Latifa Ayad is a Libyan-American writer who was born and raised in Sarasota, Florida. She earned her MFA in Fiction at Florida State and is a PhD Candidate in Fiction at Western Michigan University. Her work examines themes of violence against women, mental illness, and Islamophobia through a dark fabulist lens. Ayad is a MacDowell Fellow. Her horror novel (currently on submission) was a runner-up for the James Jones First Novel Fellowship. She has been a winner of the Master’s Review/PEN America Flash Fiction Prize and the Indiana Review 1/2K Prize, and was awarded runner-up for the Kurt Vonnegut Speculative Fiction Prize. Most recently, she won second place in the Smokelong Quarterly Flash Fiction Prize. Ayad has been published in Southern Indiana Review, Kenyon Review, Cincinnati Review, Slice, F(r)iction, Wasafiri, and others. She is the current editor-in-chief of Third Coast Magazine. For her complete published work, please visit latifaayad.com.
Liz Barnett is a second-year MFA Fiction student at Bowling Green State University. They graduated with a BFA in Fiction and a minor in Classical Civilizations from Bowling Green State University, as well. They love mythology, fables, and adaptation as a genre.
Kiersten Burtz is a first-year MFA Fiction student at Bowling Green State University. She also received her BFA from Bowling Green State University, and her work has been published in October Hill Magazine.
Gayle L. Castle is a first-year MFA Poetry student at Bowling Green State University. She holds a BM and an MM degree in Music Education. Her writing experience has included Women Writing for a Change for over twenty years in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Joseph Celizic teaches writing at Bowling Green State University. His fiction and creative non-fiction have been published in The Threepenny Review, Indiana Review, Third Coast, and North American Review. He has also been listed as an honorable mention in Best American Mystery Stories.
Lucas Clark is a poet living in Northeast Ohio. He earned his MFA at Bowling Green State University in 2024. He currently tends to an abandoned tree nursery and writes.
Lawrence Coates is the author of five books, most recently a novella, Camp Olvido. His flash fiction has been honored with the Barthelme Prize in Short Prose and has appeared in Gulf Coast, the Notre Dame Review, the Adroit Journal, and the Fabulist, and is forthcoming in Fairy Tale Review.
Jordyn Damato is a current MFA Fiction candidate at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where she is the fiction editor of the MFA-run literary magazine, OxMag. She primarily focuses on short-form fiction dealing with the surreal, absurd, and difficult. She has work published or forthcoming in Okay Donkey, trampset, fifth wheel press, Brilliant Flash Fiction and more. She believes an emphasis on community is the best (and only) way to survive the world.
Remy Donald is a first-year MFA Fiction student at Bowling Green State University. They received their BA from Sewanee: The University of the South, where they double majored in English and Creative Writing. When not writing, Remy can be found playing TTRPGs, crafting, or hanging out with their dog.
Teresa Dzieglewicz is a poet, educator, and lover of both rivers and prairies. She is a fellow with Black Earth Institute, a Poet-in-Residence at the Chicago Poetry Center, and part of the founding team of Mni Wichoni Nakicizin Wounspe (Defenders of the Water School). She organizes “Watershed: Ways of Knowing the Chicago River” with poet/visual artist, Natasha Mijares. Her first book of poetry, Something Small of How to See a River, was selected by Tyehimba Jess for the Dorset Prize (Tupelo Press). Her first children’s book, co-written with Kimimila Locke, is forthcoming from Chronicle Books. She has won a Pushcart Prize, Best New Poets, the Gingko Prize, the Auburn Witness Prize, and the Palette Poetry Prize and has received fellowships from the Elizabeth George Foundation, Community of Writers at Tahoe, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, and Brooklyn Poets. Her poems appear in Beloit Poetry Journal, Pleiades, Ninth Letter, and elsewhere. Teresa lives with her family in Chicago, on Potawatomi land.
Orion Emerick is a first-year MFA Fiction student at Bowling Green State University, from which they also hold a BFA in Creative Writing. They are an assistant editor with Mid-American Review and the lead short story editor with October Hill Magazine.
Pella Felton, is a poet, scholar, and performance artist stationed out of Toledo, Ohio. A long time member of the BGSU family, she holds a certificate in Performance Studies from the Department of Theatre and Film. Pella’s writing often focuses on the relationship between the body, gender, and the technologies which mediate therein. Pella has presented her writing and research for a broad spectrum of spaces and organizations including The Pacific Ancient & Modern Language Association, The Society for Media and Cinema Studies, Cincinnati Improv, The Artomatic Art Festival, and The Toledo Fringe Festival, The Toledo Public Library, The Appalachian Poetry Resistance Tour, and many more.
