Literary Conference 2026
Meet the 2026 Presenters
Acamea Deadwiler
Acamea is the author of the memoir Daddy’s Little Stranger, which has been featured by Literary Hub, The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, and deemed “arresting” by The BookLife Prize. Her prose has appeared in StoryQuarterly, Bellevue Literary Review, North American Review, and elsewhere. Acamea holds an MFA from Randolph College, where she was selected as a Blackburn Fellow. She teaches creative writing at East-West University in Chicago.
Alia Hanna Habib
Alia Hanna Habib is a vice president and literary agent at The Gernert Company, where she represents MacArthur Fellows, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists, National Book Award finalists, and numerous New York Times bestselling authors. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.
photo cred: Beowulf Sheehan
Aly Heller
Aly Heller is an Executive Editor with the Aladdin and Simon Pulse imprints, where she is lucky enough to acquire and edit a range of titles, currently focusing on commercial middle-grade and YA fiction. She has the honor of working with New York Times bestselling and critically acclaimed, award-winning authors across categories. Aly is drawn to stand-alone stories and series from underrepresented and diverse voices that center evergreen experiences and joy, complicated/toxic friendship and sibling dynamics, mysteries and thrillers for readers of all stripes and books that will make a reader feel a little less alone in the world.
Alyssa Reynoso-Morris
Alyssa Reynoso-Morris is a queer Afro-Latine/x and Indigenous (Taino) award-winning storyteller, author, and motivational speaker with Dominican and Puerto Rican roots. She is also a mother and community organizer. During the day, she works with community members, non-profit organizations, and government officials to make the world a better place. Then she puts on her writer’s hat to craft heartfelt stories. Alyssa was born and raised in The Bronx, New York, and currently lives in Philadelphia, PA, with her family. She is the author of Plátanos Are Love & Los plátanos son amor (a NCTE Charlotte Huck Recommended Read); The Bronx Is My Home; Gloriana Presente: A First Day of School Book & Gloriana Presente: De la República Dominicana al Bronx; Bold, Brilliant and Latine: Meet 52 Latine and Hispanic Heroes from Past and Present; and Pieces of Home. She hopes you enjoy her stories. You can learn more about her at alyssaauthor.com
Amanda Orozco
Amanda Orozco is a Senior Literary Agent at the Transatlantic Agency, where she represents fiction and nonfiction across both adult and children's literature. Some of her esteemed authors include: Vanessa Angélica Villarreal, Dr. Anthony Christian Ocampo, Nick Medina, and Kay Chronister. She lives and works in LA and her aim is to elevate and amplify marginalized voices always.
Assétou Xango
East-coast based traveling poet, writer and facilitator, Assétou Xango is known as the Dark Goddess Poet. Xango’s work dismantles the dangerous, colonial binaries that restrict our full existence. As a black, pansexual, polyamorous, genderqueer womxn, Xango exists as the in-between, the darkness that serves as the entry to our deeper.
Xango was featured on HBO's Brave New Voices in 2010 and is a two-time TEDxMileHigh Speaker. Xango was a Fellow of the Academy of American Poet Laureates in 2021 and has been published by many prestigious organizations such as Westword and Poets.org.
Xango has a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and Masters of Arts in Poetry from Wilkes University. In all xyr work, Xango is dedicated to the visibility and rights of womxn and gender non-conforming people of color through storytelling to dismantle binaries and divisions.
Bezi Yohannes
Bezi Yohannes currently works as Assistant Marketing Manager at Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing. She develops and executes marketing campaigns across age categories - from picture books and chapter books, to middle grade and YA fantasy, to adult romance - including bestsellers such as The Last Dragon on Mars by Scott Reintgen, the Legendborn Cycle series by Tracy Deonn, and Daggermouth by H.M. Wolfe. Previously, she was the Digital Marketing Assistant at Penguin Young Readers. She earned her B.A. and her M.A. in English literature at William & Mary and Georgetown University, respectively, and received her certification in publishing from the Denver Publishing Institute. She has been featured on Goodreads Creator Spotlight, NetGalley’s “20 Black Women To Follow on Bookstagram,” and The Stripe’s “18 Cool Women in Publishing to Follow.” You can find her on Instagram @beingabookwyrm promoting new book releases by Black authors and discussing the latest fantasy adaptations.
