In Short – Issue 5 (Spring 2026)

Brooke Champagne (she/her) is a native New Orleanian and the award-winning author of Nola Face: A Latina’s Life in the Big Easy, named a Best Book of 2024 from Kirkus Reviews. Her book of cultural criticism and reportage, Drive-Thru Daiquiri, is forthcoming with LSU Press. Champagne serves as Book Reviews Editor for River Teeth and is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing in the MFA Program at the University of Alabama.

Desiree Cooper (she/her) is a 2015 Kresge Artist Fellow, Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist, and former attorney. She is the author of the award-winning flash fiction collection, Know the Mother, and editor of the groundbreaking 2026 anthology, Black Summers: Growing up in the Urban Outdoors. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Oprah Daily, MSNBC Daily, Flash Fiction America 2023, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Rumpus, River Teeth, Fractured Lit, and noted in The Best American Essays 2019.

Diana García (she/her) is a writer of mixed US/Costa Rican heritage, and the author of Paradise Loss, A Novel. Her creative nonfiction has appeared in Wimblu Magazine, and she is currently at work on a second novel and memoir. After completing a master’s degree in library and information science, she spent most of her career working in the information systems division of a nonprofit research hospital in NYC. She currently resides with her life partner, Matthew, and rescue cat, Bella, in San José, Costa Rica.

Danielle Harms (she/her) writes from Wisconsin, where she earned a PhD from UW-Milwaukee and was Cream City Review’s nonfiction editor. She has been published in Conjunctions, Short Reads, Fourth Genre, New Letters, and North American Review. She received her MFA from George Mason University. Her work was listed as Notable in Best American Essays 2023; she is the winner of an AWP Intro Journals Award; and was a staff scholar at the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers Conference.

Erin Ruble (she/her) is an immigration attorney and writer. Her essays and short fiction have appeared or are forthcoming in The Threepenny Review, Fourth Genre, Boulevard, River Teeth, and elsewhere. She lives in Vermont with her family and the occasional flock of chickens. You can find her at erinruble.wordpress.com.

Margaret Dillow (she/her) is the founding member of the Post-apocalyptic Poets for a Pre-apocalyptic World, a collective dedicated to mutual aid and performance-based poetics, and co-host of Girlhood Movie Database, a podcast deconstructing depictions of girlhood in media. Her work as a writer and educator has been supported by the Tiny Spoon Residency, the National Women’s History Museum, and the NEH. She is the recipient of the Anne Spencer Memorial Award through the Poetry Society of Virginia and has an MFA from Hollins University. She has published most recently with The Palisades Review, Oxford Magazine, and The Words Faire. When she’s not writing, you can find her hanging out with her guinea pig, Guillermo Girard, who is better than everyone.

Caitlin Farrugia (she/her) is a dark comedy writer fascinated by human behavior and everyday suffering, as well as intergenerational everything and absurdism. She is the author of the short story collection, Search Histories (Vagabond Press). You can find her at www.caitlinfarrugia.com.

Melissa Hung (she/her) is a writer and journalist who grew up in Houston, Texas, the eldest child of immigrants. She is the founding editor in chief of Hyphen. Her writing has appeared in Longreads, Catapult, wildness, and the anthologies Body Language and Disability Intimacy. She is at work on a collection of creative nonfiction about her mother, inheritance, and grief. Find her at melissahung.xyz.

Titi Kusumandari (she/her) is from Jakarta, Indonesia, and currently resides in Belgium. Her work has appeared in The Chestnut Review, JMWW, Soflopojo, among others.

Courtney LeBlanc (she/her) is the author of the four full-length collections, most recently Her Dark Everything and Her Whole Bright Life (winner of the Jack McCarthy Book Prize). She is the Arlington County Poet Laureate Emerita and the founder and editor-in-chief of Riot in Your Throat, an independent poetry press. She’s also the founder of the Poetry Coven, a monthly generative workshop. She loves nail polish, tattoos, and a soy latte each morning. Find her online at www.courtneyleblanc.com.

Callie Dean (she/her) lives in Shreveport, Louisiana, with her husband and three sons. She is the author of the prose poetry chapbook Metadata (Bottlecap Press 2025), and two nonfiction picture books, Marvelous Mistakes (Beaming Books 2026), and Unstoppable Song (Lerner/Carolrhoda 2027). Follow her at https://calliebdean.com.

