Meet
Our Team
We are writers and authors of all genres and styles, who love teaching our craft and guiding others through the writing process!
We are writers and authors of all genres, who love teaching and helping others with the craft and process of writing!
HEATHER BRYANT has provided exemplary writing, editing, design, and marketing services for non-profit organizations, companies, and entrepreneurs across New England and remotely across the United States for over 18 years. Working creatively under the pen name Loren Walker, she is also an award-winning poet, author of fantasy/science-fiction novels, and multimedia artist.
MIRA BARTÓK is the author/illustrator of the New York Times bestselling memoir, The Memory Palace, which won the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award. Her writing has appeared in many places, including the Massachusetts Review, Jubilat, Another Chicago Magazine, Fourth Genre, the Kenyon Review, Psychology Today, Tikkun, the Bellingham Review, among others. She has also written and illustrated over 35 books for children, most recently, The Wonderling: Songcatcher, which was long listed for the UK’s Carnegie Medal and is currently in development for a feature film. The sequel, The Wonderling: Singing Tree, is forthcoming from Candlewick Press and Walker Books UK. Mira holds an MFA in painting and film from the University of Illinois and an MFA from the University of Massachusetts in Fiction. She has been a professor and lecturer at numerous institutions, including Smith College, the University of Illinois, the University of Chicago’s Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Field Museum of Natural History, and the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology at Harvard University, among others. She is also a Fulbright Scholar in Folklore and Anthropology, specializing in the oral traditions of indigenous circumpolar peoples. She believes that stories are the lifeblood of a culture and would love to help you tell yours.
​LIZ BEDELL's recently completed novel, The Space Between, was shortlisted in the 2019 William Faulkner William Wisdom Competition, Novel-in-Progress category. She is a co-editor of Embody, a weekly feature column at The Maine Review. She holds an MFA Fiction and Translation from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and an MA in English from Middlebury College. She writes and teaches in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts.
DUNCAN BIRMINGHAM is a writer and filmmaker in Los Angeles. The feature film he wrote and directed, Who Invited Them, was named one of the best horror films of 2022 by The Hollywood Reporter. He's written on various TV shows including as an executive producer and writer on Maron (starring Marc Maron) on IFC and co-executive producer and writer on Blunt Talk on Starz. His screenplay Swingles was featured on The Black List and his short films have premiered at festivals including Sundance and AFI.
ANDERS CARLSON-WEE is the author of Disease of Kings (W.W. Norton, 2023), The Low Passions (W.W. Norton, 2019), a New York Public Library Book Group Selection, and Dynamite (Bull City Press, 2015), winner of the Frost Place Chapbook Prize. His work has appeared in The Paris Review, BuzzFeed, American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Virginia Quarterly Review, and many other publications. The recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Bread Loaf, Sewanee, and the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, he is the winner of the Poetry International Prize. His work has been translated into Chinese. Anders holds an MFA from Vanderbilt University and is represented by Massie & McQuilkin Literary Agents. Find him at www.anderscarlsonwee.com
OLIVIA KATE CERRONE's writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Rumpus, and New South, among other publications. Her novella The Hunger Saint won an American Fiction Award and was praised by Kirkus Review as “a well-crafted and affecting literary tale.” She won Crab Orchard Review's Jack Dyer Fiction Prize and various other honors, including fellowships from the Hawthornden Castle International Retreat for Writers (Scotland), the Ragdale Foundation, VCCA, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts and Sciences, where she received a "Distinguished Fellowship" from the National Endowment for the Arts.
SARAH JANE CODY's stories and essays have appeared in journals such as in The Common, Gulf Coast, The Cincinnati Review, and Joyland, among others. She was a finalist for the 2018 G.B. Crump Prize in Experimental Fiction and her writing has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She was an assistant prose editor at Pigeon Pages for three years and a reader of submissions for many more, since near the time of the journal’s inception. She’s a graduate of the MFA program at Sarah Lawrence College and an alumnus of Tin House’s Summer Workshop. She’s represented by Jess Regel at Helm Literary. Find her online at www.sarahjanecody.com
​JOY DEVA BAGLIO ​is the founder/director of Pioneer Valley Writers' Workshop (PVWW). Her short stories have appeared widely, in journals such as One Story, Ploughshares, The Missouri Review, Tin House, American Short Fiction, Conjunctions, The Iowa Review, Coast, New Ohio Review, and elsewhere. Recent honors include fellowships, scholarships, and grants from Yaddo, Ragdale, The Elizabeth George Foundation, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Sewanee Writers Conference, The Speculative Literature Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, The Porches, The Kerouac Project, and Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. Two short stories have been optioned for film/TV. Joy holds an MFA from The New School and is currently at work on multiple novels. She's represented by Peter Steinberg at United Talent Agency (UTA). In her free time, she plays the bagpipes. She writes a free craft Substack (Alone in a Room) and can be found on all social media platforms. Visit her online at www.joybaglio.com.
