Crest Issue 1

Crest Letters
ISSUE 1

Editor’s note
To all the liars and storytellers (or both), welcome. This is a place
dedicated to you, a couple of pages celebrating the work and craft
of you and your kind. The sorrow, grief, joy and fullness of art,
poetry, fiction, everything in between is a revolution, and I’ve
never felt closer to it. Thank you to everybody who contributed to
bringing this alive, and everyone who’s reading to sustain that life.
I hope it brings you alive too.
crest.prj@gmail.com

Contents
lost & found: seashells on Oxford Road Kate MacAlister _____ 1
jackdaw Sadie Kromm _________________________________ 2
How To Put Up Tombstones Emily Coppella _________________ 3
Field Notes Upon Returning to the Sea Kate MacAlister _______ 4
DIAGNOSIS michelle stav _____________________________ 5
A Seashore Synecdoche Taya Boyles _____________________ 6
Against the Canvas Taya Boyles ___________________________ 7
Four collages James Diaz ______________________________ 8-9
Small Steps Ben Parker ________________________________ 10
Dear Dialogued Self Emily Coppella _____________________ 11
gutted Nai ________________________________________ 12
Dreams Stephen Mead ________________________________ 13
in your absence BEE LB ______________________________ 14
Poem in Place of a Poem BEE LB ________________________ 15
Manifest Daijranae McCloud ________________________________ 16
Trench Lantern Dylan James ______________________________ 17
I often think about the vine-covered house down my street
in Scheveningen Paula Dias ______________________________ 18-19
BETTER Claire Kroening ______________________________ 20
I was a woods child, Odi Welter ______________________________ 21
It Was a Pleasure Then Joe Frleta ________________________ 22-30
An Awakening of Stained Lips Oisín Breen _____________________ 31
The love's synonym Olajide Overcomer _____________________ 32
Age Stephen Mead ______________________________________ 33
Poison Jennah Yoo ________________________________________ 34
me, myself, and i Sadie Kromm ________________________ 35
The Artistry of Footsteps Oisín Breen _________________________ 36

Kate MacAlister
1

jackdaw
the warmness between us
was preheated.
even though i did
not prepare a recipe.
nor did i have any
fresh ingredients to offer.
Sadie Kromm
however, you,
a skillful baker,
an author of exploitation,
knew that banana bread
is made best from
bruised fruit.
2

How To Put Up Tombstones
My body is a funny thing.
It thinks the next touch will be yours.
It waits.
I console again and again:
It’s just me.
It doesn’t like the answer — but I say it anyways.
Is this hope?
Emily Coppella
I am over here. I see bliss over there. I watch it.
Is this hope?
I cannot listen to music, but I can write.
Is this hope?
I lay down.
Ok, grief. Here I am.
Is this hope?
3

Kate MacAlister
4

michelle stav
5

A Seashore Synecdoche
Taya Boyles
Sakura branches
Release an avalanche
Of cherry petals
Catching the breeze
Like a bleeding heart
I am shoulder-to-shoulder
Knocking dice and rolling
Snake-eyes with the DC
crowd
I am sailing the seven seas
Knocking over a wine cooler
Red leaking into where
The sand meets
The sea
Too cold to swim
But everything
Hadn't been this
Alive in a while
It is the catch of
The day on my
Hook, and my
Hands are sturdy on
The reel and I
Am pulling upwards
Upstream and aim
My next cast
Not far from the first.
6

Against the Canvas
A toymaker stapled my fingers,
To my own control bar;
With northern light thread, mangled into inter-being strings,
I'm hung against the skies.
Taya Boyles
Under the guidance of moonlight,
Something that isn't me forces my hand to paint,
Starry shapes on the disordered canvas of earth.
I name them like constellations,
Hoping there are no etymologists
With a telescope
Looking my way.
7

James Diaz
a gesture, here
All this beauty
8

James Diaz
Tender, true
The Heart’s Hitching Post
9

Small Steps
Walk off in the night
through the dimly lit bridge.
Count as each hollow breath
echoes the stumble of your feet.
When a thought starts to burrow,
walk a little faster.
Become lost in the dizzying,
nauseating lack of breath.
Count the rolling pebbles
embedded deeply in your shoes.
Ben Parker
The ever-flickering lamp post;
a beacon for home
when lost in the night.
The glaring reminder
of a world thriving in your absence.
Gaze upon the fading hills,
find victory in the distance.
10

