Elaine Omwango is a lawyer who has spent the last decade reading and writing speculative fiction. Her previous and forthcoming publications in Flame Tree Publishing, the African Writer, and Mystery Publishers explore Afro-modernity and Afro-futurism through the lens of familial, societal, and economic relationships. Born and raised in Nairobi, she is a lover of iced coffee, sunny days, and dancing. When not battling mystical creatures and journeying across mythical lands, she

Nnenna Loveth (they/she) is an Igbo lesbian poet, dancer, and facilitator who tells stories of liberated Black matrilineal futures. They are utilizing the relationship between dance and poetry to explore themes of Black sapphic intimacies, mother-daughter connections, Odinala, and healing from christian-colonial missions. Her work has been published with Game Over Books, Button Poetry, Voicemail Poems, Beestung Magazine, etc. When Nnenna is not creating, they are somewhere be

Banchiwosen Woldeyesus (she/her) is a Black woman, short fiction and nonfiction writer. She has sworn to read books slowly. So she pretends she has all the time in the world, so she can read this story at this moment, so she can savor each story she’s reading, so she can pay attention to small things she might have missed if she read the story fast—like the way a writer describes the feather of a dead warbler in a short phrase. Her work appears in The/tƐmz/Review, SmokeLong Q

Ashley M. Coleman is an author and music industry executive whose work sits at the intersection of literature, culture, and community. Her debut novel Good Morning, Love (Simon & Schuster, 2022) was featured by Joy the Baker and Katie Couric Media and named one of Bustle's Most Anticipated Books of June 2022. Coleman is a fellow of Torch Literary Arts (2023) and Kimbilio (2025), and the founder of Permission to Write, the writing community she established in 2017 to create sp

Jordan Bolden Majewski (she/they) is a Black queer poet and essayist living in the Bay Area. Her work explores the embodied experience of Black motherhood in its full spectrum– the many dangers, surprises, and joys. Bolden Majewski’s work has always been grounded in the body– the places we touch and pull away, the ways we hurt and are healed, the things we carry inside ourselves that we hold apart from others. They write about the systems we must carry our bodies through– the

Aline-Mwezi Niyonsenga is a third culture kid who’s allergic to place. She writes about migrant experiences with the help of a tornado auntie, lion goddess, immortal witch, the occasional ghost, etc. Her work has recently been published in Uncanny Magazine, Augur Magazine, Andromeda Spaceways, GigaNotoSaurus, Fantasy Magazine, and FIYAH Literary Magazine. It has also appeared in anthologies such as As the Earth Dreams: Black Canadian Speculative Stories and Africa Risen. You

Lolita Stewart-White is a poet, playwright, and filmmaker from Liberty City, Florida. She is a Pushcart nominee and winner of the Paris American Series Prize. Her collection, black frag/ments, was selected by poet Ashley M. Jones as the winner of Hub City Press’s BIPOC Poetry Reader Series Prize. Stewart-White’s work has been featured in Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Beloit Poetry Journal, Callaloo, and the African American Review. Her poem “Healing” was featured in the awa

Nimalah Baaith-Ducharme’s work has appeared at Poets.org (where she won the Harold Taylor Prize in 2019), Nighthawk Literature, and elsewhere. Her chapbook, Of Rootwork, was a finalist in the 2025 Alta California Chapbook Contest, sponsored by Gunpowder Press and judged by Raina J. León. She has received support from the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers' Conference and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, earned her MFA from Emerson College, and is curren

Amanda Borquaye is a Ghanaian-American creative nonfiction writer from the American South. She writes from the interior of a youngest daughter in an immigrant family, using the lyrical essay as a way to wade through the fragility of belonging in a decaying empire. Her work embodies the necropolitical, exploring who is allowed to live and who must die in the context of immigrant identity. By day, she works in humanitarian response and international development. She is an alum

February Spikener (they/she) is a Black femme poet from Detroit. She holds a BA from Wellesley College and an MFA from Randolph College. Spikener self- describes her work as “feral”: meaning, her work embraces the carnal and violent qualities of feral animals while reimagining beasthood as well as daughterhood. Ever inspired by their loved ones, their poems reflect how they navigate through the world and what it means to love and be loved. Her work has been supported by the M

