Shivanee Ramlochan (she/her) is a Trinidadian poet and essayist. Her debut collection, Everyone Knows I Am a Haunting (Peepal Tree Press, 2017) was shortlisted for a 2018 Forward Prize for Poetry. Her second book, Unkillable, a hybrid essay/memoir narrative on Indo-Caribbean women’s disobedience, is forthcoming from Noemi Press in 2022. Her writing has appeared in Poetry, The Asian American Literary Review, The Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day, and others. She is the Book Reviews Editor for Caribbean Beat Magazine and has written critically about Caribbean literature for the past decade. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Millay Arts, and the Catapult Caribbean Arts Grant. Shivanee’s first queer crush was Xena: Warrior Princess.
With a B.F.A in Writing from the Savannah College of Art and Design, Ka'Dia Dhatnubia has published memoirs in Blue Marble Review, music critique with My Goddess Complex, and a feature with Savannah Magazine. Currently, she works full-time as a teaching artist for the Deep Center's Block by Block program, a creative writing and community leadership program for high school youth in the Savannah, Georgia area. When she's not writing, she's trying to coax her black kitten Moon from his hiding places for cuddles.
J K Chukwu is a writer and visual artist from the Midwest. Her debut novel, The Unfortunates, will be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in August 2022. She holds an MFA in Literary Arts from Brown University and was a 2019 Lambda Fellow. Her work has appeared in Black Warrior Review, DIAGRAM, TAYO, and elsewhere.
Ashley Danielle is an award-winning educator and story-sharer born in Maryland, raised in Virginia, and made a woman in Carolina. Currently based in Charlotte, her work is inspired by her ancestral connection to southeastern land. She believes deeply in the healing technology that is southern black femme storytelling, thus founded SISTORIES Litmag—an interactive Black feminist/womanist literary magazine and community writing workshop. She was the The Roll Up CLT’s 2020 resident artist and has received numerous grants for her literary work, including Press On’s Southern Media Movement Fund, and several from her local arts council.
Jasmin Benward (She, Her, Them) is a Multi-Hyphenate Storyteller (author, writer, playwright, singer-songwriter), Educator, and Family Wellness Instructor. Jasmin is repped by 22MediaWorks (manuscripts) and is currently writing her first, commissioned feature film. Jasmin is concurrently co-writing a one-man stage play and works as a staff writer for Black Retail, an urban comedy web series slated to begin production in 2022. Jasmin is hell-bent on creating all things queer, especially with a Black femme lens. Jasmin can be found trying her hand at beat-making, thrifting, and book-shopping her way through LA. She frequents New York City and Atlanta as she considers all three places home.
sheena d. is a black essayist, humor writer, and comfort shoe femme who lives between Brooklyn and South Florida and likes to squeeze lime on almost everything. Reoccurring themes in her work are girlhood, junk food, dread, and the absurdity of black life in the U.S. Her words have appeared or are forthcoming in The Delacorte Review, Zone 3, Split Lip, Ms. Magazine, and elsewhere. sheena’s writing has graciously been supported by The Seventh Wave, Hedgebrook, Aspen Words, and St. Nell's Humor Writing Residency for Ladies; learn more at bookofsheena.com.
Stephanie Andrea Allen, Ph.D. is a southern writer and scholar living and working in the Midwest. She is Assistant Professor of Gender Studies at Indiana University, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief at BLF Press, co-founder of the Black Lesbian Literary Collective, and co-editor of Serendipity Literary Magazine. Her work can be found in various online and print publications, including Star*Line, Inkwell Black, Big Echo: Critical Science Fiction Magazine, Sinister Wisdom, and in her two short story collections, A Failure to Communicate and How to Dispatch a Human: Stories and Suggestions. In her spare time, you can find her baking southern delicacies and debating the merits of the Oxford comma with her cat Mango.
Sheree L. Greer is a text-based artist living in Tampa, Florida. In 2014, she founded Kitchen Table Literary Arts to showcase and support the work of Black women writers and is the author of two novels, Let the Lover Be and A Return to Arms, and the short story collection, Once and Future Lovers. Sheree is a VONA/VOICES alum, Astraea Lesbian Foundation grantee, Yaddo fellow, and Ragdale Fellow. Her essay, "Bars" published in Fourth Genre Magazine, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and notably named in Best American Essays 2019.
Nicole Goodwin aka GOODW.Y.N. is the author of Warcries, as well as the 2020 Pushcart Nominee, 2018-2019 Franklin Furnace Fund Recipient, the 2018 Ragdale Alice Judson Hayes Fellowship Recipient, 2017 EMERGENYC Hemispheric Institute Fellow as well as the 2013- 2014 Queer Art Mentorship Queer Art Literary Fellow. She published the articles “Talking with My Daughter…” and “Why is this Happening in Your Life…” in the New York Times’ parentblog Motherlode. Additionally, her work '"Desert Flowers" was shortlisted and selected for performance by the Women's Playwriting International Conference in Cape Town, South Africa in 2015.