Emily Coppella
11

gutted
Nai
anguish peeks through the calm
hands shake, the pencil slips like
a pin dropping, pricking his finger,
deafening against the silence
dropping to his knees, the ground bites them
butterflies caged in his stomach
possess wings like razor blades
ripping him apart from inside out
fingers dig into his side, almost as if
to puncture holes, let everything seep out
spill over the glass, shattered on the floor
let whoever passes step in it, feel its
dampness, it pools up to their ankles
all while his head has gone under
its a wonder his eyes don’t flood like the ocean
the butterflies morph into something
indescribable, they bare fangs and claw
their way up to his heart
tear down the barricades of his ribs
into the softness of a withering pain
12

Dreams
Stephen Mead
It ain't easy being one. Nobody understands.
Your life is another guy's. All eyes are wounds:
Want overkill heady with conspiracy, yet feeling alone.
Listen, between you and me, it's like being stuck
on a late night 1950s TV station. There's Grouch Marx,
see, jokin' with contestants, that lady from Kansas,
Miss Hopeful Star, employed as a clerk. Her partner's
a valet. They bus to jobs, toothpaste jingles buzzing
in ear canals, the alarm clock a jarred pacemaker,
life skidding into a million other phantasmagoric rushes…
The hours are lousy, never a day off, always on-call,
full of the gods, yet more a slave than Superman:
x ray duty envisioning a train wreck encased in Kryptonite:
the only force that can stop you.
13

your absence
in
Ellie Black
after
BEE LB
i wash the floors, but let the walls gather
dust. cobwebs lining the corners thick.
my body grows soft and pliant with
no one to hold it. my lips let pass
anything with taste. my eyes drawn down
away from reflection; proof of change.
my hands reach for something they may
never touch again. this ending goes
unacknowledged, unspoken by either
heavy tongue. i stain the sink with
bleach, let my hands shrivel and dry
while waiting for something
that will not come. my voice cracks
in its shell; my throat. my teeth
splinter sound as it attempts
to startle. i hammer a nail
into wood and catch my thumb.
i do not think of thinking of you.
i think instead of the beauty i’ve
cultivated and catch on the edge
of the knowledge i do not want.
14

in Place of a Poem
Poem
after Franny Choi
BEE LB
Is it a good poem? asks my brother,
voice static-shock over the line.
(It’s written elsewhere:
the boy. The bird. Threat
assessment. The lack of migratory instinct.
In the poem, his voice is a coil like a conductor
wrapping around my fear. In the memory,
no amount of force is enough
to keep him at bay.) I wouldn’t write it
if I didn’t think it was good. An answer in place
of an answer. But is it good? and we go like this,
back and forth, giving and gaining an inch
at a time. The call cuts off a second before
the limit. The sound waiting for anything to fill it.
Here too, I’m swallowed by my failure to escape
the truth or its weighty absence.
Absence. Escape. Failure
on the tip of my tongue
like an answer to a question
I have yet to ask.
15

“But no man is ever worth the
paradise, manifest.”
Daijranae McCloud
16

Trench Lantern
Dylan James
17

I often think about the vine-covered house down my street in
Scheveningen
My body is a nightmare mansion,
crumbling, haunted,
ancient beyond its years.
And my mind is a box of loose screws,
filled with the promise
of potential future use
but forever unable to provide what you need
right now,
and prone to loud rattling noises
at odd hours of night.
But my love for you
is a weed​
supple vine,
unwatered, wild,
winding its way through forgotten crevices.
Paula Dias
originally published in The Ogham
Stone Literary Journal 2022
Vines cannot fix a mess
of metal, but now my
screws rattle
on a soft bed of green,
shushed, quiet,
messier still.
And a weed can’t fix a
haunted house, hold up pillars,
falling stairs,
yet it grows,
undemanding, persistent,
until it becomes a feature.
18

So when tourists walk by
the ruins of me and stop
for a picture, they say,
ah, isn’t it beautiful how the leaves change
colour in the fall?
and then summer, winter?
it’s almost like a different
building.
19

BETTER
The warning signs I missed—
anxiety dripping under your heels
On the disarrayed store aisles
Was when I knew my vision pooled
Over what I thought was important.
I can't make excuses for not being there,
I realized I messed up,
And I know words are just words
But there's one thing true-
For you, I'll do better.
Always you.
Claire Kroening
20

