TANYA SHIRAZI is a Los Angeles native. She holds a B.A. in History with minors in English and Latin-American Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles and an M.S. in Counseling Psychology from Mount St. Mary’s University, Los Angeles. Tanya is an alumni of the Tin House Winter Writing Workshop and Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown Workshop and has received an artist residency from Foundation Valaparaiso Residency in Almeria, Spain. She also serves as Managing Editor for Aster(ix), an award-winning literary journal that focuses on publishing women of color and marginalized voices. Tanya’s work centers around Central-American narratives. She is currently working on a forthcoming novel, which follows the trajectory of a young Salvadoran woman’s life who is forced to leave her home and immigrate to the United States during the Salvadoran Civil War.

KLEAVER CRUZ is an Uptown native of NYC, writer and creative. His work has been featured in numerous print and online media platforms. One half of the poetic duo, The Delta, he is an alum of the VONA and Kenyon Review Writers workshops. Cruz has presented and conducted his work across the African Diaspora in South Africa, France, Brazil and other countries. Kleaver is the Facilitator of The Black Joy Project, a digital and real-world movement to center Black joy as a form of resistance. He is a member of We Are All Dominican—a U.S.-based grassroots collective supporting the work of Dominicans of Haitian Descent and Haitian migrants in the Dominican Republic. Kleaver believes in the power of words because they allow him to write what did not exist when he needed it the most—to shift the world accordingly. (Photo Credit: Dominique Sindayiganza)

WILLIAM LYCHACK is the author, most recently, of the forthcoming novel, Cargill Falls. His work has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, and on public radio’s This American Life, and his awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Pittsburgh Foundation Grant, a Sherwood Anderson Award, and a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection. He has worked as an editor at New England Review and Guideposts Magazine and currently teaches in the Writing Program at the University of Pittsburgh. He has forthcoming pieces in The American Scholar, Conjunctions, North American Review, New England Review, and Kyoto Journal. photo credit: Marion Ettlinger