Authors, poets, and artists featured in this issue…
Poem:
Getup
Tom Gannon Hamilton’s poems have been anthologized in Canada, USA, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Australia, Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden. First Prizes: Big Pond Rumours Chapbook Contest (2018), Love Lies Bleeding Poetry Competition (2021). Full Collections: Panoptic (2018), The Mezzo Soprano Dines Alone (2021), To Grace Bridges (2023), all from Aeolus House. His large/small screen roles include (Violinist, Special Skills Extra) Shape of Water, Getting Away With Murder, American Gods, Murdoch Mysteries. PhD dissertation: Poetics of Possibility; MA thesis: The Rise of Dub Poetry.
Short Story:
The Development Phase
Robert Martin,a Denver, Colorado native, began writing as a form of therapy after retiring from his career in printing and publishing. Knowing Robert’s love for reading, his doctor suggested writing to keep his cognitive abilities sharp. Instead of searching for his keys, Robert now tackles writing challenges, faces procrastination, and wrestles with the anxiety of whether his work will resonate with readers.In his free time, Robert and his wife love traveling with their two dogs in their big 5th-wheel trailer, exploring new places, and finding inspiration for stories.
- Website: www.dreamingauthor.com
Poem:
Marlyn Monroe Takes Pity on a Monster
Jen OConnor is published in American Writers Review, London Journal of Fiction, Sinister Wisdom, among others. She won a grant from the Speculative Literature Foundation for Second Hand Salvation, which was also a finalist for 2024 Saints & Sinners Literary Festival Short Fiction Contest and published in its anthology. Plays include The Girl Who Would Be King, winner of Chicago’s Pride Films & Plays Women’s Words contest and published by Stage Rights. Taken For A Ride published in Fresh Words Magazine’s One-Act Plays, Gayby’s Playdate, winner of the LGBT Festival in Los Angeles, produced around the country and in Seoul, South Korea. Jen holds MA and MFA degrees and worked happily at Walt Disney Imagineering for many years.
Art:
The Actress in Three 5 Minute Poses
Donald Patten is an artist and cartoonist from Belfast, Maine. He creates oil paintings, illustrations, ceramics, and graphic novels. His art has been exhibited in galleries throughout Maine.
- Instagram: @donald.patten
Short Story:
Jack Hits Bottom
Guy Prevost, a native of Manhattan, is a film/TV writer living in Los Angeles. He earned a BA from Wesleyan University (Comp Lit) and an MFA (filmmaking) from UCLA. He has worked as a development executive in the movie business, college teacher, fiction writer, and flaneur. His numerous screenwriting credits include the SyFy Channel hit Dinoshark and episodes of the TV dramas Walker and Dead Man’s Gun. His short stories have appeared in SQ Mag, The NonBinary Review, The North Atlantic Review, The London Reader, and elsewhere. Some have been anthologized. He has just finished a novel, Vermont Rocks.
Cover Art:
Tinsel
B.S.Roberts makes a living as both a museum curator and an administrative specialist at the University of Maine at Augusta. When not writing, he tends to be working on a degree in English, since—apparently—his diplomas in ethnography, history, folklore, and behavioral studies weren’t enough. B.S.Roberts lives in Maine with his wife, daughter, tortoise, and cats. He’s also to blame for the existence of Nat 1 Publishing… the idiot.
- Website: bsroberts.com
Poem:
Lonely Planet Hollywoodosis I
Gerard Sarnat is a multiple Pushcart/Best of Net Award nominee. His work’s been widely published; including four collections; by Rattle, Brooklyn Review, Tokyo Poetry Journal, Gargoyle, New Delta Review, Buddhist Review, New York Times, Oberlin, Northwestern, Yale, Pomona, Harvard, Stanford, Dartmouth, Penn, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, NYU, Brown, North Dakota, McMaster, Maine, British Columbia/Toronto/Chicago and Virginia university presses. He’s a Harvard Medical School-trained physician, Stanford professor, and healthcare CEO. Currently, he’s devoting energy and resources to dealing with climate justice, serving on Climate Action Now’s board. Gerry’s been married since 1969, has three kids, seven grandsons—and looks forward to future granddaughters.
- Website: gerardsarnat.com
Poem:
Philip Marlowe Takes A Stroll Down Hollywood Boulevard
Ben Starr lives in Los Angeles with his wife, a high school teacher, and three extremely powerful little girls. Ben studied poetry in college and as part of the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. His work has been published or is forthcoming in Bending Genres, Dishsoap Quarterly, Gone Lawn, Maudlin House, SoFloPoJo, and other journals.
- Website: benstarrwrites.com
- X: @benjaminstarr
Art:
In the Limelight
Edward Michael Supranowicz is the grandson of Irish and Lithuanian/Russian/Ukrainian immigrants. He grew up on a small farm in Appalachia. He has a grad background in painting and printmaking. Some of his artwork has recently or will soon appear in Fish Food, Streetlight, Another Chicago Magazine, Door Is A Jar, The Phoenix, and The Harvard Advocate. Edward is also a published poet who has had over 700 poems published and been nominated for the Pushcart Prize multiple times.
Art:
Crystalis: Orlando
Art:
Crystalis: Boston
Jennifer Weigel is a multi-disciplinary mixed media conceptual artist. Weigel utilizes a wide range of media to convey her ideas, including assemblage, drawing, fibers, installation, jewelry, painting, performance, photography, sculpture, video, and writing. Much of her work touches on themes of beauty, identity (especially gender identity), memory & forgetting, socio-political discourse, and institutional critique. Weigel’s art has been exhibited nationally in all 50 states and has won numerous awards
- Website: jenniferweigelart.com
Poem:
Harlow
Allison Whittenberg is an award-winning novelist and playwright. Her poetry has appeared in Columbia Review, Feminist Studies, J Journal, and New Orleans Review. Whittenberg is a six-time Pushcart Prize nominee. They Were Horrible Cooks is her collection of poetry.
Short Story:
Concession
Will Willoughby is an editor and writer whose short fiction appears in various publications, including Epiphany, Pangyrus, BULL, and Pithead Chapel. His work has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. In 2025, his short story “Downstream Benefits” won the Maine Literary Award for Short Fiction and was listed as a distinguished story in The Best American Short Stories. His debut short story collection is forthcoming from Littoral Books (spring 2027).
- Instagram: @willoughbywill6
- Website: www.willwilloughby.com
- Bluesky: @willwilloughby.bsky.social
Poem:
Shooting Marbles in Hollywood
Mike Wilson’s work has appeared in many magazines and in Mike’s books, Arranging Deck Chairs on the Titanic (Rabbit House Press), Before the Fall (Kelsay Books), and a debut novel, Food Court (Main Street Rag), forthcoming in 2026. Mike lives in Lexington, Kentucky.
Poem:
Sunburnt
Chenyi Wu is a writer from Texas. The Executive Editor-in-Chief of her school’s newspaper, the FM Wire, Wu has garnered nationally acclaimed recognition through a Silver Medal in Poetry from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards and 28 regional awards across poetry, memoir, and flash fiction categories. A WriteCause Honorable poet, her debut poetry publication, The Conscious Narrative, launched in March of 2025 and aims to publish young, emerging voices throughout the globe. Wu has published three poetry anthologies, one of which has been accepted into the Library of Congress’s permanent collection, and one short story chapbook. Wu has been published by Creation Magazine, the Moonstone Arts Center, Poets Choice, Apprentice Writer, LEVITATE, and Free Spirit.