I was a woods child,
Odi Welter
I tell you when you ask
where I come from.
I tell you the stories
of my childhood like fairy tales
so I can pretend that’s all they are.
I don’t tell you that I buried
who I used to be
in a grave I left unmarked.
If you look closely enough,
you’ll see their ghost in my shadow,
gripping tightly to my ankles.
Water the dirt under my fingernails
and itchweed will sprout to tickle you.
Mosquito bite scars and the mark of skinned knees
are imbedded in my skin,
waiting to be dug up like worms.
Acorns stuff my lungs,
crack them open and you’ll find
quartz nuggets and touch-me-not pods.
Press your ear to my chest
and you can hear my bones creak like trees
and my heart murmur bird song echoes.
Lace your fingers between mine
and you’ll feel tree-climbing
calluses faded to figments.
Kiss me on the mouth
and your tongue will taste
hints of sorrel and wild violets.
Tell me you wish to know me
and maybe I’ll unearth the woods child
and ask them to tell you.
21

It Was a Pleasure Then
Joe Frleta
“I’ll Be Your Mirror”
###
I heard her call my name.
I swear.
I don’t think it was my dick talking to me.
I remember as a kid we treated an office worker and a laborer the same
way. As a profession. A job. It didn’t matter which one you had, so long as
you had one, one was as good as the other. We didn’t know better. Society
had standards. Apparently we didn’t.
Yours was a stealer of hearts.
You didn’t have to steal mine.
I gave it to you.
Free of charge.
You didn’t want it.
Our eyes held for a moment.
I saw fear in yours.
You probably saw lust in mine.
I can’t stand it!
When I can be read like an open book!
You had changed your ways.
“What goes on?”
“Jesus.”
“I’m so free.”
We had met in a church in the Italian section of San Francisco. I have no
idea what it is today, since I haven’t lived in San Francisco for over 30 years,
and I’m talking about 45 years ago when an old life was exchanged for a
new life.
We were both wondering what life held in store for us then.
I wanted to walk the same road with you.
You wanted to walk the road alone.
I had become young and foolish. Unlike you, who had become young and
innocent again.
22

We laughed uproariously.
Almost uncontrollably.
I think we both knew what the score was.
I wanted you.
You didn’t want me.
You wanted to be left alone.
So I left you alone.
###
“Venus in Furs”
###
The haze that surrounds Venus has been identified to be that of Ermine. It
should not come as a surprise to anyone. Venus is, after all, a lady.
The Goddess of Love.
Who expects a Goddess to dress in anything less than furs?
Besides, it gets cold out there in space, alone, and despite being so close to
the sun, Venus, being of the fairer sex, likes to keep warm, especially at
night, which is all the time, out in space, where it is always dark and lonely,
and she is alone. It’s like being alone at night in winter. While you sleep,
you want to stay warm under the sheets.
You struck me that way when we first met.
You were always alone, and you always wore a long black overcoat to cover
you from neck on down like you were trying to hide from life all year long
even during summer time, when the liven is easy.
Your face was the only visible sign of life.
When you didn’t wear a scarf to cover your head and try to hide your
beauty even more.
Which was more often than not.
You looked like you were edited from Splendor in the Grass.
Not wanting life to see you.
For fear of being entrapped by it again.
Run
RUN
23

R-U-N
We should have both heeded that warning. But your evasiveness is what
attracted me to you in the first place. It reminded me of me trying to play
the same game.
Our new-found innocence.
Finding out we came from similar backgrounds made me see beyond the
present into the future.
That’s when you got scared and for some reason all these years later I’m
thinking about you dressed like a nun the only visible part of you was your
face
and if you could hide that and your
eyes
you would have.
You would have been my heroin and I would have been your habit.
We could have washed each other clean of sin.
###
“Pale Blue Eyes”
###
It has not taken long.
There was something magical about them when you looked into them
beyond dreams if you were asked to explain what you see you’d have to
figure out you didn’t know what to say beyond looking outside yourself into
the blue sky and the world around you where blue oceans and rivers and
seas and lagoons and lakes and blue horizons beyond valleys and mountains
and you knew you didn’t know what the hell you were talking about beyond
bullshit because how do you explain the unexplainable except to say it is
beauty beyond words without sounding trite as if you knew you knew what
you were talking about when you knew you had no idea what you were
talking about beyond there was something magical there that when you
looked into them you saw something there beyond life and death as if
dreams themselves contain something more beyond life or death.
You forget to answer.
24

