Winter 2017
Alfredo Aguilar is the son of Mexican immigrants. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in publications such as Vinyl, The Acentos Review, PEN Center USA's The Rattling Wall, & elsewhere. He lives in North County San Diego
John Arias is a gay, first generation Costa Rican/Uruguayan poet and crepe-maker raised in a DC ghetto when it was the murder capital. His poems have appeared in Red Paint Hill, the Journal, Assaracus, Sixth Finch and others. His debut collection of poetry, “¡I’D RATHER SINK–!” is forthcoming from Red Paint Hill Publishing in Spring 2017. He currently lives in San José, Costa Rica with his grandmother and four ghosts.
Jade Matias Bell studies Art History at the University of Southern California with Honors in Multimedia Studies; she also moonlights as singer-songwriter Nightjars. This means she lives in Los Angeles and likes to yell about art, sometimes into a microphone. Her favorite things include library science, museum studies, magical realism, astronomy, astrology, tarot, empathy, sea otters, and river otters. She is not tall.
Francesca Ekwuyasi is a writer and photographer from Lagos, Nigeria. She writes about faith, loneliness and belonging, food, and African queerness.
William Evans is a poet and freelance writer from Columbus, OH. In addition to being the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Blacknerdproblems.com, he has also produced two poetry manuscripts with a third, Still Can't Do My Daughter's Hair, releasing on Button Poetry in 2017. His work can be found on-line or forthcoming at Muzzle Magazine, Radius, The Offing, Freezeray Poetry and other publications.
Roy Guzman was born in Honduras and raised in Miami, FL. He is an MFA candidate in creative writing at the University of Minnesota. His work has appeared or will appear in Juked, Superstition Review, Public Pool, and Up the Staircase Quarterly. Roy is one of the poetry editors for Sundog Lit, and his work has been nominated for the Pushcart prize and Best of the Net. He is the recipient of a Minnesota State Arts Board grant and the Gesell Award for Excellent in Poetry. After the massacre at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, his poem “Restored Mural for Orlando” was turned into a chapbook with the help of poet and visual artist, D. Allen, to raise funds for the victims. Follow him on Twitter (@dreamingauze).
Adam Hamze is an Arab-American journalist, poet, and student living in Austin, Texas. His work has been featured in Vinyl, the Offing, Radius, and elsewhere.
Omotara James lives in New York City, where she is an MFA candidate. She is the recipient of Slice Literary’s 2016 Bridging the Gap Award for Emerging Poets, as well as the Nancy P. Schnader Academy of American Poets Award. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Crab Fat Magazine, Cosmonauts Avenue, Visceral Brooklyn, The Coil, etc. and Civil Coping Mechanisms’ anthology:A Shadow Map. She has received scholarships from Cave Canem, the Garrison Institute and is a Home School Fellow. Currently, she edits Visceral Brooklyn and Art of Dharma.
Mary Lambert's collection of poetry, 500 Tips for Fat Girls, can be found on her website, She is currently working on her second collection of poetry and an EP set to release in April.
Tsoku Maela was born, in Lebowakgomo, Limpopo, South Africa, spending his childhood between the quiet town and Johannesburg until moving to Cape Town where he completed his BA in motion picture at AFDA, majoring in screenwriting. He has risen as one of the young artists to watch on the contemporary scene being inducted into CNN’s list of African voices and appearing on VICE’s Creators project and numerous publications and shows locally and internationally. His conceptual work deals with underlying issues that he feels don’t get enough scope in open spaces, ranging from the visceral, spiritual to the geo-political in hopes of driving meaningful conversations around the topics and bringing about a change in mindset and perspective.
Nkosi Nkululeko, the 2016 NYC Youth Poet Laureate, is a Callaloo Fellow. He has been nominated for the American Voices Award, Independent Best American Poetry and Pushcart Prize. His work is currently published in No Token, Rose Red Review, Hobart, and elsewhere. He lives in Harlem, New York. You can reach Nkosi at musicmannkosi@gmail.com.
Kip Omolade began his art career as a graffiti artist while interning at Marvel Comics and The Center for African Art. He continued his studies at The Art Students League of New York and earned a BFA at the School of Visual Arts. His work is available directly or through Opera Gallery Hong Kong and Opera Gallery Singapore.
Mónica Teresa Ortiz was born and raised in the Texas Panhandle. She is a Macondo fellow, the Poetry editor for Raspa Magazine, and co-editor for Pariahs, an anthology from SFA Press. She was recently featured in an episode of the podcast Aural Literature.
Joy Priest is a writer from Kentucky. She is the winner of the 2016 Hurston/Wright Foundation College Writers' Award, and has received grants, scholarships and fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center at Provincetown, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Kentucky Arts Council, and the University of South Carolina, where she is currently an MFA candidate in Poetry. Her poems and essays can be found or are forthcoming in Blackbird, Callaloo, Drunken Boat, espnW, The New Yorker, and in the anthologies The Breakbeat Poets and Best New Poets 2014 and 2016
Paige Quiñones received her MFA from Ohio State University in May 2016, where she currently works as a senior English lecturer. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Muzzle Magazine, Southeast Review, and McSweeney's.
Meirav Sher is an Israeli artist dedicating herself to the research and development of a unique glass painting technique. Featured by Saatchi as an "Artist of the Day" during 2015, Meirav's work is recognized globally by art lovers.She is also collaborating with interior designers, architects and major art consulting firms on various commissions. Her works are located in high-end hotels and resorts world-wide.
Malcolm Tariq is a Cave Canem fellow from Savannah, Georgia. A graduate of Emory University, he is currently a PhD candidate in English at the University of Michigan. His work has appeared in Red Truck Review, CURA: A Literary Magazine of Art and Action, Vinyl, HEArt Online, Nepantla, and Tinderbox. He is a 2016-2017 Playwright Apprentice at the Horizon Theatre Company in Atlanta, Georgia [where he stay black].
Vickie Vértiz is from southeast Los Angeles. Her poems are found in The Volta, Huizache, The Offing, and Nepantla. Natalie Diaz selected her work for the 2016 Summer Residency at the Poetry Center. A new Macondo fellow, Vickie is also an alumna of VONA and the Community of Writers. Her second book and first full collection, Palm Frond with Its Throat Cut will be published by Camino Del Sol Series, from the University of Arizona, Tucson in the fall of 2017.
Lily Zhou is a high school junior from the San Francisco Bay Area. Her writing has been recognized by the National Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, the Poetry Society of the UK, Gannon University, and Columbia College Chicago, and has been nominated for Best of the Net. Her work appears in The Blueshift Journal, SOFTBLOW, and on Verse Daily. She reads for Polyphony HS.