ELWIN COTMAN is a storyteller from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is the author of five books: the poetry collection The Wizard’s Homecoming, and the short story collections The Jack Daniels Sessions EP, Hard Times Blues, Dance on Saturday, and Weird Black Girls. His debut novel The Age of Ignorance will be published by Scribner in 2025. He has worked as a video game consultant and writer for Square Enix. He holds a BA from the University of Pittsburgh and a MFA from Mills College. Photo credit: Rohan DaCosta
KIM COLEMAN FOOTE is the author of the novel, Coleman Hill (SJP Lit/Zando, September 2023). She has received writing fellowships and residencies from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Phillips Exeter Academy, Center for Fiction, Yaddo, MacDowell, Hedgebrook, and elsewhere. She also received a Fulbright Fellowship to conduct research for a novel in Ghana. Her fiction appears most recently in The Best American Short Stories 2022.
MARISSA DEAN is a Teaching Assistant in PVWW's 10-Month Manuscript Program. She writes fiction and poetry that explores themes of religion, mysticism, sexuality, and the ancient holiness of the natural world. She draws inspiration from Victorian literature and art as well as her repressed Christian childhood and her fascination with Celtic paganism. In her free time (when she’s not writing or–more accurately–wrestling with an onslaught of ideas), she can be found baking, wandering forests, browsing bookstores, or watching British programming with her cat, Winnifred. She’s thrilled to join PVWW as TA for the Memoir sections.
TOMMY DEAN is the author of two flash fiction chapbooks Special Like the People on TV (Redbird Chapbooks, 2014) and Covenants (ELJ Editions, 2021). He lives in Indiana where he currently is the Editor at Fractured Lit and Uncharted Magazine. A graduate of the Queens University of Charlotte MFA program, he is currently working on a novel. A recipient of the 2019 Lascaux Prize in Short Fiction, his writing can be found in Best Microfiction 2019 and 2020, Best Small Fiction 2019, Monkeybicycle, and the Atticus Review. He has taught writing workshops for the Gotham Writers Workshop, the Barrelhouse Conversations and Connections conference, and The Lafayette Writer’s Workshop. Find him at tommydeanwriter.com and on Twitter @TommyDeanWriter.
ARIEL DELGADO DIXON was born and raised in Trenton, New Jersey. Her first novel, Don't Say We Didn't Warn You was published by Random House in 2022. Her second novel, Sourland, is forthcoming from Random House in 2026. Her writing has appeared in Kenyon Review, O: The Oprah Magazine, The Idaho Review, LitHub, and elsewhere. She joins PVWW as an instructor this season, in the 10-Month Manuscript Program’s Novel Revision section!
LEONORA DESAR's fiction has appeared in places such as River Styx, Passages North, The Cincinnati Review, Black Warrior Review, and Columbia Journal, where she was chosen as a finalist by Ottessa Moshfegh. She has been selected for The Best Small Fictions 2019 and 2021, Best Microfiction 2019, 2020, 2021, and the Wigleaf Top 50 (2019, 2020, 2021). She was a runner-up/finalist in Quarter After Eight’s Robert J. DeMott Short Prose Contest, judged by Stuart Dybek, and Crazyhorse’s Crazyshorts! contest. Her journalism has appeared in Psychology Today, WomansDay.com, Parenting magazine, WomansDay.com, Business Insider, and others. She holds an MFA in fiction from NYU, where she taught creative writing, and an MS from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
MELENIE FREEDOM FLYNN’s memoir-in-progress is currently being supported by grants from the Elizabeth George Foundation and Massachusetts Cultural Council. She is the recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship, Djerassi Artist-in-Residence Fellowship, Atlantic Center for the Arts Residency, and scholarships to the Community of Writers Workshop. Her essay “Message from Your Inmate” won the annual nonfiction contest at Vela Magazine and her recent work can be seen in Provincetown Arts Magazine and the Straw Dog Pandemic Poetry and Prose Journal. A graduate of the MFA Acting Program at California Institute of the Arts, Melenie has performed in theatres across the country including the New York Theatre Workshop, the Kitchen (NY), Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre (MA), and Majestic Theatre (MA). Visit her online at meleniefreedomflynn.com.