I confess my memory of it is worn now.
It saddened us when Kim died shot 11 times.
And your eyes were brown.
Dreams are metaphysical. They can be good or bad nightmarish to the
point of even seeming unreal that can scare the living shit out of you as life
itself sometimes does as well as encompass every beauty in the world while
evil surrounds them.
I saw them all through the lens of my eyes.
You cannot read with uncertainty what may lie there at any one time and
more often than not it is better off that you don’t.
For therein lies either happiness or misery.
A realm no different than life itself.
###
“All Tomorrow’s Parties”
###
European son.
The corridor was empty. I remember it as if it was yesterday with no
thought of tomorrow in mind. It got narrower as I traversed it until I could
go no farther.
The flooring was lined with jade sapphire emeralds diamonds and pearls
imbedded within its walkway.
The surrounding walls and ceiling was nothing more than rock.
The reason spoke for itself.
All I knew was that I had gotten to the point where I could go no farther.
The flooring seemingly promised life while the rest of the enclosure
seemingly promised nothing but emptiness.
The bells tolled.
I wanted to follow the promise of the passageway, but was prevented by its
enclosure it seemed.
I looked at the past through the present wondering who had embedded it
with such jewels only to prevent my progress when I knew it led to your
doorway that was enclosed on all sides by me preventing me from entering
it.
25

You laughed at my gullibility.
“You simply need to ask to enter,” you said, “and I’ll tell you either yes or
no.”
“Yes,” I said, “but I’m tired of the yes or no games.”
“If you don’t play the game you’ve already lost without any help from
anyone else and you’ve locked yourself out before you’re even granted
entrance.”
That’s when the hallway widened and the stone wall became the flooring
and I entered your domain.
###
“The Black Angel’s Death Song”
###
After hours.
All were there.
Caligula.
Julius Caesar.
Ivan the Terrible.
Vlad the Impaler.
Henry VIII.
And many more.
All enjoying themselves.
Decadence.
Debauchery.
Vileness.
Corruption.
Was everywhere.
Genghis Khan was a late arrival but he was one of the last to leave and
when he did Catherine de Medici and Mary Tudor were arm-in-arm with
him and Rasputin left with Eva Braun followed by a jealous Adolf Hitler
with Elizabeth Bathory in tow.
Who are the real singers and what are the real songs sung down through
the ages that people listen to and follow when heads might roll?
26

###
“Femme Fatale”
###
I’m sticking with you, you said, and I said, I’m sticking with you.
Stephanie says, I’m set free.
I can’t stand it, Lisa says.
Candy says, I’m beginning to see the light.
Some kinda love, Caroline says.
The wind and ocean blow through your hair and I can’t wait to get home.
The fairest of the seasons.
There she goes again.
That’s the story of my life.
###
“Lady Godiva’s Operation”
###
The first nude recorded in history was an 11th century noblewoman. The
old English name is Godfifu, or Godgyfu, take your pick. It doesn’t matter
to me. I like Godiva. It means, Gift of God. Her husband was Leofric,
Earl of Mercia. They had nine children, all told. We’re further told the
reason she rode nude through the streets of Coventry was because she did
not like the tax burden her husband placed on the people under his rule,
and he, thinking to rid himself of her nagging, and thinking she would never
agree to such a thing, being a pious woman, her mission, should she decide
to accept it, was to ride naked on a horse through the streets of Coventry.
She, on her part, stated, if the people were forbade to be out in public that
day, she would.
Leofric, Earl of Mercia, to appease his wife, nonetheless believing she
would still not acquiesce, sent out such an edict on her behalf.
So she did.
Ride nude on horseback.
Through Coventry.
Folklore tells us the term Peeping Tom came about when a tailor in the
village by the name of Tom peeped through a window to his eye’s delight
but became blind as Lady Godiva completed the operation dared her by her
husband, Leofric, Earl of Mercia, and he, Leofric, Earl of Mercia, was
27