Joely Williams is an Afro-Boricua poet, letter-maker, and community educator raised in the Bronx and currently living in South Carolina, where she is still adjusting to the concept of sky. Much of her work is rooted in the emotional and physical geography of migration: what it means to leave one place while still carrying its sounds, smells, language, and architecture in the body years later. She writes often about memory, grocery stores, kitchens, mothers, public transportat

Alisha S. Lockley is a poet, multimedia artist, stage director, and short film producer. Her work closely examines the subtle sensualities of the surreal and the spiritual. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Randolph College, and she was a finalist for the 2025 Furious Flower Prize judged by aracelis girmay. Unremarkable View of January from one window up above the maternity ward. Below, browning palms, a sherbet sunset; wind chopped Florida water froths filth. I’ve

Audrey Patricia Williams (she/her) is a queer Caribbean writer and journalist whose work lives at the intersections of culture, identity, and womanhood. Moving between features, interviews, and cultural commentary, her storytelling holds a magnifying glass to the Black experience, exploring its tensions as much as its beauty. As a Brooklyn native raised by Guyanese immigrants in the American South, Audrey’s perspective is rooted in both curiosity and connection. Her work has

Jae Broderick is an award-winning lyricist, librettist, composer, and the author of DeConstructing Criticism and Or You Could Just Not. When she isn’t working, Jae can be found practicing her backhand or on a plane to somewhere amazing because, um, “writers need to experience things.” Documenti is excerpted from her forthcoming novel, A Few Good Years. Documenti Puglia. 2025. Zia said it was because of the grapes. That the flies infecting every corner of the città were drawn

Ryane Nicole Granados has always called Los Angeles her home, and her writing finds its roots in her love of her community. She is inspired to write stories of survival that magnify the marginalized while also unearthing the splendor of second chances. Named the 2021 California Arts Council Established Writer and Individual Arts Fellow, Ryane currently teaches at Loyola Marymount University, where she also serves as the Associate Director of the Academic Resource Center. Her

Joy tabernacle KMT-Battle iz a Two-head Blackwoman, Opulence, mother, lover & crowned Hoodoo Queen. As a writer, she has received residencies and fellowships from Heinz, MacDowell, Callaloo, Vona & Periplus. They are published in many places, including Callalloo and Nepantla: A Journal Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color , Pluck! The journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture , Jazz and Culture , Hayden’s Ferry Review , Pittsburgh Poetry Review, and more. She is the winner of th

Born in Jackson, Tennessee, JUSTICE is a rising film director, screenwriter, and producer. After attending film school at Belmont University, JUSTICE began her career in film and television by crewing on various local productions. While gaining insight into the inner workings of the industry, she simultaneously tends to the hunger of telling her own stories. JUSTICE believes the world lacks perspectives in Black stories rooted in societal abnormality, social commentary, and

Temidayo Testimony Omali Odey , also known as Testimony Odey, is a graduate of English and Literature from the University of Benin. Her writing has been published in magazines and journals, including The Deadlands , Poetry Pause , The FEMINIST Magazine , Brittle Paper , Kalahari Review , Eco-Instigator , Akéwì Magazine , Rising Phoenix Review , and PoeticAfrica . Her work maps the complexities of the human experience, exploring identity, culture, and emotion through lenses o

Chiagoziem Jideofor is Queer and Igbo. Her work has appeared in Poetry , Michigan Quarterly Review , South Carolina Review , berlin lit , The Lincoln Review , Passages North , Commonwealth’s ADDA , the minnesota review , Sho Poetry Journal , MAYDAY , and elsewhere. She currently lives in Knoxville, Tennessee. when you claim to be from nowhere in particular a seed doesn’t just fall off is what my grandmother would say her ideation as crow, as sudden interest in such con

Jasmine Harris is a multi-genre writer and educational specialist featured in the Hidden Sussex Anthology , Prometheus Dreaming , Syndrome Magazine , and several others. She most recently was the recipient of the Mid-America Arts Alliance Catalyze Grant 2024 and served as the 2023 Arts and Science Center of Southeast Arkansas Arts in Education Artist in Residence. Harris focuses her writing on celebrating Black culture and community, intersectional identities, speculative an