca is a nonbinary aegosexual Capricorn (he/she/they). Her areas of interest are magical girls, slasher fiction, YA horror, 90s nostalgia, superhero dads, and big beautiful men. She’s a professional detective of horror media and has rediscovered several lost and unpublished short stories such as Goosebumps: Dead Dogs Still Fetch by R.L. Stine and Braden Gardner. She can be found on Twitter as @judedeluca1990 and on Instagram, Bluesky, and Tumblr as @judedeluca 

Christian Emecheta is a creator who blends writing, illustration, and computer science. His fiction and poetry grace prestigious publications including Arts Lounge Magazine, Step Away Magazine, and The Decolonial Passage. He is also a published contributor to Cranked Anvil Press, Walden's Poetry and Reviews, and Mocking Owl Roost, among other publications too numerous to mention. Christian finds inspiration through reading, film, and the boundless landscapes of his imagination.

Chloe Gambill is a 25 year old writer and elementary school teacher based in San Francisco, California. Chloe’s work focuses on transforming both the mundane and intangible into harmonic prose. Chloe’s work has previously been published in 101 Words Magazine and she is currently working on developing a completed novel. Chloe can be contacted at Chloe.Gambill.Writing@gmail.com. 

Johanna Haas lives in the hot middle of the US, in a cottage with five lions. She writes fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, focusing on speculative work. She is neurospicy, disabled, and a former professor. Her work has appeared in Bewildering Stories, Young Raven’s Literary Review, *82 Review, and Star*Line. Her poem ‘Absent Hills’ won first place in the Wilda Morris Award from the ISPS. You can find her playing with plants and animals or tying a long string into many knots. You can find her writing at https://substack.johannahaas.com. She’s the publisher at Cicada Song Press at https://cicadasongpress.com.

Shera Hill lives in California and has written short stories, poetry, and novels, since she was a child. A retired library branch manager, she has published fiction and poetry in such journals as the First Literary Review – East, Every Day Fiction, and Flash Fiction Magazine.

Alex Hoeft works as a news reporter covering the Truckee/North Tahoe region in California and Nevada. She has both her bachelor’s and Master’s in journalism and her reporting has appeared in The New York Times. Her short story fiction work has been published in numerous literary journals and she is an editor for Creation Magazine. Her debut novel, Who We Thought We Were, was published May 27, 2025. When she’s not writing for work or fun, she’s wrangling her toddler or reading a book — or doing both at the same time. Visit www.ahoeft.com to learn more.

Steven Jakobi is a retired college biology instructor. He is the author of several nature-inspired books, including “Giorgio the Possum and Other Stories from Nature,” “Birds, Bats, Bugs, Beavers, Bacteria: Lessons from Nature,” and Phenology: Sun, Earth, Life and the Seasons.” Dr. Jakobi lives in rural Allegany County, New York where he also writes fiction and poetry.

Doug Jacquier writes from the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia. His works of fiction, nonfiction and poetry have been published in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and India. He blogs at https://sixcrookedhighways.com/

JD Jentri is a published speculative fiction writer and poet based in Arizona. A member of The Creative Academy of Writers, she enjoys exploring the unknown, delving into themes of inner struggles and death. Influenced by literary figures such as Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe, and H. P. Lovecraft, her writing strives to capture the eerie and contemplative aspects of human existence. In her free time, she delights in creative pursuits, including reading, making jewelry, crocheting, and playing the piano. Discover more of her work with Faith Canright in Carved in Our Bones, a collection of dark tales and poetry.

Theric Jepson (theric@thmazing.com) is a resident of California. His own blood has consistently been rejected by the Red Cross, but to be a writer is to be rejected. See what has survived the rejection process at thmazing.com/thbiblio.

Evgeny A. Khvalkov (born July 14, 1986, Sevastopol) is a Russian historian, medievalist, teacher, researcher of the history of the Genoese and Venetian colonies in the Northern Black Sea region and of intercultural communications in the Old World of the late Middle Ages.

In 2011-2015 — PhD researcher (doctoral student) at the Department of History of the European University Institute (European University Institute, Florence), where in 2015 he defended his PhD thesis on the topic “Colonies of Genoa in the Black Sea Region: Evolution and Transformation”; the supervisor was Luca Mola (Luca Molà). Subsequently, a monograph was published by Routledge based on this dissertation.