expected to answer in turn, knowing if he were to go back on his word
would rue the day of his birth, and lowered the people’s taxes. The moral of
the story, whether truth or fiction, for she did exist, is, never test a woman’s
resolve, for she will test yours as well, and oftentimes win.
###
“Rock Minuet”
###
She had fallen asleep on the train coming round the bend and didn’t
awaken until the end of the line and had no idea where she was.
It had never happened before.
“Can you come and pick me up?”
“Where you at?”
“I don’t know.”
“How am I supposed to come and pick you up if I have no idea where to
go?”
“I fell asleep on the train. I’m at the end of the line.”
“Where’s that?”
“Don’t you know?”
“I never take the train.”
“How am I supposed to get home?”
“Take the next train back.”
“This was the last one of the day.”
“How can I pick you up if I don’t know where you’re at?”
Pause.
“Forget it. I’ll figure it out myself.”
Click.
Dial tone.
###
“Dime Store Mystery”
###
Church of Anthrax.
Funny how the new age is more like the old age in many ways.
Things may change around us. Advancements in science. New toys to play
with. Even to kill each other with. Could life get any better? We’d have to
wait and see.
28

The only thing that never seems to change is man himself. He’s still the
same antiquated Neanderthal he’s always been.
It’s too bad man is unable to advance himself into this new age in which he
lives in his humanity towards his fellow man in the same way he can make
new toys to play with.
The Academy in Peril.
###
“Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams”
###
White light.
The silence that isn’t there but is always there is deafening.
Sweet Jane repeats her anthem.
To listen, no one is there.
One of these days, Lisa says, temptation inside your heart will make you do
stupid things. It does to all of us.
Just like Sister Ray says.
Sunday morning.
My heart is empty.
Just like Sister Ray says.
I’m waiting for my man, Stephanie says.
I’m waiting for my man, Candy says.
I’m waiting for my man, Caroline says.
Just like Sister Ray says.
I walk in tandem with camera obscura.
Into the room.
Head held high.
I love you, Suzanne.
White heat.
###
“The Gift”
###
I found a reason.
My story was once your story.
29

Janitor of lunacy.
My writings were once your writings. I did whatever the hell I wanted with
the words in them. Whether right or wrong.
Compared to today, everything seemed a pleasure then, even the bad times
then erase the good times now.
Sad songs.
Maidens.
Bearing gifts.
Baring gifts.
And I who await her
Await her.
30

An Awakening of Stained Lips
Tenderly demonstrating the uncertainty of choice,
The lamb, whispers to death:
An anomaly, gladly bereft, of mother’s milk.
Oisín Breen
So the weak forces that hold this universe together
Quicken, quivering, cognisant of that reordering power:
The hushed lilt of love love love.
So we titilate ourselves, hand between our legs,
Bodies beneath the sheets, dawn-stirred, yet without sleep,
Searching for a moment between days.
And we have kept up the search since we were children,
Clutching a Polaroid camera, watching the night
In anticipation – hunting that instant, between renders, of time.
Each fresh mark on the calendar teases its capture.
The incomplete between sleep and wakefulness.
It reorders universes, promising an end.
So, in our intimate suffering, we hunt this incomplete,
A prime, a single integer: an awakening of stained lips,
A harsh extremity impossible to consume.
31

The love's synonym
Olajide Overcomer
Grief -
To love is to grieve.
I've seen grief firsthand when a friend mourned
the death of her husband, but
it hit me like a bullet fired from a gun when my Romeo fell out of love.
He left, and his footprints
were cactus seeds on the barren ground of my heart.
I mourn my loss; my tears flow, and its seeds sprout.
I see grief.
I miss you when I stare at the little things like the stale bread lying
untouched on the table for the past 22 days,
The dust gathering on your favorite books
or my poorly made coffee.
You had carved my carefree life into shape, and now, with you gone,
I am on the verge of breaking apart like a mug carelessly placed on the edge
of a cabinet.
I speak grief.
I talk about how it felt to be loved by you,
And in this moment, I smile and weep.
I wish these memories could slip out through the space within my fingers as
they did my lips.
Grief is love with wings that has taken flight far away from me,
And I can still hear the flapping of its wings.
32

Age
Stephen Mead
Tree on tree and why suddenly these ancients?
Woods, I have entered, the enclosed coves
& cedar planks stretching out from the grassy sand,
sand between horse prints & sneakers,
sand near the mossy rocks & water for tree frogs
as if Florida, as if Mexico & New England
were all spices heaped in teaspoons
to create this safe array.
Safe? How? Where?
No muggers behind these shrubs?
No snipers upon that cliff?
Tell me to what to make of this,
convince me of a trust long sought.
So I open, try to, beneath oversized Yoko Ono shades,
& the trees keep ascending to the skies promise beyond.
So I open, try to, beyond these sitting duck questions
& the calmer wisdom which spreads, a diffusion
throughout the bones.
Where are my cigs & beer? Props, where are you?
If this is beauty is to kill me then let betrayal come
in one fell swoop. I say this, yet feel it won't.
I say this & yet the soft wind goes on
& in its blue I wash my nerves,
nerves extended as the tree tips
holding more always -
lord- they hold it all.
33