DORIAN FOX's essays, articles and stories have appeared in a wide range of literary publications, including Brevity, The Rumpus, Gay Magazine, Atticus Review, Under the Gum Tree, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, december, Creative Nonfiction’s Sunday Short Reads and others. His work has also been honored in various competitions and received nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. A longtime Massachusetts resident, he now lives in Brighton, MA. Find him online at dorianfox.com
ANITA GILL is a Fulbright Scholar whose work has appeared in The Iowa Review, Kweli, Prairie Schooner, The Offing, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. Her writing has been listed as Notable in Best American Essays and has won The Iowa Review Award in Nonfiction. She holds an MA in Literature from American University, and an MFA in Writing from Pacific University. She currently serves as Nonfiction Editor for Hypertext Review while working on a novel.
ELIZABETH GONZALEZ JAMES is a screenwriter and author of the novels, Mona at Sea and The Bullet Swallower, as well as the chapbook, Five Conversations About Peter Sellers. She teaches fiction writing at Grub Street. Originally from South Texas, Elizabeth now lives with her family in Massachusetts.
JOAN KWON GLASS is the author of NIGHT SWIM (Diode Editions, 2022) & three chapbooks including IF RUST CAN GROW ON THE MOON (Milk & Cake Press, 2022). She serves as poet laureate for Milford, CT, as Editor in Chief for Harbor Review & as a Brooklyn Poets mentor. Joan teaches on the faculty of Hudson Valley Writers Center, Brooklyn Poets, Maine Writers Alliance & the International Women’s Writing Guild. Joan’s poems have been published in or are forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, Asian American Writer’s Workshop (The Margins), Rattle, RHINO, Dialogist & elsewhere. ​
NEIL RICHARD GRAYSON was raised in the woods of upstate New York. Since then, he’s been a schoolteacher, video game designer, rock climbing instructor, bartender, and cross-country hitchhiker. He holds degrees in English & Education from SUNY Potsdam, and an MFA from Ohio State University. His fiction, essays, and poetry have appeared in CutBank, HOBART, StoryScape Journal, Fiction Southeast, among others. He’s been awarded fellowships from The Kenyon Review, Community of Writers, and Martha’s Vineyard Institute for Creative Writing, and was recently nominated for a Pushcart.
SIMON HAN is the author of Nights When Nothing Happened (Riverhead Books). His stories and essays have appeared in The Atlantic, The Texas Observer, Guernica, The Iowa Review, Electric Literature, and LitHub. He has received scholarships and fellowships from MacDowell, the Tulsa Artist Fellowship, Bread Loaf, the Sewanee Writers' Conference, and Vanderbilt University, where he received his MFA. Born in Tianjin, China, he lives in Carrollton, TX.
MONTANNA HARLING is an MFA in Prose candidate at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, specializing in speculative eco-fiction. She attended the 2024 Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop and has a BA with Honors from UC San Diego. Montanna’s writing has been published in F(r)iction Magazine and O(the)r People Magazine. She is the recipient of the 2021 Ben Sumner Memorial Award, and both the 2023 and 2024 Art and Sustainability Fellowships at UMass Amherst. She is excited to continue serving as the Fiction TA with PVWW’s 10-Month Manuscript Program.
LIZ HARMER is the author of the novels The Amateurs (2018) and Strange Loops (2023). Her stories, essays, and poems have been published at the Globe & Mail, The Walrus, Best Canadian Stories, The New Quarterly, Hazlitt, Image Journal, and elsewhere. A recent fellow at the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers’ Conferences, she was also the runner-up for the Mitchell Prize in poetry. She’s the winner of a National Magazine Award for Personal Journalism, a CRAFT Literary Creative Nonfiction Award, and the WAGs-ProQuest Award Distinguished Masters Thesis, among other prizes. She teaches in the MFA program at Chapman University.
