Kimberly Lee

Kimberly Lee left the practice of law some years ago to focus on motherhood, community work, and creative pursuits. A graduate of Stanford University and UC Davis School of Law, she is an Amherst Writers & Artists facilitator and affiliate and serves on its board of directors. She is trained and certified by The Center for Journal Therapy, The Center for Intentional Creativity, and SoulCollage®. A former editor and regular contributor at Literary Mama, Kimberly has also served on the staffs of Carve and F(r)iction magazines. Her stories and essays have appeared in publications and anthologies including Minerva Rising, LA Parent, Toyon, The Ekphrastic Review, Read650, and elsewhere. She lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.

Nina Schuyler

Nina Schuyler’s novel, Afterword, was published in May 2023 by Clash Books and was named a top book by Alta Journal and Bay City News and a June pick by Towne Center Books. Her short story collection, In This Ravishing World, won The Prism Prize for Climate Literature and the W.S. Porter Prize and will be published in July 2024. Her novel, The Translator, won the Next Generation Indie Book Award for General Fiction and was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Writing Prize. Her nonfiction book, How to Write Stunning Sentences, is a Small Press Distribution bestseller.

Lisa Moore Ramée

Lisa Moore Ramée still calls Los Angeles home even though she now lives in the Bay Area. She counts coffee as one of her best friends and is a devout believer in dreams coming true. Her debut novel, A Good Kind of Trouble, is a Walter Dean Meyers Honor book and an Indie bestseller. She is also the author of Something to Say and MapMaker. Her books have received multiple starred reviews. Visit her website at lisamooreramee.com.

John J. Geoghegan

John J. Geoghegan has worked as an editor, journalist, author and publisher. He began his career in the editorial department of Doubleday, the largest publisher in the U.S. at the time, where he contributed to the editing and marketing of a variety of books. He is also the author of three, commercially-published, non-fiction books with a fourth under contract. In addition to serving as a Special Correspondent for the New York Times, John’s articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, WIRED, the San Francisco Chronicle, Bloomberg’s BusinessWeek, and Smithsonian’s Air & Space magazine among other publications. While nurturing numerous writers to publication, John has taught freelance writing at Fairfield University. His “real world” experience combined with his frank approach to subjects many authors, agents and publishers are reluctant to discuss, are designed to help aspiring authors navigate the arcane ins-and-outs of the literary industry.

Addie Tsai

Addie Tsai (any/all) is a queer nonbinary artist and writer of color. They collaborated with Dominic Walsh Dance Theater on Victor Frankenstein and Camille Claudel, among others. Addie has an MFA in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College and a PhD in Dance from Texas Woman’s University. She is the author of the queer Asian young adult novel Dear Twin. Unwieldy Creatures, their adult queer biracial retelling of Frankenstein, is forthcoming from Jaded Ibis Press in August 2022. They are the Fiction Co-Editor and Editor of Features & Reviews at Anomaly, Staff Writer at Spectrum South, and Founding Editor & Editor in Chief at just femme & dandy.

Jeff Chon

Jeff Chon is the author of the novel Hashtag Good Guy with a Gun, which New York Magazine called “sick and nasty and funny until page 247, which is the last one,” and praised in The New York Times, The Irish Times, The Scotland Herald, and The Times of London. His stories and essays have appeared in The Seneca Review, The North American Review, Barrelhouse, Best Small Fictions 2021, and many others. This Is the Afterlife, his short story collection, will be available in December of 2022.

Preeti Vangani

Preeti Vangani is a poet and personal essayist. Born and raised in Mumbai, she is the author of Mother Tongue Apologize (RLFPA Editions), her first book of poems (selected as the winner of RL India Poetry Prize.) Her work has been published in BOAAT, Gulf Coast, Threepenny Review, among other journals. She is the Assistant Poetry Editor for Glass Journal, a Poet Mentor at Youth Speaks, and holds an MFA (Writing) from University of San Francisco.

Shelby Hinte

Shelby Hinte has led and supported writing workshops at San Francisco State University and in the community, including teaching creative writing to incarcerated adults and youth on juvenile probation. She is the Associate Editor of Write or Die Magazine where she edits essays and interviews. She has served as a reader and intern at various independent presses including ZYZZYVA, Split/Lip Press, and No Contact. Her work has been featured in BOMB, ZYZZYVA, SmokeLong Quarterly, Hobart, The Rumpus, and elsewhere.

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Kilby Blades

Kilby Blades is a USA Today Bestselling author of Romance and Women’s Fiction. Her debut novel, Snapdragon, was a HOLT Medallion finalist, a Publisher’s Weekly BookLife Prize Semi-Finalist, and an IPPY Award medalist. Kilby was honored with an RSJ Emma Award for Best Debut Author in 2018, and has been lauded by critics for “easing feminism and equality into her novels” (IndieReader) and “writing characters who complement each other like a fine wine does a good meal” (Publisher’s Weekly). Kilby is a feminist, an oenophile, a cinephile, a social-justice fighter, and above all else, a glutton for a good story.

Thea Matthews

Thea Matthews is a poet, author, and educator originally from San Francisco, California. She holds an MFA in poetry from New York University; and her work has appeared in Southern Indiana Review, Interim, Aster(ix) Journal, Tahoma Literary Review, The New Republic, and others. Her first book Unearth [The Flowers] (Red Light Lit Press, 2020) was listed as part of Kirkus Reviews’s Best Indie Poetry of 2020. She lives in Brooklyn. 

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