Poison
The deadly nightshade
extends its stems
The tip of its leaves
Curling up
Into an alluring smile
Jennah Yoo
Watered with tears
The plant thrives
Fed a phony titter
The petals bloom
Soon a mysterious jewel
Encapsulated
with a sugary scent emerges;
One touch urging an itch
To create more
Everyday;
Beneath twilight
a waterfall cracks open
In daybreak
an artificial smile
A tiny bite of the wine berry
and everything stops–
The smile stiffens
The sweet talk halts
The drummer
Is paralyzed
The picturesque world
Tinted with a violet hue
Splurts its hideous innards
Slaughtered; Flattened;
Tainted
34

me, myself, and i
Sadie Kromm
the tiny glasshouse
that sits on my cheveret desk
is filled with white carnations.
i know they have longed
for the feeling
of being pressed into
the scrapbook sitting
beside them.
they show me by
dressing their petals
with brown
blemishes.
my hands gently
place each one
on the speckled
paper while they sob
color.
i find it
suffocating,
but beautiful
to sit with your thoughts.
35

Oisín Breen
36

Kate MacAlister (she/her) is an author, feminist socialist activist and founder of the
multilingual community arts and literature project Stimmen der Rebellion/Dengê
Berxwedane/Voices of Rebellion. She has studied Creative Writing at the Manchester
Writing School under the tutelage of Carol Ann Duffy.
Her works have been published in journals and anthologies worldwide and featured in
multi-disciplinary performance art projects. Kate’s debut chapbook, “songs of the blood”
is filled with poetry that speaks of human connection and the dreams of revolution. Her
collection "Burn it all down, then kiss me" will be published later this year.
Coffee, her cat Bella and her activist friends are essential for her creative process. Find
Kate on Instagram at @kissed.by_fire.
Sadie Kromm is a writer, poet, & visual artist who is homestead in Ontario. She has
been published by The League of Canadian Poets, Boats Against The Current, and Sybil
Journal. Her work is primarily inspired by the journey of healing, mental health, and her
unique relationship with animals.
Emily Coppella (she/her) lives on traditional Anishinaabe Mississauga territory. She
completed her M.A. In English Language and Literature at Queen’s University and her
B.A. in English at Carleton University with a concentration in Creative Writing and a
minor in Women and Gender Studies. Her poetry has won 2nd place for the George
Johnston Poetry Prize and has been published in several international literary magazines.
michelle stav is a former teacher & chemo survivor who processes the post-human
experience through poetry.
Taya Boyles is a writer based in Richmond, Virginia. She is currently a senior pursuing a
Bachelor of Arts in English at Virginia Commonwealth University. Taya's publishing
journey started at just eight years old and has come a long way from misspelling glue.
Since then, her poetry and flash fiction has appeared in literary magazines such as Split
Lip Magazine, Vermillion, Pwatem, The Rye Whiskey Review, Hot Pot Magazine, Radical
Zine, and more.
37