MOLLY HORAN has her MFA in writing for children and young adults from The New School. Her debut novel, Epically Earnest, a YA retelling of The Importance of Being Earnest, was published in 2022 and her second novel comes out in 2024. Her first picture book, I Have Seven Dogs, was published in 2023. She currently teaches creative writing and literature at NYU and The School of Visual Arts.
​BLAIR HURLEY is the author of THE DEVOTED, which was longlisted for The Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize. Her second novel, MINOR PROPHETS will be published in 2023. Her work is published in New England Review, Electric Literature, The Georgia Review, Guernica, Paris Review Daily, West Branch, and elsewhere. She is a Pushcart Prize winner and an ASME Fiction award finalist.
CELIA JEFFRIES is the author of the award-winning novel Blue Desert. Her work has appeared in numerous newspapers and literary magazines including Westview, Solstice, and Puerto del Sol, as well as the anthology Beyond the Yellow Wallpaper. She holds an MA from Brandeis and an MFA from Lesley University. Find her online at www.celiajeffries.com.
DREW JOHNSON's stories have appeared in The Kenyon Review, Harper's, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Literary Review, The Cupboard, Gulf Coast, New England Review, and elsewhere. Reviews, essays, and interviews have appeared at Literary Hub, Guernica, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Paris Review Daily, and elsewhere. He received his MFA from the University of Virginia.
TREVOR KETNER is the author of THE WILD HUNT DIVINATIONS: A GRIMOIRE (Wesleyan University Press, 2023) and [WHITE] (UGA Press, 2021) selected as a winner of the National Poetry Series by Forrest Gander. A 2025 Yaddo fellow, they received fellowships from MacDowell, Lambda Literary, Poets House, The Poetry Project, and Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts. They hold an MFA from the University of Minnesota and live in New York City.
FRED LAMBERT's work has been featured in Ghost Parachute, War, Literature & the Arts, and Warrior Writers: After Action Review as well as United Press International and the Orlando Weekly. He works as a writing tutor at Valencia College in Orlando, Florida, and is currently crafting two memoirs related to his time as a U.S. Marine in Iraq.
SARAH LEVINE is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and author of two chapbooks, Take Me Home, a finalist for the New Women’s Voices Chapbook Competition (Finishing Line Press, 2020) and Her Man (New Megaphone Press, 2014). Her work has appeared and will be featured in a variety of places including: Poets and Writers, Passages North, Best New Poets anthology, and Green Mountains Review. She earned her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and MAT from Smith College. Levine has received support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, and Martha's Vineyard Institute for Creative Writing. She teaches 12th Grade AP Literature and Creative Writing at Williston Northampton School where she currently holds the Richard C. Gregory Endowed Chair. Her debut collection, Each Knuckle with Sugar won the 2024 Driftwood Press Open Reading Contest and is nominated for the 2025 Massachusetts Book Award.
ASHLEY LOPEZ is a literary agent and rights manager at Waxman Literary Agency, in NYC. She received her MFA in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College and is a founder and the managing editor of Pigeon Pages Literary Journal. Her writing has appeared in The Rumpus, Cosmonauts Avenue, Columbia Literary Journal, and elsewhere, and her work has been nominated for Best American Short Stories. Ashley represents literary and young adult fiction, narrative nonfiction, and memoir. She seeks authors with a strong point of view, a unique story, and an eye for language. ​
PETER MEDEIROS teaches writing and Kung Fu--though never at the same time. His teaching in and around Boston remains a major inspiration for much of his fiction. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College. He been publishing fiction since 2013, and was most recently featured in the July 2022 issue of GigaNotoSaurus. Peter is represented by Susan Velazquez Colmant at JABerwocky Literary Agency.
A poet, editor, and occasional critic, MICHAEL MERCURIO lives and writes in the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts. His poems, interviews, and reviews have been published or are forthcoming in Palette Poetry, Thrush, The Common, Cream City Review, Sierra, and elsewhere. Michael founded and curates What The Universe Is: A (Virtual) Reading Series, where established and emerging poets read together monthly on Zoom. You can learn more at www.poetmercurio.com.