D. Doug Mains (he/him) is earning his MFA in creative nonfiction from the Bennington Writing Seminars in Vermont. At 36, he earned a BA in creative writing from Michigan State University. Now—with an undiagnosed case of obsessive introspection, a problem with oversharing, and a propensity toward humor as a defense—he is writing a book of personal essays which explores what it means to raise humanists while rejecting the evangelicalism that still haunts him today. He lives just outside of East Lansing, Michigan with his wife and their four kids. This is his first publication.

Rachael Mullins (she/her) is an Australian writer, UX designer, and photographer living in Dublin. Her work maps the glitches between loss, technology, and neurodivergence, appearing or forthcoming in HOWL New Irish Writing, Mouthful of Salt, swim press, chouette, and The Sydney Morning Herald. Find her on Instagram @rchlmllns, or hand-building weird vases out of clay.

Alli Boyd (she/they) is a writer, artist, and community builder, currently working with the Federation of BC Writers. She has an MA in Professional Communication from Royal Roads University, where she was awarded a Canada Graduate Research Scholarship for her thesis about representation in popular media through the lens of the Canadian TV program, Degrassi. Alli is currently shifting from academic to creative writing and is working on an auto-fiction novel set in 1999. Alli lives on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Lekwungen/Songhees People in Victoria, BC, Canada. Find Alli online at allithewriter.substack.com and @allithewriter on Instagram.

Judith Beth Cohen was born in Detroit, Michigan. She retired as professor emerita from Lesley University. Her writing includes a story collection, Never Be Normal (Atmosphere Press 2021) and a novel, Seasons (The Permanent Press of Sag Harbor, New York, 1984). She teaches yoga at a Senior Center south of Boston.

Vincenzo Cohen (they/them) is an Italian multidisciplinary and social artist. He earned the MA from Fine Arts Academy and the BA in Archaeology from La Sapienza University in Rome. His production revolves around issues related to social and environmental justice. The interest in history pushes him to investigate human depths through historical narratives and representation of archetypes and myths across the Mediterranean. His paintings address different issues including social justice and human rights, fight against the hate speech and prevarication of power, and the representation of unconscious content behind human expression. His desert photography reports are focused on fragile ecosystems, climate resilience and animal survival. Over the years, he has published art and history books and his works have been featured in international literary and art magazines.

Charles Corriher (he/him), 52, is an SSI recipient living in Greensboro, North Carolina, who grew up and later went to college in Asheville. His photos have allegedly been accepted for publication in Wordgathering and Ponder magazines.

Tinamarie Cox (she/her) lives in Arizona with her husband, two children, and a small pack of rescued felines. Her written and visual work has appeared in many different publications, including past issues of In Short. She enjoys writing poetry, painting, and snapping photographs of her family and pets. Follow her on socials @tinamariethinkstoomuch and explore more of her work at tinamariethinkstoomuch.weebly.com.

Chris D’Errico (he/him)’s writings, music, and visual art have appeared in various analog and digital mediums for the last three decades. He has contributed to such eclectic publications as Misfitmagazine, Otoliths, CounterPunch, Unlikely Stories, and Blue Collar Review. The author of several poetry books, his latest collection is Realistic Meat Substitute (Impspired Publishing 2025). Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, D’Errico spent the ’90s writing songs, playing in rock bands & making sandwiches in Boston-area delicatessens. D’Errico lives in Las Vegas, where he has worked as record store clerk, a neon sign-maker’s helper, and a pest control operator, among other vocational adventures.

Taylor N. Myers (she/her) is a senior at George Mason University. She specializes in pen and ink, occasionally working with graphite, and enjoys experimenting with stippling.

Eman Shumail (she/her) is a writer and artist from Peshawar, Pakistan. She holds a bachelor’s in English literature and linguistics and her work has appeared in magazines such as Atropos, Beautiful Garden Mag, Quasar Review, Carolina Muse and more. She’s currently illustrating the strange mythological creatures of Pakistan in hope of reviving oral traditions and helping children learn more about their culture

Nafia Syeed (she/her) is a Northern Virginia based interdisciplinary artist originally from Bangladesh. Through layered mixed media processes using mosaic, encaustic, clay, wire mesh, and organic textures, she creates tactile works that explore the fragile balance between the natural and artificial worlds. Her practice is rooted in themes of resilience, healing, coexistence, and human connection, often merging raw natural elements with constructed forms to reflect both tension and serenity. Her work has been selected for juried exhibitions and featured in galleries, publications, and artistic spaces across the Northern Virginia and Washington, DC region.