James Diaz is the author of This Someone I Call Stranger (Indolent Books, 2018) All
Things Beautiful Are Bent (Alien Buddha, 2021) and Motel Prayers (Alien Buddha, 2022)
as well as founding editor of Anti-Heroin Chic. Their most recent work can be found in
Rust + Moth, Wrongdoing Mag, Sugar House Review, Chaotic Merge Magazine, Cobra
Milk Mag, and Thrush Poetry Journal.
Benjamin Parker is a poet based in North Wales with works published in online
publications such as 'The Uncoiled' and in print with 'Free Verse Revolution'. Benjamin
is an English Literature and Creative Writing student with the Open University, about to
graduate and move on to a Masters in English Literature.
Nai is an aspiring artist and poet, who hopes to make a name for herself in her home
country, Singapore. She is currently studying to get her diploma in media while trying to
gain experience and build her portfolio.
Stephen Mead is an Outsider multi-media artist and writer. Since the 1990s he’s been
grateful to many editors for publishing his work in print zines and eventually online.
Recently his work has appeared in CROW NAME, WORDPEACE and
DuckuckMongoose. Currently he is resident artist/curator for The Chroma Museum,
artistic renderings of LGBTQI historical figures, organizations and allies predominantly
before Stonewall, The Chroma Museum - The Chroma Museum (weebly.com)
BEE LB is an array of letters, bound to impulse; a writer creating delicate connections.
they have called any number of places home; currently, a single yellow wall in Michigan.
they have been published in FOLIO, Roanoke Review, and Figure 1, among others. they
are a poetry reader for Capsule Stories. their portfolio can be found at
twinbrights.carrd.co
Daijranae McCloud, artist name Goldie D McCloud, is a mixed media artist based in
Atlanta, GA. Her work embodies black women who are black sheep, walks to the beat of
their own drum or lives to be their original selves.
Dylan James is an emerging writer based out of Columbus, Ohio. His fiction and poetry
has appeared in Gypsophila Magazine, Rivanna Review, Metonym Journal, and more.
Find him on Instagram @dylanthomasjames
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Paula Dias Garcia is a queer writer and graphic designer from Brasília, with an MA in
Creative Writing from the University of Limerick. Their works include the YA Kyra, the
non-fiction O Campo de Batalha Sou Eu [I am the Battlefield] and short stories in The
Ogham Stone, Silver Apples Magazine and Riverbed Review. Currently, they're the
artistic director for Sans. PRESS.
Claire Kroening is a queer poet based in Wisconsin. Their work has been published in
Honeyfire Lit, Intersections Magazine, Maythorn Magazine, and Rewrite The Stars
Review, among others. In their free time they appreciate visiting art museums and
studying creative writing. More of their work can be found on Instagram @clairerosek.
Claire Kroening is a queer poet based in Wisconsin. Their work has been published in
Honeyfire Lit, Intersections Magazine, Maythorn Magazine, and Rewrite The Stars
Review, among others. In their free time they appreciate visiting art museums and
studying creative writing. More of their work can be found on Instagram @clairerosek.
Odi Welter is a queer, neurodivergent author studying Film and Creative Writing at the
University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee. They have been featured in the 2023 issue of
Furrow Magazine and in Yellow Arrow Publishing's SPARK Vignette. They have
borderline unhealthy obsessions with fairy tales, marine life, superheroes, and botany.
Joe Frleta is a writer of many, many years. The authors he has read over those years are
from several genres including Dickens, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Steinbeck, Thoreau,
Whitman, Ginsberg, Corso, Bukowski, Henry Miller, Arthur Miller, Ray Bradbury, Harlan
Ellison, among others. His style is drawn from the authors who have inspired him over
the years and can run from prose to poetry to off the beaten track, believing art to be art,
one not restricted to any formal structure, format or style, as indeed these various writers
have shown in their works, and indeed as in any form of art has shown, if one were to
compare de Vinci, van Gogh, Picasso, Dali and Pollock to one another. He has had two
of his works published this year: One in Roi Faineant, "Is" and one in A Thin Slice of
Anxiety, "A Matchbook of a Different Kind." A new one has recently been accepted for
publication by, again, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, "The Old Lady in the Woods."
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Irish poet, doctoral candidate, and journalist, Oisín Breen, a Best of the Net Nominee, is
published in 107 journals in 21 countries, including in Agenda, North Dakota Quarterly,
Books Ireland, About Place, Door is a Jar, Northern Gravy, Decomp, and The Tahoma
Literary Review. Breen’s second collection, Lilies on the Deathbed of Étaín (Beir Bua
Press) has just been released to critical acclaim. It follows his critically well received
debut, 'Flowers, All Sorts, in Blossom...' (Dreich, 2020).
Olajide Overcomer is a Nigerian poet.
She is passionate about writing and has been gaining experience for a year.
Her hobbies include reading novels, listening to music and admiring arts.
Her pen name is DUT.
Jennah Yoo is a sincere and passionate poet from Seongnam, South Korea, who hopes
to be able to deliver heartfelt messages about childhood and the power of pure
imagination through her works. Her pieces often combine fantasy with real-world issues
to address its importance in more accessible forms. She is currently attending UCLA. Her
work has appeared in outlets like The Daphne Review, The Rigorous Magazine, and The
Metonym Literary Journal.
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