KEN MONDSCHEIN is a writer, scholar, and college professor, as well as a professional fencing coach. He received his PhD in history from Fordham University, was a Fulbright scholar to France and has taught, inter alia, at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. His work has appeared in print publications such as Renaissance Magazine and the late, lamented New York Press; online outlets such as McSweeney's and Medievalists.net; and in Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland's DODO files. He's written around a dozen academic and non-academic books, including On Time: A History of Western Timekeeping (Johns Hopkins), Game of Thrones and the Medieval Art of War (McFarland), several translations of medieval and early modern fencing treatises, and also introductions to Canterbury Classics literature.
NAILA MOREIRA's middle-grade novel THE MONARCHS OF WINGHAVEN, about two children who bond over their love of nature-watching as they try to save a plot of land in their town, while recording their observations in illustrated journal pages throughout, is forthcoming from Walker Books US in spring 2022. Moreira teaches at Smith College and has been writer-in-residence at the Shoals Marine Laboratory and Forbes Library in Northampton MA. Her second chapbook, Water Street, won the New England Poetry Club Jean Pedrick Prize. She’s also worked as a journalist, environmental consultant, and Seattle Aquarium docent, and holds a doctorate in geology.
JULIA MORGAN MCKENZIE went to Bard College before earning a master’s in education at Harvard and—many years later—an MFA at Stonecoast.
Her first book, The Book Keeper: A Memoir of Race, Love, and Legacy (Swallow Press, 2020, published under her married name) was called “a carefully crafted memoir for all readers who care about family connections and legacies and about multiracial identity in an increasingly complex world” by Library Journal. Her essays have appeared in Electric Literature, The Masters Review, Solstice Literary Magazine, Inside Higher Education, and elsewhere. She’s hard at work on her second book, a memoir about race, mid-motherhood, and anxiety. She directs the Williams College Writing Center and lives in western Massachusetts
REBECCA HART OLANDER is the editor/director of Perugia Press, a nonprofit feminist poetry press. She has taught poetry writing at Amherst College, Westfield State University, and Mass Poetry, and she works with poets in the Maslow Family Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Wilkes University. Her poetry and collaborative visual and written work has been published widely, and her books include Dressing the Wounds (dancing girl press, 2019) and Uncertain Acrobats (CavanKerry Press, 2021). She holds a BA from Hampshire College, an MAT in English from Smith College, and an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts.
SARA RAUCH's prose has appeared in Hobart, Gravel, Split Lip, So to Speak, Luna Luna, and more. She holds an MFA from Pacific University, and her debut story collection, What Shines From It, is forthcoming in early 2019 from Alternating Current Press. She lives with her family in Holyoke MA. Find her online at www.sararauch.com.
ROBERT V.S. REDICK is the author of two epic fantasy series: The Fire Sacraments and The Chathrand Voyage Quartet. He is a former professor in the Stonecoast and University of Nevada Reno MFA programs, Hampshire College, and Clark University, and has taught for many years with the Shared Worlds Summer Writing Program. His stories have appeared in Clarkesworld, Puerto del Sol, and various anthologies, including Dreams For a Broken World (2023). He was a finalist for the Locus Award for Best First Novel, the Booknest Award for Best Novel, and the Thomas Dunn/AWP award for Best Novel. He holds an MFA from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.
CANDICE REFFE's book of poems Live from the Mood Board, an insider’s view of the fashion world and corporate power, won Elixir Press’s Antivenom Poetry Award and was published in 2019. Twice a fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and a Mass Cultural Council Artist fellow, Candice’s poems have appeared in Denver Quarterly, Harvard Review, Hotel Amerika, Ploughshares, Poetry Daily, Witness and elsewhere. She lives in Northampton, MA.
EDEN ROBINS is the author of the novels Remember You Will Die, which was a finalist for the Ursula K. Le Guin Award and the Massachusetts Book Awards, When Franny Stands Up, and the forthcoming Don't Cross Mo Ellery (co-written under the pseudonym Birdie Horne). She won an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Literature in 2023 and writes essays for Slate, USA Today, LA Review of Books, and more.
KIRA ROCKWELL is a neurodiverse playwright and educator for the stage and screen at Georgia State University. She is an Artist Fellow in Dramatic Writing with the Mass Cultural Council, a Recipient of Judith Royer Excellence in Playwriting Award, an Elliot Norton Nominee, and more. Selected plays include OH TO BE PURE AGAIN (Actor's Express); THE TRAGIC ECSTASY OF GIRLHOOD (Boston Playwrights’ Theatre); and WITH MY EYES SHUT (Original Works Publishing). Her work has been developed with The Kennedy Center, National New Play Network, Great Plains Theatre Commons, among others. Commissions include Ensemble Studio Theatre, Actor's Express, and Moonbox Productions. She holds a BFA in Theatre Performance and an MFA in Playwriting from Boston University. As an educator, Rockwell has taught at Brandeis University, Wheaton College, and centers across New England. Before graduate school, Rockwell worked at the intersection of mental health and arts education. Through a trauma-informed, healing-centered lens, she aims to nurture communal spaces that disrupt passivity and empower agency.