Bria Ragin
Bria Ragin is a Senior Editor at Delacorte Press, where she acquires mostly young adult fiction. She also edits novels for Joy Revolution, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books co-founded by bestselling authors Nicola and David Yoon, which focuses on young adult romances written by and about people of color. Her list for Joy Revolution includes Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by New York Times bestselling author Talia Hibbert, Queen Bee by USA Today bestselling author Amalie Howard, and A Cruel Thirst by Angela Montoya. Her Delacorte list includes Lisa Springer's There’s No Way I’d Die First. and Sher Lee's Fake Dates and Mooncakes. Prior to joining the Delacorte team in early 2021, she worked at HarperCollins for several years.
Calvin Crosby
Calvin "Cal" Crosby is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and has spent more than thirty years at the intersection of independent bookselling, publishing, and literary advocacy. He is an owner and Chief Bookseller of The King's English Bookshop in Salt Lake City and serves as Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of Brain Food Books, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit expanding access to books in book deserts and under-recognized communities. Under his leadership, Brain Food Books has distributed more than 75,000 books, empowering readers through access, choice, and representation.
Cal serves as Co-Chair of the Utah Chapter of PEN America and as a Dean of the Professional Booksellers School. He has served as a juror for the National Book Awards and the Kirkus Star Prize in Nonfiction, and on the selection committee for Salt Lake City's inaugural Poet Laureate. A dedicated mentor and advocate for BIPOC-owned bookstores, including Underground Books in Sacramento, his work is rooted in the belief that books can strengthen communities, broaden understanding, and create meaningful change.
Charlotte Yeung
Charlotte Yeung is a UN Youth Champion for Disarmament, the 2023 Midwest Youth Poet Ambassador, and author of Amazon #1 New Release Isabelle and the Magic Bird. Her first multilingual poem was sent to the Moon via the Lunar Codex. She founded and led a poetry course for women and girls in Afghanistan that was the catalyst for an underground school at Pax Populi. She currently co-teaches an advanced poetry course at the school. She has performed poetry at the US Ambassador's Residence in Dublin and at the United Nations Headquarters. She is on the board of directors for the Kurt Vonnegut Museum. She was previously the 2022 Indianapolis Youth Poet Laureate. She is also a designer with British Ekoalpaka Fashion. She studies Public Policy at Sciences Po Paris and University of Tokyo. In her free time, she reads, writes, and plays Stardew Valley.
Charity E. Yoro
Charity E. Yoro (she/her) is a writer and poet whose work has appeared on The Rumpus, poets.org, Tupelo Press Quarterly, and elsewhere, and has received support from Kundiman, McCormack Writing Center (formerly Tin House), and Sustainable Arts Foundation, along with residencies at Small Press Traffic and Mineral School. Her debut poetry collection ten-cent flower & other territories (First Matter Press) was named the 2025 Oregon Book Award winner for the Stafford/Hall Award for Poetry. Born, raised, and educated on the east side of O‘ahu, she currently lives west of Denver with her wild, loving family.
Chital Mehta
Chital Mehta's manuscript, 'HAVE YOU SEEN ROMIT?' has been chosen as the winner of the 2025 James Alan McPherson Prize for the Novel, judged by R. O. Kwon. Her book is scheduled for release in 2026 by the University of Nebraska Press.
Her short stories have appeared in The Pinch, Oyez Review, SLAB magazine, and elsewhere. She won the Boggs Fiction contest 2022 for her story - Damaged Gifts. Her story 'The Weight of Happiness' was a Finalist for The Pinch Literary Awards 2022 - Fiction. Her stories often center around displacement and belonging.