Since 2015, he has been working at the Department of History of the Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg: since 2015, senior lecturer, since 2017, associate professor, since 2018, also head of the research and training group (NUG), engaged in the study of sources on the history of medieval Italy; since 2023, invited lecturer.

Jordan Marie McCaw is a writer and artist living in Southern Oregon. Her fiction has appeared in Stonecoast Review, The Sirens Call, Chilling Tales for Dark Nights, Creepy, and more. She also co-hosts the McCaw Podcast Universe, which is also available as audiobooks from Blackstone Publishing. Learn more about her writing and art @jm_mccaw on Instagram.

Meaghan McDavitt is a high school teacher for a specialized creative writing academy in New Jersey. Her work considers and reflects on the behaviors of human nature and the unexpected journeys in life. When she is not writing or teaching about writing, you can find her with a book or child on her lap and a fluffy dog at her feet. Her work has been published in Poet’s Choice, New Note, and Heavy Feather Review.

Maggi McGettigan lives, writes, and plants flowers in Chester County, PA. Her work can be found at maggimcgettigan.com.

Kevin Novalina has had fiction, non-fiction and poetry published in over 200 Literary Journals, Magazines and Anthologies. He won numerous writing competitions and was nominated for multiple prizes and awards, including four Pushcart Prizes.

Ali Rowland is a writer from Northumberland. Her short fiction has been published in The Amphibian Literary Journal, The Letters Page, Wensum and Flash Fiction North. Ali has just completed her second novel. Her poetry collections Rooted (Maplestreet Press) and Dragged Up:A Northern Childhood (Sixty Odd Poets) were both published in 2024. She has been nominated for Best of the Net 2025. You can follow her work at Musings of a Mad Woman on Substack. 

Ian Salavon is the author of Mad Tapestry: A Collection (June 2025), a book of darkly comic and speculative short stories. His fiction has also appeared in Small World City, Phano, and On The Premises. A lifelong fan of comics, music, and tabletop role-playing games, he lives in Fort Worth with his family, where he splits his time between providing meals for the families of critically ill and injured children, coaching Judo, and defending shapeshifting as the best superpower.

Steven Schutzman is a fiction writer, poet and playwright whose work has appeared in such journals as The Pushcart Prize, Alaska Quarterly Review,  Night Picnic, I70 Review, TriQuarterly, and Gargoyle among many others.  He is the author of the novellas “A Bride At Every Funeral, A Corpse At Every Wedding” and “Pablo, Pablito”, and of the one-act play collection “Where Things Are”, all now available at Amazon.  He is also a seven-time recipient of a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Grant, awarded for creative writing excellence.  Website:  steveschutzman.com

Johannah Simon (she/her) is a corporate strategist, adjunct professor, and (sometime) creative. A Midwest GenX multi-genre writer, her tiny pieces have appeared in BULL, The Hooghly Review, Underbelly Press, A Sufferer’s Digest, and Fahmidan Journal. You can find her on X @JohannahWrites, @johannah.bsky.social, and at www.thewritingtype.com.

Owen Townend is a writer of short speculative fiction and poetry inspired by thought experiment and wordplay. His work is published in anthologies from Arachne Press, Comma Press, Oxford Spires Publishing, Written Off Publishing, Oddity Prodigy and others. He lives in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England, UK. You can find him on Instagram - @owt441.

M. Weigel retells myths and fairy tales and explores science fiction, fantasy, and horror. When not writing, she researches stories in their oldest forms to see how they survive and transform into today’s tales. She can be found online: @Peronelle@mas.to on Mastodon and @peronelle.bsky.social at Bluesky. 

Paula Zaby is currently at work on a short story collection.  My stories have won first place in the San Francisco Writers Conference Fiction Contest, first place in a local weekly flash fiction contest, finalist in the New Millennium Literary Awards and a quarter-finalist spot in Screen Craft’s Cinematic Short Story competition.  Based on one of my stories, I was accepted into the Tin House Summer Workshop.  I work part-time as a training consultant conducting seminars for adults in the workplace.  I live in Sacramento, California with a Chihuahua who wins most domestic arguments.