Katherine Gaffney completed her MFA at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and her PhD at the University of Southern Mississippi. Her work has previously appeared in jubilat, Harpur Palate, Mississippi Review, Meridian, Best New Poets, and elsewhere. She has attended the Tin House Summer Writing Workshop, the SAFTA Residency, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference as a scholar. Her first chapbook, Once Read as Ruin, was published by Finishing Line Press. Her first full-length collection, Fool in a Blue House, won the Tampa Review Prize for Poetry and was published in 2023 by the University of Tampa Press. She lives and teaches in Champaign, Illinois.
Mish Gajewski-Zambataro (she/her) lives in the Lake Erie watershed and is a current Fiction candidate in the Northeast Ohio MFA program. Her eco-fiction has appeared in JMWW, Gramarye (Journal of the Chichester Centre for Fairy Tales, Fantasy, and Speculative Fiction), American Literary Review, Weird Lit Magazine, and the zine Find Your Ontological Center from Community Mausoleum, with stories forthcoming from The Dodge and EDGE CITY. She was an English tutor in the City Colleges of Chicago and a reading-and-writing coach for several Chicago-area nonprofits. Mish also worked as a bartender, garden center employee, and licensed massage therapist. Her thesis, a novel-in-progress, pertains to the ecological future of the Great Lakes and their peoples.
David Greenspan is the author of One Person Holds So Much Silence (Driftwood Press), Milk Sickness (Querencia Press) and the chapbooks Error (Antiphony Press) and Nervous System with Dramamine (The Offending Adam). David also has recent work appearing in Hunger Mountain, The Iowa Review, Passages North, Spoon River Poetry Review, and others.
Emilea Justice is a first-year graduate MFA Fiction student at Bowling Green State University. She earned her BA from Marshall University in Creative Writing and Literacy Studies. Her interests in writing revolve around femininity, mental health, and Appalachia.
Lara Lillibridge (she/they) is the author of The Truth About Unringing Phones; Mama, Mama, Only Mama; and Girlish: Growing Up in a Lesbian Home. Lara is core faculty for Literary Cleveland and holds an MFA from West Virginia Wesleyan College. Her essay collection, Hysterical Harlot: An Alphabetical Exploration of Sex, Gender, and Shame, is forthcoming with Unsolicited Press.
Rod Martinez writes Middle Grade and Young Adult speculative fiction. Due to growing up on Marvel Comics and The Twilight Zone, the inspiration was inevitable. After a challenge by his son to write a story about him and his friends “like The Goonies but based in Tampa,” his first novel, The Juniors, was published and the rest, as they say, is history.
Tyler McDonald is a poet from Cincinnati, Ohio. He graduated from the University of Cincinnati and is a first-year MFA Poetry student at Bowling Green State University. His work has been published or is forthcoming in Exposed Bone, Poets.org, and Short Vine.
Kelly McElroy is a first-year MFA Fiction student at Bowling Green State University. Originally from New Jersey, she studied Creative Writing and Theatre at Hamilton College, where she won the William Rosenfeld Chapbook Prize in Creative Writing for her novella Anymore in 2024. She is particularly interested in exploring complicated family relationships in her writing, and is drawn toward authors like Paul Murray and Celeste Ng as inspiration.
Anastasios Mihalopoulos is a Greek/Italian writer living in Fredericton, New Brunswick. He received his MFA in poetry from the Northeast Ohio M.F.A. program and his B.S. in both Chemistry and English from Allegheny College. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Scientific American, Driftwood Press, Fairy Tale Review, Pithead Chapel, and elsewhere. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Creative Writing and Literature at the University of New Brunswick.
Isabella Moreno is a Nuyorican from The Bronx writing and blossoming in Cleveland, Ohio. She is the founder of Illuminating Our Voices. For 15+ years she has curated workshops for POC/BIPOC communities. Her writing has been included in: Cleveland Humanities Festival, Boundaries & Borders, Peregrine, Nature of Our Times, and Azahares and is a 2024-2025 Breakthrough Writing Resident with Literary Cleveland. Isabella has been writing with the AWA methodology since 1999, facilitating AWA philosophy-based workshops since 2009, and became AWA certified facilitator in 2019. She has 30+ years of experience in education including K-12 teaching, non-profit management and college administration. She believes joy can always be found in collective spaces of shared creation.
Caitlyn Mlodzik is a writer based in Colorado. She has received her MFA in Fiction from Bowling Green State University and has had fiction, poetry, and photography published in journals such as The American Library of Poetry, The Palouse Review, Sheepshead Review, and Furrow Magazine, among others. In her fiction, she believes in the power of representation in everyday life and strives to write stories and novels that capture the variety, complexity, and beauty that exists within and all around us. She currently works in the History Department at Colorado State University.