She is an alum of Tin House and VONA. She holds an MFA from Lindenwood University. She lives in Delaware.
Cristina Aguilar
Cristina Renee Aguilar is a queer Latine artist, writer, curator, community organizer, and cultural worker from the U.S./Mexico borderlands. She is a movement doula for collective liberation and human rights, creating spaces that center storytelling, rest, and collective care.
Her interdisciplinary practice weaves artistic creation, curation, facilitation, mindful strategy, and community engagement. Rooted in her family’s Mexican curanderismo lineage and shaped by more than 15 years of leadership in state and national reproductive and healing justice movements, her work bridges art, spirituality, and social change.
Cristina creates “sacred and soft landings”, experiences that invite beloveds to slow down, feel witnessed, and reconnect to themselves and one another. Her work explores ancestry, migration, belonging, imagination, radical reclamations and spirit connections as pathways toward healing and collective liberation.
Her recent curatorial and artistic work includes Sacred & Soft Landings: Soñar y Descansar at Museo de las Americas (2024), Divine Rest Nests: An Invitation at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (BMoCA, 2025) was also their first all BIPOC show, and her featured artist contributions to Yo Soy: Mariposas Sin Fronteras at Denver Botanic Gardens (2025), including the poem, Flight of Belonging.
Crisosto Apache
Crisosto Apache is the current 11th Poet Laureate for Colorado (26-27) and is from Mescalero, New Mexico, on the Mescalero Apache reservation. Crisosto is Mescalero Apache, Chiricahua Apache, and Diné (Navajo). Apache’s clanships are the Salt Clan, born for the Towering House Clan. Apache attended the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) and earned an MFA and is an Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing. Crisosto is also an editor-at-large for The Offing Magazine. Apache’s books are GENESIS (Lost Alphabet), Out-of-Print & Ghostword (Gnashing Teeth Publishing), winner of the Publishing Triangle’s 2023 Betty Berzon Emerging Writers Award and a finalist for the 2023 Colorado Authors League Award in poetry, with a new poetry collection is(ness), from Gnashing Teeth Publishing. Apache is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Crisosto continues to advocate for the Two-spirit/Indigiqueer community for the past twenty years, working in grassroots non-profit organizations both locally and nationally.
DJ Bond
DJ Bond (he/him) is a comic writer, library advocate, and marketing professional. His work includes his non-fiction piece was featured in the 3rd Edition of Handbook for Black Librarianship titled Who Will Stand on Your Shoulders, published by Rowman & Littlefield. His comic books include his series The Shadow Agency and upcoming Only Yellow Door, all independently published as a part of his brand, Endurance Comics. DJ identifies as Black and omnisexual and lives with anxiety. He lives in the Metro Detroit area and has been attending [margins.] virtually since 2020.
Eric Smith
Eric Smith is an award-winning Young Adult author and literary agent living in Philadelphia. He’s worked with New York Times and USA Today bestselling and critically acclaimed authors across genres and categories, and is the founder of Neighborhood Literary.
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Gloria J. Browne-Marshall
Gloria J. Browne-Marshall is an EMMY Award-winning writer, playwright, social justice attorney, Professor of Constitutional Law at John Jay College (CUNY), and descendant of Exodusters. She teaches classes in constitutional law and created a course on literature, race, and law. Browne-Marshall is the author of stage-plays, poetry, essays, and seven books, including She Took Justice, The Voting Rights War, and her most recent book A Protest History of the United States called "one of the most important books of 2025” by Washington Journal. Gloria has written and produced award-winning films. She joined the Marvel Universe with her short story Chaos in Captain America: The Shield of Sam Wilson. In Fall 2022, she was a Resident Fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School. Prior to academia, she litigated civil rights cases. Gloria Browne-Marshall is the founder of Martyrs Day, a July 5th tribute to slain American activists. Gloria is working on her debut novel of historical fiction.