EVA SCHEGULLA AKA Devon Ellington, is a full-time writer publishing under multiple names in fiction/nonfiction, and an internationally produced playwright/radio writer. She worked as a scriptwriter, a script doctor, a freelance script analyst, a dresser on Broadway, wrangled extras on TV shows, production managed indie films, and writes for SCRIPT magazine.
JADE SONG's award-winning debut novel Chlorine was selected as a New York Times Editor’s Choice and translated into multiple languages. Song’s second novel, I Love You Don’t Die, will be published in March 2026, and their short story collection, Ox Ghost Snake Demon, is forthcoming in 2027. Song has been a featured speaker or teacher at The Writer’s Center, Amherst College, Tin House, The Miami Book Fair, and elsewhere.
JYOTSNA “JO” SREENIVASAN is the author of the short story collection These Americans and the novel And Laughter Fell From the Sky. Both are about Indian Americans in the Midwest. Her short stories have been published in literary magazines, including Copper Nickel, Tampa Review, and Tiferet. Some of her stories have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She was selected as a Fiction Fellow at the 2021 Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and was a finalist for the 2014 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. For more information about Jyotsna as well as other writers who are children of immigrants, please see www.SecondGenStories.com.
CAROLINE BELLE STEWART's stories can be found in Gulf Coast, Denver Quarterly, Fairy Tale Review, Black Warrior Review, and elsewhere. She is the author of the chapbook "Husbandly Things" (Factory Hollow) and co-creator of “Mast Year: A Mystical Field Guide" (Mount Analogue). A recipient of fellowships from Monson Arts and MacDowell, she lives in Western Massachusetts.
GAIL THOMAS' books are Trail of Roots, Leaving Paradise, Odd Mercy, Waving Back, No Simple Wilderness, and Finding the Bear. Her poems have been widely published in journals and anthologies including CALYX, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, North American Review, among others. Among her awards are the Charlotte Mew Prize from Headmistress Press, the Narrative Poetry Prize from Naugatuck River Review, the Massachusetts Center for the Book’s “Must Read” for Waving Back, the Quartet Journal’s Editor’s Choice Prize, and Seven Kitchen Press’s A.V. Christie Chapbook Series award for Trail of Roots. She has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony and Ucross, and several poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Gail visits schools and libraries with her therapy dog and works with immigrant and refugee communities in Western Massachusetts. You may read more about her work at www.gailthomaspoet.com.
FUNGAI TICHAWANGANA is a writer, journalist, and web developer who has lived in Western MA since 2018. In June 2020 he launched Valley of Writers, a project aimed at sharing tools, ideas and success stories with writers in the Pioneer Valley and beyond. He has managed numerous online projects to support art & culture initiatives and in 2015 was awarded a Nieman Journalism Fellowship at Harvard. He is passionate about teaching artists and creatives how to use online tools to expose their work to new audiences. ​
AMIE WHITTEMORE (she/her) is the author of four poetry collections, most recently the chapbook Hesitation Waltz (Midwest Writing Center). She was the 2020-2021 Poet Laureate of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow. Her poems have won multiple awards, including a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prize, and her writing has appeared in Blackbird, Colorado Review, Terrain.org, Pleiades, and elsewhere. She teaches creative writing at Eastern Illinois University.
KYRA WILSON COOK is a mother, entrepreneur and sometimes-preacher living in Maryland. She spends her time gathering community, contemplating the possible, discerning truth, and imagining the future—as much as she can in fiction. A native Marylander who spent 17 years in Massachusetts, Kyra often sets her stories in New England, but writes them with her Southern cadence and Mid-Atlantic worldview. In her fiction, she seeks to write stories featuring children of color who can traverse many worlds with the savvy to code-switch, challenge, and triumph as they go. She writes under multiple pen names, including K. Onley for middle-grade and K. W. Onley for adult fiction.