Emily Franklin is a novelist and poet whose poem, “The Math of Cows,” won the 2021 Pinch Literary Award in Poetry, judged by Catherine Pierce. She has published 16 YA novels. Tell Me How You Got Here (Terrapin Books, 2021) is her first volume of poetry.

Caki Wilkinson’s third poetry collection––The Survival Expo––is a weird family of poems. Beautiful, complex, breathtaking, but beautifully weird. Contained in the collection are a series of oddities like the date who wore a Titans jersey and a coonskin cap, the juxtaposition (in one line) of swamp tours and sexy gun range selfies, and a good ol’ boy selling apocalypse-prep specifically geared toward cats. We see these weird images every day in the modern world, most of us accept it or ignore it and continue along with our ill-conceived plans, but not Wilkinson.

Sara Biggs Chaney and Michael Chaney teach at Dartmouth College. Michael is a Professor in the Department of English and Creative Writing and Sara is a Lecturer in the Institute for Writing and Rhetoric and the Associate Coordinator of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program. Sara and Michael have published creative non-fiction in Hotel Amerika and Sycamore Review. Their visual poetry has recently appeared in Redivider, Puerto Del Sol, and Quarterly West.

John A. Nieves has poems forthcoming or recently published in journals such as: North American Review, Crazyhorse, Southern Review, Harvard Review and Massachusetts Review. He won the Indiana Review Poetry Contest and his first book, Curio, won the Elixir Press Annual Poetry Award Judge’s Prize. He is associate professor of English at Salisbury University and an editor of The Shore Poetry. He received his M.A. from University of South Florida and his Ph.D. from the University of Missouri.

Kito Fortune is one of the best poets in the world. He unleashes rhymes, wordplay, metaphors and dynamic performance, as he invites you into his world through poetry. Although he grew up in Los Angeles, his family is originally from Guyana. He was a member of the poetry slam team at Da Poetry Lounge for three years in a row.  Also in 2018 Kito finished in the top twenty of the Individual World Poetry slam. He was the slam champion at Da Poetry Lounge for two years straight. Kito enjoys sports, anime, and video games and his poetry is influenced by his melanin, and his Christianity.  Kito uses words to paint a vivid picture of his life.  

Interview by CooXooEii Black.

Tiana Clark has published the chapbook, Equilibrum, and a full book of poetry titled I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without The Blood. She has won numerous awards and has been published in The New Yorker, Poetry Magazine, and The Washington Post(just to name a few). A fellow Nashville native, I had the pleasure of watching her career flourish and expand over the years. We officially crossed paths at Sewanee School of Letters where she was my professor in the summer of 2019. We spoke about pantsuits, rage and isolation in the age of the pandemic.

Interview by Massey Armistead.

Photo by Crystal K. Martel

Hûw Steer is writer, historian, and comedian from London who holds an MA in Ancient History specializing in the study of ancient science-fiction. His first novel, The Blackbird and the Ghost, was an SPFBO finalist in 2019 and Ad Luna, his second novel, released on July 4th of this year. His short stories have been published in The Future Fire and UCL’s Publisher’s Prize.

Interview by Kalib La Chapelle

Former contributor Janet Buttenwieser has just released a new memoir, GUTS, available for purchase from Vine Leaves Press. The memoir hits upon chronic illnesses, loss, and resilience; we spoke with Janet about the process of writing such difficult subjects, as well as her go-to journals, and what's next for her writing. 

Contest participants can be selected for publication even if they don’t win the contest. Check out this interview with Lela Tredwell to learn how this contest participant caught the attention of editors and got her piece published! “My Eye Eye” was published in issue 38.2 of The Pinch, which is available for order.

Amy Bonnaffons is the judge of the 2019 Pinch Literary Award for Fiction. Her debut story collection The Wrong Heaven was published in July 2018 by Little, Brown. It will be followed in early 2020 by The Regrets, a novel about the afterlife. Amy is a founding editor of 7x7.la, a literary journal devoted to collaborations between writers and visual artists. Born in New York City, she now lives in Athens, GA, where she is working on a Ph.D. at the University of Georgia.

Former contributor Martin Ott (32.1) has a new book of poetry coming out this week. In our latest interview, we talked with him about the collection's inspiration, his other new projects, and what's next on his writing journey.