Hannah-Jayne Duran
Hannah-Jayne Duran, MLIS, is a Processing Archivist at the University of Denver Libraries. She also serves as the current President of REFORMA Colorado, promoting library and information services to Latinos and the Spanish-speaking. She has worked in libraries -both public and academic- for over a dozen years, and she is passionate about connecting community with history.
Henry Lien
Henry Lien is a graduate of Brown University, UCLA School of Law, and Clarion West Writers’ Workshop. He is the author of the Peasprout Chen fantasy series (Holt) and the non-fiction book Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird: The Art of Eastern Storytelling (W.W. Norton). His books have received starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Booklist and New York Times acclaim. His writing has appeared in publications including Literary Hub, Poets & Writers, Asimov’s, Analog, and F&SF, and he is a four-time Nebula Award finalist. Henry also teaches for institutions including the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, the University of Iowa, Clarion West, and Writing the Other. He won the UCLA Extension Department of the Arts Outstanding Instructor of the Year Award. Henry has previously worked as an attorney and fine art dealer. Born in Taiwan, Henry currently lives in Hollywood, California.
Jackie Garcia-Morales
Jackie Garcia-Morales is a Puerto Rican author, literary agent, and publishing professional. As an author, Jackie is represented by Analía Cabello at Andrea Brown Literary Agency. Her debut title, PESKY ROOTS/RAÍCES FASTIDIOSAS, is a bilingual middle grade novel centered on Boricua identity, forthcoming from Arte Público Press/Piñata Books in October 2026. At Storm Literary Agency, Jackie serves as an Associate Literary Agent and Foreign Rights Agent. Beyond her agency and author work, she is the founder of the Catalyst Creators Scholarship for underrepresented writers, a 2x USBBY Outstanding International Books committee member, and a USBBY state ambassador. She is also Co-Founder/Director of The Storytellers Foundation, home to the Spotify award-winning podcast The Storyteller’s Shelf, the Big Bang Notable Book List, and Storyrise, a writing app ecosystem for authors developing books from idea to manuscript. Her writing has appeared in Business Insider, and her work is rooted in access, advocacy, and representation.
Jason Masino
Jason Masino is a poet, educator, and program strategist based in Colorado. He holds a BA from the University of California, Davis and an MFA in Creative Writing from Regis University. He is the author of Sinner's Prayer (Passengers Press, 2022), with Rx: demonology forthcoming from Fifth Wheel Press in 2028. His work has appeared in publications including Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora and South Florida Poetry Journal, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Outside of writing, he designs programs, builds partnerships, and facilitates conversations that help people navigate complexity and make meaning together.
Jadine (JD) Pluecker
Jadine (JD) Pluecker works with language, that is, a material thing, a thing of life and history. Her undisciplinary work inhabits the intersections of writing, history, translation, art, interpreting, bookmaking, queer/trans aesthetics, non-normative poetics, language justice, and cross-border cultural production. She has translated numerous books from the Spanish, including I Crossed the Border in High Heels (Duke UP, 2027), A We Without a State (Rupture Press, 2025), and Gore Capitalism (Semoiotexte, 2018). Jadine has published three books of poetry: The Every Wild (Mouthfeel Press, 2024), Grin Go Home / Las provincias internas (Editorial Ultramarina, 2024), and Ford Over (Noemi Press, 2016). In 2019 Lawndale Art Center supported the publication of the artist book, The Unsettlements: Dad, part of a twelve-year transdisciplinary project begun in 2018 called The Unsettlements. From 2010-2020, she worked as part of the language justice and literary experimentation collaborative Antena Aire; a book of Antena Aire's selected writings is forthcoming from Ugly Duckling Presse in Fall 2027. Jadine is a recipient of the Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writing Grant, and has exhibited work at Artpace, Art Gallery of Guelph, Project Row Houses, and more. More info at www.jadinepluecker.com and www.antenaantena.org.
