Authors, poets, and artists featured in this issue…
Cover Art:
A Calf’s Journey
Art:
The 7th Orange
Asem Moustafa Ahmed is a New Jersey-based artist born in Marrakech, Morocco, with Egyptian heritage. After moving to Jersey City at the age of nine, he turned to drawing as a means of communication and self-expression. He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and earned his MFA from the New York Academy of Art, where he trained under Dan Thompson, Mario A. Robinson, and Randolphlee McIver. Working across painting, portraiture, sculpture, and printmaking, Asem creates figurative and narrative works inspired by migration, cultural memory, and the textures, colors, and forms found in everyday life.
Poem:
A Purpose for Everything
Roger D. Anderson and his wife, Judy, live in Omaha, Nebraska. Each day is a new adventure in their journey together to somewhere. He writes poetry only when the words, emotions, and feelings are suddenly swirling about in his head. They beg him to quickly write them down, lest he should soon forget them like last night’s dream. He sometimes writes as himself, other times in the persona of another. During the Spring, Summer, and Fall months, Roger diligently waters the weeds in his vegetable garden. In the Winter months, he dreams of their return
Poem:
Brief Lessons in Disappearance
Alexis Andrade holds a Master’s of English and Cultural Studies from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. She is passionate about the environment, the passing down of memory, and a large cup of peppermint tea. She is new to the publishing world—but eager to begin her journey.
- Website: alexisandradewriting.wordpress.com
Art:
Literary Garden
Leah Belin lives in the DC metro area with her husband and kids. She grew up in a haunted house built in the 18th century and blames the ghosts for her vivid imagination. She wrangles software by day, plays trumpet with a swing band, and is obsessed with origami tessellations.
Short Story:
Bird King
HJ Dutton is a Pennsylvania-based writer whose work has appeared in Horrific Scribes and will be featured on the Creepy podcast.
Short Story:
Tuesday
Annalise Grey is a Pennsylvania native, dreamer, and explorer. She writes because she likes talking to the voices in her head. Her work has been featured in the College of Southern Maryland’s Connections Literary Magazine, Allegory Ridge, and Tiny House Magazine. She has been contributing to a monthly local newspaper’s ecology section since 2022.
Poem:
Following Scar
John Grey is an Australian poet and US resident who has recently been published in Shift, River And South, and Flights. His latest books, Bittersweet, Subject Matters, and Between Two Fires, are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Levitate, Writer’s Block, and Trampoline.
Poem:
Father, A Broken Sonnet
Lillian Taylor grew up in Croatia. Now living among the vineyards of New York’s Finger Lakes, she spends time tending vines, trying new recipes in the kitchen, and writing stories.
and
Richard Leise writes and teaches outside Ithaca, NY. A Perry Morgan Fellow from Old Dominion University’s MFA program and recipient of the David Scott Sutelan Memorial Scholarship; he is a three-year Teacher of the Year recipient. His debut novel, Being Dead, was published in the fall of 2023. His short story, “Of Ducks,” was selected for 2025’s Best Microfiction Anthology. His second novel, the award-winning Dry The Rain, was released by Picket Fire Press in October 2025 to critical acclaim. DYING MAN IN LIVING ROOM is forthcoming from ELJ Editions (2027).
- Twitter: @coy_harlingen
Art:
Untitled
Mario Loprete’s first love is painting. It is an important, pure love. Creating a painting—starting from the spasmodic research of a concept with which he wants to send a message—to transmit the message, it’s the basis of his painting. The sculpture is his lover, his artistic betrayal to painting. That voluptuous and sensual lover that gives him different emotions, that touches prohibited cords…
Art:
Dreamcatcher
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 England with Sharon Osbourne to Alice Cooper’s Teen Youth Rock Center in Phoenix, Arizona. He’s currently represented by the Bilotta Gallery in Florida.
Short Story:
Does an AI Dream of Electric Sleep
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
Art:
Across the Entire Country
Ners Neonlumberiack was born in a tiny town in central Indiana in 1986. Having lived throughout the United States, the variety of landscapes in which they have lived informs a wealth of variety and interest in plants and animals in imagery as well as material choice. After graduating from Herron School of Art and Design with degrees in Painting, Sculpture, and Art History in 2009, the longing for a sense of place and being conscious of the fragile nature of mortality has been a current within the works. Currently based in Puerto Rico, their works maintain an environmentally conscious and sustainable working practice.
Art:
Mist-Veiled Forest
A.R is a dabbler. From calligraphy to oil pastels and digital art, different mediums are seen as tools to express thoughts and feelings.
Art:
Building Buddies
Evey R has always loved art, but didn’t start taking it seriously until her mid-20s, when her competitive nature met her best friends’ impressive artistic skills. Evey has developed her art largely through cooperative storytelling and mutual critique within the same friend group, and now produces art in a wide variety of media, including oil painting, digital art, and wire sculpture. She is currently pursuing a B.A. in Studio Art at CSUS Sacramento; she and her spouse co-own a small business selling her art.
Poem:
Frozen Inside
Novaleigh Roberts is a young artist and writer from Maine.
Poem:
Intensive Care
Samuel Senkowicz is the poet laureate for Elizabethtown College as well as the poetry section editor for Fine Print Literary Magazine. His poems and short stories have been previously published by Fine Print Literary Magazine and Nat 1 publishing. When not writing or doing classwork he enjoys hobbies such as blacksmithing and repairing antique clocks
Poem:
East of Carroll
Bill Simmons lives and writes in the San Joaquin Valley in California. He previously lived in Carroll, Iowa, for twenty years.
Art:
Succubus 2
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:
Displacer Beast 3
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
Flash Fiction and Art:
Stranded Near Donegal
Kirby Michael Wright lives beside the track in Del Mar with his wife Darcy and a cat named Gatsby.