In Short – Volume 1, Issue 1 (Spring 2024)

Neema Avashia (she/her) is the daughter of Indian immigrants and was born and raised in southern West Virginia. She has been an educator and activist in the Boston Public Schools since 2003. Her first book, Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place, was published by West Virginia University Press in March 2022. The book was named Best LGBTQ Memoir of 2022 by BookRiot, was one of the New York Public Library’s Best Books of 2022, and was a finalist for the New England Book Award, the Weatherford Award, and a Lambda Literary Award. She lives in Boston with her partner, Laura, and her daughter, Kahani.

After a long career in public education and youth advocacy, Deb Fenwick (she/her) lives and writes just outside Chicago, in Oak Park, Illinois. Her work has appeared in Hippocampus, Pithead Chapel, Cleaver, and elsewhere.

Sonja Livingston (she/her) is the author of four books of creative nonfiction and the flash memoir workbook, 52 Snapshots. Honors include an AWP book prize for Ghostbread (a memoir of childhood poverty), a New York State Arts Fellowship, an Iowa Review Award, an Arts & Letters Prize, and a VanderMey Nonfiction Prize. Sonja is an associate professor of creative writing in the MFA Program at Virginia Commonwealth University. Sonja is currently at work on a series of profiles that combine research, history, and speculation to breathe life into overlooked lives of immigrant ancestors.

Dr. Richard Brynteson (he/him) is a professor, executive coach, innovation consultant, author, and public speaker. He teaches in the MBA program at Concordia University, St. Paul, where he has been a professor of 32 years. He has published six books, on business subjects such as innovation and behavioral economics. He has worked with companies on innovation projects in Africa, Asia, and the United States. He has only had to bribe his way out of jail once.

LaTanya McQueen (she/her) is the recipient of grants from the National Endowment of the Arts (2022 Fellowship in Prose) and the Elizabeth George Foundation. She is the author of two books—the essay collection AND IT BEGINS LIKE THIS (Black Lawrence Press, 2017) and the novel WHEN THE RECKONING COMES (Harper Perennial, 2021). She is an Assistant Professor of English and teaches in the MFA program at NC State University.

Mei Wen (she/her) is a Chinese Filipino writer who explores her relationship with herself, her family, and nature through essays. Her works have appeared or are forthcoming in The Tiger Moth Review, diaCRITICS, Spellbinder, The Lumiere Review, Anak Sastra, The Ekphrastic Review, After the Art, and 11 x 9: Collaborative Poetry from the Philippines and Singapore, among others. She enjoys embroidery and watching cat reels. Born and raised in the Philippines, she now lives in Switzerland. Mei Wen is a pseudonym. Instagram: @houseblessing_ Website: https://bit.ly/StephanieMei

Monica Prince (she/her), one of the foremost choreopoem scholars, teaches activist and performance writing and serves as the Director of Africana Studies at Susquehanna University. She is the author of four books, including her most recent choreopoem, Roadmap. Her work can be found in The Texas Review, The Missouri Review, The Rumpus, American Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. When not playing the Sims, find her writing, researching, and performing choreopoems all over the country.

Elena Zhang is a Chinese American writer and mother living in Chicago. Her work can be found in HAD, The Citron Review, Ghost Parachute, Exposition Review, Your Impossible Voice, and Lost Balloon, among other publications, and has been selected for Best Microfiction 2024. She’s on Twitter @ezhang77.

Donna Cameron (she/her) is author of the Nautilus award-winning book A Year of Living Kindly. She considers herself an activist for kindness, though admits to occasional lapses into crankiness. Her work has been featured in The Washington Post, Writer’s Digest, Dorothy Parker’s Ashes, Eclectica, Thanatos, and many other publications. She lives in the Pacific Northwest.

Sarah C. Baldwin (she/her) is a writer living in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, who has also lived in Pittsburgh, Paris, and Providence. Her work has appeared in Salon, The Rumpus, Autofocus, Thread/Stitch, Lindenwood Review, the Times Educational Supplement, Christian Science Monitor, and elsewhere, as well as in numerous university magazines. She earned an MFA in creative nonfiction from the Stonecoast Creative Writing program. Her work can be found at sarahcbaldwin.com.

Rajpreet Heir (she/her) is an Indian from Indiana. Her work has appeared in Brevity, The Normal School, Lit Hub, The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Rumpus, three anthologies, and more. She is currently an assistant professor of nonfiction writing at Ithaca College.

Lois Hibbert (she/her) is a long-time Ontario, Canada resident who finds that “What if?” questions lead her in unexpected directions for short stories and flash fiction. She also finds short creative non-fiction writing a valuable means of recording events and exploring memories, often bittersweet, as in “The Weight of Your Hair.”

Blair Glaser (she/her) is a leadership consultant and writer whose essays have appeared in Longreads, Shondaland, Oldster, Quartz, HuffPost, Inside Higher Ed, and others, as well as in literary magazines such as Brevity, Scoop, Rain Taxi and The Mantlepiece. She’s read stories live at events such as Writers Read, Generation Women, and The Woodstock Bookfest. She’s completed a memoir about living in an ashram in her 20s, and lives with her husband and dog-ter, Vanna White, in Venice Beach, CA. More can be found at www.blairglaser.com.

Cheryl Snell (she/her)’s books include several poetry collections and the novels that make up her Bombay Trilogy. Her most recent writing appeared in MacQueen’s Quinterly, Book of Matches,100 Word Story, Does It Have Pockets? Switch, Your Impossible Voice, and other journals. She has been nominated nine times for Pushcart, Best of the Net, and Best Small Fictions awards, and has had work in several anthologies, including a BOTN. A classical pianist, she lives in Maryland with her husband, a mathematical engineer.

Tinamarie Cox (she/her) lives in Arizona with her husband, two children, and a one-eyed cat. Her written and visual work has appeared in numerous publications under various genres. You can explore more of her work at tinamariethinkstoomuch.weebly.com.