Kaitlyn Sanchez
Kaitlyn Sanchez (she/her) joined Bradford Literary in 2022 with two years of agenting experience under her belt. Kaitlyn is the proud co-creator and co-host of the Spring Fling Kidlit Contest and Kidlit Zombie Week as well as creator and co-host of the Kidlit Fall Writing Frenzy Contest. As a mom, wife, and middle school math teacher, Kaitlyn enjoys playing soccer, binge-watching TV shows, and, of course, reading, especially when she’s all cozied up with her husband and daughter reading together. Kaitlyn is an editorial agent and always works with her clients to make sure we’re putting out their best work. She’s highly communicative and invested in every aspect of helping her clients have a strong and happy career.
Khadijah VanBrakle
Khadijah VanBrakle is a Muslim woman of color, born and raised in Canada to American parents. She was a 2021-2023 Highlights Foundation Muslim Storytellers Fellow. Her debut Young Adult novel, Fatima Tate Takes The Cake, was a 2024 NAACP Image Award finalist for Outstanding Youth/Teen literature and a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection.
Khadijah writes coming-of-age stories about Black American Muslim teens with universal themes so those who share her dual marginalization will finally see themselves on the printed page. Her sophomore YA novel, My Perfect Family, released in August 2025. It’s received starred trade reviews from both Publishers Weekly and Kirkus. Both of her books are set in New Mexico. For more information, check out her website: khadijahvanbrakle.com or her Instagram @khadijahvanbrakle.
Kristin Iris Johnson
Kristin Iris Johnson is a fiction writer, speaker, and liberation architect for marginalized storytellers. Her vivid imagination and love of telling stories led her into the film industry where she became an NAACP Image Award nominated film producer, and created AMC's supernatural TV series Wicked City which earned a GLAAD Media Award nomination for Outstanding Drama Series. As someone who lives at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities: Black, queer, autistic, and disabled; she understands the challenges of navigating a world and creative industries that silence and often punish our very existence. That's why, she's spent 10+ years teaching liberatory practices, nervous system regulation, mindset, and writing workshops to ignite marginalized storytellers into their full creative power despite their disadvantages. She believes that as marginalized storytellers we are the wild fruit grown from the seeds of our ancestors; paving new ground, igniting change, and inspiring others through the stories we tell.
Kristina Lizardy-Hajbi
Kristina Lizardy-Hajbi (she/ella) is a Puerto Rican-Italian (Puertotalian) poet and author based in Colorado. She is the 2026 Writing in Color Fellow with Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver and has poetry published or forthcoming in Huizache, wildscape, Azarão, Zimmer Magazine, and more. Kristina's poetry focuses on themes of cultural identity, familial and ancestral connection, (im)migration and legacies of colonialism, and religion. In her day job, Kristina is an associate dean and professor at a progressive theological school and has published several books and articles on decolonial leadership, congregational studies, and vocational formation. You can follow her on Instagram at @kristina_lizardyhajbi.
Leah Pierre
A Texas native, Leah briefly moved to the East Coast to attend Rosemont College to pursue her dream of working in publishing. Not long after graduating with her B.A. in English and History, Leah found an agency home at Ladderbird Literary Agency as a Junior Agent and now, after five years, has grown to become a Senior Agent and a member of the AALA and an alum of their LAOC mentorship. Leah returned to her alma mater to pursue her M.A. in Publishing. After having accomplished her dream of working in publishing, she moved back to Texas to begin her next adventure and continue searching for the next project that will hook her (or make her cry). She is a tenacious advocate for BIPOC writers and is always looking for ways to bring more diverse intersectionality to the publishing industry.
Lisa Pegram
Lisa Pegram, MFA is a writer, acquisitions editor, book publicist and literary events producer. Winner of the DC Mayor’s Arts Award, she has over 20 years of experience in high-level literary program design for such organizations as the Smithsonian Institute, Corcoran Gallery of Art and National Geographic. She served as DC WritersCorps program director for a decade and completed an Executive Certification in Arts & Culture Strategies from UPenn. As a sought-after developmental editor and coach/mentor for writers, she has guided acclaimed books to completion in multiple genres, including: memoir (specialty genre), historical fiction, food & travel, autobiographical fiction, magical realism, science fiction, suspense/thriller, poetry and creative nonfiction.
