Ann Guy is a writer and recovering engineer who was born in the Philippines, grew up among the cornfields and cow patties of Western Michigan, and now lives in Oakland, CA. She received her MFA in Creative Nonfiction in 2020 and her MA in English with Creative Writing in Fiction in 2018 from San Francisco State University, where she received a Distinguished Graduate Award from both programs. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Southeast Review, Craft Literary, Hippocampus, Beautiful Things, Sweet Lit, Entropy, MUTHA, Ekphrastic Review, Literary Mama, Motherwell, and elsewhere. She is at work on a historical and speculative fiction novel about migration, loss, and kinship. Find her at www.ann-guy.com.
Indira Khera is an MFA candidate in Creative Nonfiction at the University of Wyoming. Khera was born and raised in Connecticut and spent significant time in Chicago. Her writing explores family, identity, landscape, and science. A journalist by training, Khera previously worked as both a Metro Reporter for Chicago Public Media and as a freelance health journalist supported by the Stanford Health Equity Media Fellowship. Khera’s work has been published by NPR, Short Wave, Science Friday, KFF Health News, and Wyoming Public Media. When she isn’t writing, Khera can be found outdoors. She received her undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Chicago.
Manoj Kumar H V is the Dean and Director of Sri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Medical College and Research Institute (SABVMCRI) in Bengaluru, India, and a practicing spine surgeon. A physician and medical educator, he has spent over two and a half decades in clinical care, teaching, and institutional leadership. His writing grows from sustained attention to bodies, breath, and presence in moments of care and vulnerability.
Gregory Martin is the author of two nonfiction books, Stories for Boys, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and Mountain City, a New York Times Notable Book. His essays have appeared in such magazines as The Sun, Image, The American Scholar, The Missouri Review, The Kenyon Review, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. He teaches at the University of New Mexico, in Albuquerque, where he lives with his wife and a poorly behaved Maremma.
Shannon McCarthy is a writer and educator based in South County, RI. She is the founder and co-facilitator of the South County Writers Group, a community space for writers of all ages, disciplines, and experience levels. Her creative nonfiction has previously appeared in River Teeth and Fourth Genre, and her fiction has been published in The Onion River Review.
Julia Nagele is a senior principal and director of design at an architecture studio in Seattle, where she leads complex urban projects ranging from affordable housing to skyscrapers, all with a focus on the human experience of cities. She is also an Affiliate Associate Professor at the University of Washington College of Built Environments, teaching graduate design studios through project-based learning that addresses the central issues of sustainability, affordability, and equity in the built environment. Her literary nonfiction draws from her background in creative practice and her lived experience, often interrogating the interplay between visibility, control, and the environments we inhabit. She lives in Seattle with her wife and son.
Jessica Lind Peterson is the author of Sound Like Trapped Thunder published by Seneca Review Books and winner of the Deborah Tall Lyric Essay Book Prize. Other essays have appeared in Orion, Seneca Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Rumpus, Passages North, and others. She holds an MFA from Hamline University and lives in Northern Minnesota with her family. She is currently working on a fantasy novel and trying hard not to adopt any more animals.
Sam Pickering was born and raised in Nashville. He taught English for forty-five years, the last thirty-five at the University of Connecticut. He has written some thirty-five books. They range across several genres, but he is best-known for familiar essays. Mercer University Press published his most recent book, Reading in the Sunshine, Laughing Every Day.
Jan Shoemaker is the author of the essay collections, Slow Learner and Flesh and Stones: Field Notes from a Finite World, and the poetry collection, The Reliquary Earth. Her forthcoming essay collection A Box of Snakes and Daisies will be available in the spring of 2027. She writes and sells books and fumes about the times in Okemos, MI.
Ana Maria Spagna writes about nature, work, history, and community. Her books have been recognized by the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize, Nautilus Book Awards, Washington State Book Awards, and the Society of Environmental Journalists, and her essays have appeared in Orion, Fourth Genre, Ecotone, Terrain.org, North American Review, Brevity, and elsewhere. She’s currently on faculty at Wenatchee Valley College and in the Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Western Colorado University, and she lives with her wife, Laurie, in the North Cascades. “Sussex” will appear in Coiled: Essays on Urgency and Kinship from University of Nebraska Press in Fall 2026.
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