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

Inducted in the Texas Institute of Letters in 2025, Sharon Bridgforth is a widely published author, a United States Artists Fellow, winner of Yale's Windham Campbell Prize in Drama, and a New Dramatists alumna. photo by Kevin O'Harra Jr Sharon Bridgforth collaborates with interdisciplinary artists and audiences to install moving soundscapes of her ritual/jazz texts in celebration of African-American Southern Migration histories/queerly. Sharon's work is archived at The Schom

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

Dr. Malika Booker is a UK-based British-Caribbean poet and the award-winning author of Breadfruit and Pepper Seed. Malika Booker is a lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, a British poet of Guyanese and Grenadian Parentage, and co-founder of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen (A writer’s collective). The Anthology - Two Young, Two Black, Too Different, Poems from Malika’s Poetry Kitchen was recently published to celebrate Malika Poetry Kitchen’s twentieth anniversary . Her p

Rakaya Fetuga tells stories through prose, poetry, and performance. From the age of 17, Rakaya landed upon London’s poetry scene, and since then, her words have taken her across the country and the world, performing on stages from Qatar to Cuba. Rakaya’s writing has spearheaded an array of campaigns for the UN, L’Occitane and Cartier amongst others. Receiving writing awards from the New York TV & Film Festival (2024) and Royal Holloway University of London (2015 & 2016), as

Nina Oteria is a poet, artist, and former educator from Raleigh, North Carolina. Her poetry has been published in Southern Cultures , Apogee , Scalawag Magazine , and elsewhere. She performs in Durham, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill based poetry reading series'. Nina was a featured performer at NC State’s Gregg Museum of Art and Design. She is one of the founding poets of the Corcoran Poetry Wall mural installation in Durham, NC. Nina uses poetry and art as a means to heal hersel

a. adenike phillips (she/her) is a poet, cultural worker and collagist based in New Jersey. She believes in the transformative ability of art to heal, disrupt and reshape sight. She writes toward the interior lives of Black people—stories that slip between generations and place, often going unnoticed. Phillips has received support from AWP, Hurston/Wright, POWERHOUSE Residency, Arts by The People, and others. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in the North American Re

Mecca M. Miles is a Black, queer writer and spoken word poet from San Antonio, Texas. Her work has appeared in such publications as Wellspringwords Literary Anthology , The San Antonio Review , Texas Bards Anthology , When the River Speaks , Voices de la Luna , Voices Along the River , and has been featured on Best of Button Poetry . She has competed nationwide, taking 8th in Florida at the Exit 36 Slam in 2023 and 8th in Dallas, TX at the Right to Write Slam in 2024. She ha

Grace Morse (she/they) is an essayist from New Orleans, Louisiana, currently living in Galicia, Spain. Her work can be found in various publications and has been recognized as a finalist for CRAFT Literary Magazine’s 2023 Flash Prose Prize and BRINK Literary Journal for Hybrid Writing Award in 2024. Morse is the winner of the BRINK’s 2025 Emerging Writer Fellowship in Hybrid Writing award, with their essay-in-archives forthcoming in the Spring 2026 journal. A scholar of Span

Courtney Conrad is a Jamaican poet. Her debut pamphlet I Am Evidence, is published by Bloodaxe Books. She’s won the Eric Gregory Award,...

Schyler Butler is the author of Phantom Hue (forthcoming from CavanKerry Press, 2027). A recipient of funding from the Ohio Arts...