Loretta Chefchaouni
Loretta Chefchaouni is a former early childhood educator from Florida who writes for teens. Her fantastical tales turn grief and fear into myth and monsters and explore all the scary parts of being human within the safe space of stories. Her work has placed in contests such as The Blue Pencil Novel Award and Voyage YA’s First Chapter Contest. She is an alum of the Pitch Wars mentorship program and the Highlights Foundation’s Muslim Storyteller Fellowship. The mother of mixed-race young adults, she is committed to seeing more authentic Muslim representation on the shelves. The Lustrous Dark is her debut novel, the first book in a YA fantasy duology and a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection. Her short story, The Little Sister, is included in the anthology A Thousand Nights, coming Sept. 8, 2026.
Manny Loley
Manny Loley is a Diné storyteller from Tsétah Tó Ák'olí on the Navajo Nation. He holds a Ph.D. in English and Literary Arts from the University of Denver. Dr. Loley is an inaugural Indigenous Nations Poets Fellow, and the Editor for Leading the Way: Wisdom of the Navajo People. His work has found homes in Poetry Magazine, Pleiades Magazine, the Massachusetts Review, the Santa Fe Literary Review, Broadsided Press, the Arkansas International, The Gift of Animals, Nihikéyah: Navajo Homeland, and the Diné Reader: an Anthology of Navajo Literature, among others.
Mayda del Valle
Mayda del Valle is a multidisciplinary artist born and raised on Chicago’s South Side. She is the author of *The University of Hip Hop* and *A South Side Girl’s Guide to Love and Sex*. She was the 2001 National Poetry Slam Champion and appeared on six episodes of HBO’s *Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry*. An original cast member and contributing writer of the Tony Award-winning *Def Poetry Jam* on Broadway, she has performed internationally, including at the White House by invitation of President Obama and the First Lady. She is the 2026–2027 Poet Laureate of the City of Chicago.
Mayur Chauhan
Mayur Chauhan is an LA-based immigrant, writer, actor, comedian, educator, and creativity coach. Mayur has published more than 50 pieces for outlets including the Los Angeles Times, Khora, McSweeney's, and other literary, poetry and humor publications. He is a scholarship recipient from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, VONA and the Key West Literary Seminar. Mayur has acted in feature films, television series, and national commercials, with credits including The Rookie, Welcome to Chippendales, and Cocaine Sisters. Mayur created and facilitates C.A.R.E. for Artists an 8 week long support, creativity, & accountability group for artists of all backgrounds.
Monika Gupta
Monika Gupta is an alum of Tin House, Kenyon, One Story, and Roots.Wounds.Words workshops. She holds an MBA from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business and is a former Vice President of Marketing for a cybersecurity startup. Her work has been featured in the New York Times Modern Love at 13 project and her short story, Baby Arjun, won So to Speak’s fiction competition. The first chapter of her novel-in-progress, The Right Kind, won first place in fiction in Tucson’s Festival of Books Literary Competition. She’s a Reese's Book Club LitUp Fellow and is represented by Renee Zuckerbrot at MMQA.
paparouna
paparouna writes queer speculative prose, translates Greek literature into English, and daydreams about life as a marine mammal. They hold an MFA in Translation and Fiction from Antioch University—Los Angeles. paparouna is also a graduate of the 2018 Princeton Hellenic Translation Workshop, the 2025 Bread Loaf Translators Conference, and the 2025 British Centre for Literary Translation Summer School. They’re a Translation co-Editor for ANMLY Press, and have been published in Progenitor, Asymptote, Exchanges, New Poetry in Translation, Denver Quarterly, Timber, The Thought Erotic, World Literature Today, and in the Greek anthology Κουίρ 2024 [Queer 2024].
