Authors, poets, and artists featured in this issue…
Short Story:
The Mirror
Haya Al Ali contributed the short story “The Mirror” for this issue.
Art:
One Tree Remains
Guilherme Bergamin is a Brazilian reporter and visual artist who graduated in Journalism. For more than two decades, he has developed projects with photography and the various narrative possibilities that art offers. The works of the artist dialogue between memory and social-political criticism. He believes in photography as the aesthetic potential and transforming agent of society. Awarded in national and international competitions, Guilherme Bergamini participated in collective exhibitions in 53 countries.
- CV: www.guilhermebergamini.com/autor
Short Story:
The Love Interest
Katie Collan is a Jewish neurodivergent author who brings characters to life both textually and visually. She received a B.F.A. in film from New York Institute of Technology and wrote a short film that won the Best of Film award in the 2022 NYIT Film Festival. Off-screen, her short fiction has appeared in FLARE Magazine.
- Bluesky: @kancollan.bsky.social
- Twitter/X: @KCollan
Art:
Head Shot
Janina Aza Karpinska is a multidisciplinary artist-poet, with an eye for visual poetry. Her photographs have featured on covers of: Adanna Journal; The Hovarian; Aureation Zine, and in: Months to Years; Last Leaves, Kelp Journal, with interview; Voices de la Luna; Lotus Eater Magazine; Heart of Flesh, and Antler Velvet, amongst others. She lives on the south coast of England.
Art:
Last Blue Arctic
Steph Kunze is a visual artist from the Twin Cities metro of Minnesota. She spent her early years obsessively engaged in drawing, often doodling all over her papers during school and drawing late into the night. At 16, she joined a teen book arts program at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, which inspired her to pursue a BFA in illustration with a minor in creative writing from the Maryland Institute College of Art. After graduating in 2012, she returned to Minnesota and has since exhibited and sold her work at a variety of local galleries and art fairs.
- Art Blog: https://shoobawx.wordpress.com
- Website: https://stephkunze.com
Poem:
Night Blindness
Max Magenta writes about what he thinks he knows, and is often inspired by heavy metal lyricism, Bukowski, kung-fu movies, time travel paradoxes, and strange tales from history (amongst other things). He lives in the Midwest with his partner and sometimes goes outside. A relative newcomer, his first published piece, ‘tea ceremony’ was featured in Eternal Haunted Summer (Summer 2025), and you can find some of his other words on BlueSky @realmaxmagenta.
Art:
Drowning
Matthew McCain is an author and fine artist with three of his novels reaching the Top #10 on Amazon Kindle Unlimited. His fine art paintings can be found all around the world from London to Las Vegas with Bar Rescue’s Jon Tafer and Alice Cooper’s Teen Youth Rock Center in Phoenix, Arizona. He’s currently represented by the Bilotta Gallery in Florida.
Poem:
Daughters of the Underworld
Caroline Misner’s work has appeared in numerous publications in the USA, Canada, India, and the UK. She has been nominated for the McClelland & Stewart Journey Anthology Prize, the Pushcart Prize, and the Governor General Award for her novel The Spoon Asylum. Her novel SEEDs of the Inside Straight was published in 2024.
Poem:
Lights Out in Paradise
Oleg Olizev is a poet and writer based in New York City. His recent work appears or is forthcoming in Fjords Review, BULL, Beyond Queer Words, Night Picnic, Half and One, and Untenured. He has completed two novels and is currently seeking a publisher.
Art:
Eyes I
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.
Online portfolio: donaldlpatten.newgrounds.com/art
Cover Art:
Bloodshot
Art:
Seen More Than Known
Pia Quintano is a NYC-based writer/painter who often suggests narratives with her artwork. Her paintings were sold at the Frank J.Miele Contemporary American Folk Art Gallery in NYC until it closed. Her artwork has appeared in Glass Mountain, Peatsmoke, Saranac Review, Emerson Review, and Harpur Palate, among other journals.
Poem:
Agnes Cairnes, Dumfries 1659.
Neil Rhind has been doctored by Edinburgh University for work on the deceased polymath Alasdair Gray. He therefore has OPINIONS about Poor Things, and has shared them in reputable journals and disreputable comment sections. A contributor to Poetry Scotland, Apricity, Eemis Stane, Coffin Bell, Punt Volat, and others, his work has appeared in thematic anthologies on scientists, Satanists, and, most recently, cephalopods (Three Hearts: An Anthology of Cephalopod Poetry, World Enough Writers, 2024).
Poem:
Dear Loved Ones
Kat Schmidt (they/he) is an author and artist from Michigan. Their work can be found in Orion Magazine and The Inquisitive Eater, and is forthcoming in Wingless Dreamer’s Echoes of Midnight anthology, and Beyond Word’s Fathers anthology.
Art:
Devouring the Moon
Jennifer Shneiderman is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, writer and visual artist. Her writing has appeared in many publications, including Yale University’s The Perch, UCLA’s Windward, and The Rubbertop Review, and is forthcoming in Kent State University’s The Listening Eye and The Altadena Poetry Review. Her visual art has been featured in Rock Salt Journal, Harpy Hybrid Review, Unleash Lit, God’s Cruel Joke, and L”Esprit Literary Review.
Poem:
Spitter
Jeff Thomas is a poet from The Thumb. His poems center his experiences working blue collar jobs and growing up in rural southeast Michigan. Entering his second year studying in Eastern Washington University’s MFA program, Thomas is an instructor of creative writing and college composition, as well as the poetry editor for Willow Springs Magazine. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Glacier, Blue Collar Review, I-70 Review, and Gargoyle.
Short Story:
Prayer to the Deer I Hit with My Car while Going Fifty in a Thirty
Taylor Ward is an author and artist from the Midwest whose interests lie in queer, trans, and indigenous horror. Taylor has been published in Flash Phantoms Magazine and serves as an assistant editor for Moon City Review.
Art:
The Sudden Panic of a Frightening Encounter
Bill Wolak has just published his eighteenth book of poetry entitled All the Wind’s Unfinished Kisses with Ekstasis Editions. His collages and photographs have appeared as cover art for such magazines as Phoebe, The Passionfruit Review, Inside Voice, and Barfly Poetry Magazine.