Mo Orr (she/they) is a first-year MFA Poetry student at Bowling Green State University. She holds a B.A. in Film Production with a minor in Creative Writing from Bowling Green State University and explores themes of grief, racial identity, and queer joy in her poetry. They have a love for embroidery, pop culture, and learning new things.
Jennifer Pullen holds an MFA from Eastern Washington University and a PhD from Ohio University. Her fiction, nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in journals and anthologies including Assay, F(r)iction, Apex, and MAR. Her chapbook, A Bead of Amber on Her Tongue, won the Omnidawn Fabulist Fiction Award. Her book, Fantasy Fiction: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology (Bloomsbury Academic) is the first ever all-in-one history of fantasy, craft guide, and anthologies. Her upcoming works include Beastly: An Anthology of Shapeshifting Fairy Tales (Lanternfish Press) and Once Upon a Burning World, her debut novel (Meerkat Press). She grew up running wild in the forests of Washington State but has since been sufficiently domesticated to become an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Ohio Northern University.
John Constantine Tobin holds a PhD from the University of Southern Mississippi and an MFA from the University of Baltimore. He is also the managing editor of Alluvium, the Journal of Literary Shanghai, and the Co-Founder of Merfolk Games in Shanghai. Tobin teaches various forms of writing at the University of Maryland, including creative non-fiction. His work has been published in Shenandoah Literary, Quarter After Eight, and elsewhere. Tobin lives in both Baltimore and Shanghai, depending on the season.
Emma Rowan is a writer from Long Island, New York. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Nonfiction at Miami University, where she is the CNF Editor for Ox Mag. She is also a Prose Editor for Temporal Lobe. She has work published or forthcoming in Spellbinder, Hominum Journal, Bruiser, Beaver Mag, and other places.
Mary Simmons is a queer poet from Cleveland, Ohio. She is the author of Mother, Daughter, Augur (June Road Press, October 2025). She earned her MFA from Bowling Green State University, where she also served as the managing editor for Mid-American Review. Her work has appeared in The Baltimore Review, ONE ART, trampset, Moon City Review, Variant Lit, The Shore, and elsewhere. She lives with her cat, Suki, at the edge of the woods.
Haley Souders received an MFA in Fiction at Bowling Green State University and a BFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College. She is currently an adjunct instructor at Ohio Northern University.
Jane Wageman holds an MA in English from the University of Notre Dame and an MFA in Fiction from Bowling Green State University, where she previously worked as managing editor for Mid-American Review. She is currently a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute in Minnesota. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in trampset, Monkeybicycle, Lake Effect, and others. She writes at the Substack Quick Bright Things.
Alexander Wagner is a first-year MFA student in the Bowling Green State University Creative Writing Program with a focus in Fiction. He attended the University of Michigan for his BFA in Creative Writing and Screenwriting. He is a fan of all things fantasy and sci-fi, drawing inspiration from authors such as Sir Terry Pratchett and Brandon Sanderson.
Annie Williams is a writer from Fraser, Michigan, who graduated from Oakland University with her BA in Creative Writing and is currently pursuing her MFA at Bowling Green State University. She has three poetry collections, her latest being Metal Poetry. Her work has also appeared in other places such as Fatal Flaw Literary Magazine, Sigma Tau Delta Rectangle, Broken Antler Magazine, Flash Phantoms, Nightmare Melodies, and many more. When she is not writing she is either rocking out at a concert or staying at home watching a horror movie.
B.J. Wilson is the author of two poetry collections, Naming the Trees (The Main Street Rag, 2021) and Tuckasee (Finishing Line Press, 2020). His work has appeared in The Blue Mountain Review, The Ekphrastic Review, The Rappahonnock Review, Tar River Poetry, and elsewhere. His writing has also received support from The Hambidge Center and Studio Faire, and he holds an MFA from the Bluegrass Writers Studio and a Pushcart Prize nomination for his poetry. B.J. is also a songwriter and vocalist. He lives in Louisville, Kentucky.
Elijah Woodruff is a writer from rural Ohio and a first-year MFA Poetry candidate at Bowling Green State University. He spends his time hanging out with his wonderful wife and birdwatching.
Jessica Dawn Zinz is a writer, artist, and professor living in Ohio. She has an MFA in Creative Writing and teaches writing at Bowling Green State University. Her work, including visual poetry, has been published most recently in Diode Poetry Journal, Rogue Agent, Feral, TAB Journal, ctrl+v journal, and others. Her poetry has been anthologized in the Driftwood 2024 Anthology. She was also a finalist for the 2024 Tupelo Press Helena Whitehill Book Award. Jessica is currently working on visual poetry, collage poetry, and other hybrid writing and art related to aging, pregnancy, motherhood, and marriage.