Pınar Banu Yaşar
Pınar Banu Yaşar is an East Coast based Kurdish writer. Her work builds a relationship between dance and poetry that explores questions on national identity, linguicide, bordering, and the intersections of erotic movement and diasporic migration. She has been published in various journals and anthologies, most recently in Mizna, The Markaz Review, and Sleeping in the Courtyard: An Anthology of Contemporary Kurdish Writers. Yaşar co-founded the Kurdish Poets Collective.
Raina Leon
Raina J. León, PhD is Black, Afro-Boricua, and from Philadelphia (Lenni Lenape ancestral lands). She is the 2026-2027 Poet Laureate of Philadelphia. She is the author of black god mother this body, Canticle of Idols, Boogeyman Dawn, sombra : (dis)locate, and the chapbooks,profeta without refuge and Areyto to Atabey: Essays on the Mother(ing) Self. She publishes across forms in visual art, poetry, nonfiction, fiction, and scholarly work. She teaches poets and writers at the Stonecoast MFA at the University of Southern Maine and will teach poetry at Bryn Mawr College as a visiting professor starting in Fall 2026. She is additionally a digital archivist, emerging visual artist, writing coach, and curriculum developer.
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Riley Odell
Riley Odell is an autistic neurodiversity advocate, anthology editor, and writer of horror, humor, bizarro, and stories about autism. His work has twice been nominated for the Wonderland Award, recognizing superior achievement in bizarro fiction, first for his horror collection Vile Visions Volume 2 and again for his novella Shit, Love, and Burgers. He edited and published Divergent Realms: Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories About Neurodivergence, an anthology of stories about neurodivergent characters written by neurodivergent writers, and is also the madman responsible for Bizarro Circus of Madness, an anthology of bizarro fiction. He lives in Fort Collins with his wife, Jamie, and their two pet children, a dog named Sadie and a rabbit named Newton.
Roohi Choudhry
Roohi Choudhry was born in Pakistan, grew up in southern Africa and now calls Brooklyn, NY, home. She is the author of the novel, Outside Women (University Press of Kentucky, 2025), a finalist for the 2026 Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, and the William Saroyan Prize. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan and is the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship. Her stories and essays have appeared in Ploughshares, Adi Magazine, Longreads, Poets & Writers, and the Kenyon Review. She has a background in criminal justice reform, urban placemaking, public health, and international development. As a teaching artist, she works primarily within immigrant and BIPOC communities, focusing her generative writing workshops on excavating stories of migration, diaspora, generational memory and on the intersection between art and activism. Find out more at roohichoudhry.com.
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Salma Hussain
Salma Hussain is a Canadian writer based in Toronto. She holds a B.A. (Hon.) in English Lit. (with a concentration in creative writing), as well as a LL.B and LL.M in law. In addition to writing her own widely-published prose and poetry, Salma also writes reviews and interviews emerging & established writers, almost exclusively championing writing by underrepresented voices from indie presses. She volunteers her time as a Grants Director for Canthius literary journal and is a fiction reader at Ex-Puritan. Her writing has received funding from Toronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council of Arts. She has served as a jury member for both the Toronto Arts Council and the Canada Council of Arts. In the summer of 2020, she was selected for the BIPOC TV & Film program led by John May and Nathalie Younglai which led to a position in the writer’s room for Potluck Ladies (Yes TV). She was also a panelist for Toronto’s inaugural Muslim Literary Festival in 2023. She currently co-hosts an international podcast with Upasna Kakroo on South Asian children’s literature (Peerbagh: Zubaani podcast).
Sam Hiyate
Sam Hiyate is keen to discover new voices and help writers prepare their works for market, and to help them build lasting careers. In the past two decades with THE RIGHTS FACTORY his hundreds of book deals have resulted in several bestsellers such as MORE, the memoir by Molly Roden Winter, THIS ONE SUMMER, the graphic novel by Jillian and Mariko Tamaki, non-fiction such as HEALTHY AF (DITCH THE DIET) by Oonagh Duncan and THE MYTH of CAPITALISM by Jonathan Tepper and Denise Hearn, and fiction such as GIRLS IN WHITE DRESSES by Jennifer Close and THE ADULT by Bronwyn Fischer.
photo cred: Beowulf Sheehan
Samuel Kọ́láwọlé
Samuel Kọ́láwọlé was born and raised in Ibadan, Nigeria. His debut novel, The Road to the Salt Sea, won the 2025 Whiting Award for Fiction, was a finalist for the International Book Awards, was longlisted for the 2025 Aspen Words Literary Prize, and is currently a finalist for the 2025 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel.
Other honors for his work include being a finalist for the Caine Prize for African Writing, the Graywolf Press Africa Prize, and the UK's The First Novel Prize.
He studied at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, and holds a Master of Arts degree in Creative Writing with distinction from Rhodes University, South Africa; is a graduate of the MFA in Writing and Publishing at Vermont College of Fine Arts; and earned his PhD in English and Creative Writing from Georgia State University.
He teaches fiction writing full-time as an assistant professor of English and African studies at Pennsylvania State University. He recently joined the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers as a faculty member.
Tongo Eisen-Martin
Originally from San Francisco, Tongo Eisen-Martin is a poet, movement worker, and educator. His curriculum on extrajudicial killing of Black people, We Charge Genocide Again, has been used as an educational and organizing tool throughout the country. He is the author of “Someone’s Dead Already”, “Heaven Is All Goodbyes”, “Waiting Behind Tornados for Food”, and “Blood on the Fog”. In 2020, he co-founded Black Freighter Press to publish revolutionary works. He was San Francisco’s eighth poet laureate.
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Twanna LaTrice Hill
Twanna LaTrice Hill is an inner city born and raised, Princeton/Harvard/Regis educated, agnostic, Unitarian-Universalist, Buddhist (lite), tarot reading, disabled, single, straight, soon-to-be 62-year-old, Russian speaking, liberal female survivor who has seen too much & lived much more. She is the writer of the play Love Multiplied and co-author of Indescribable, both of which has ben produced and performed in the Denver Metro Area; her short story A Life of Little Consequence was featured in Denver Noir, a collection of fiction that won the Colorado Book Award for Best Anthology in 2023; she is seeking representation for her first memoir What’s Done in the Dar k; and is currently penning her one-woman-show They Hardly Ever Kiss You, which is scheduled to be produced in 2027. Twanna lives in Denver, CO and shares her life with her service dog, and her service dog-in-training, Barclay.
Upasna Kakroo
Born in Srinagar and raised in four countries, Upasna’s writing talks about the jinns of our past and belonging. In her 20-year career, she has led strategy for organizations such as the University of Michigan and McKinsey. As the CEO of nonprofit Peerbagh, she encourages reading and South Asian storytelling. She has published nonfiction books including Loal (Gulshan, 2024) and has an upcoming young adult historical fiction book, Notes of Freedom (LitKanmani, 2027). Her children’s book, Shaliya Discovers Coronavirus Frumpfchi was commissioned by the Government of India and translated into seventeen languages. She edits Bento - the only South-Asian children’s magazine in print. She is the co-host of the international kidlit podcast, Zubaani. Upasna has won writing awards from Centrum, SCBWI, Kweli, and others.
Zoe Brook
Zoe Brook is a queer writer and stagehand in the Pacific Northwest. They write novels and short stories frequently involving romance, fantastical worlds, sexiness, and surrealism. They write to themes of queer joy, redemption, mundane magic, and unusual bargains.
Their work has been published in anthologies including Queers Who Don’t Quit Edited By G Benson, Seattle Erotic Art Festival’s Literary anthologies, and Gay Apparel edited by Rachel Sharp.
They can be found in the wild sharing their favorite topics about writing and sexy art, or at their website zoebrook.com