Meet Rob Omura! Rob’s poem, “The Cats of Kotor,” will be featured in our upcoming issue, vol. 13!

How Rob describes “The Cats of Kotor” in 12 words or less:
“Stray cats roam the tiny squares in the old city”

Rob Omura calls Calgary, Alberta home, where he lives with his common-law wife and three too many cats. He has resigned himself to finding cat fur in everything he eats. His fiction and poetry appear or are forthcoming in journals in the United States, Canada and abroad including the New York Quarterly, 34thParallel, Chaffin, CLR, Freshwater, Caustic Frolic, Chaotic Merge, New Mexico Review, Talon Review, barnstorm and many others. He has been nominated for the Pushcarts.

Meet Samantha Louie-Poon! Samantha’s poem, “for my sisters of the Asian diasporas,” will be featured in our upcoming issue, vol. 13!

How Samantha describes “for my sisters of the Asian diasporas” in 12 words or less:
“Stories of the moments we know, quietly trespassing our bodies”

Samantha Louie-Poon is a settler of Chinese ancestry based in Edmonton, Alberta. As a nurse, researcher and writer, Samantha is passionate about storying the untold narratives of the Asian diasporas in so-called Canada. Samantha is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Alberta where she is documenting the experiences of anti-Asian racism using storytelling methods. Through poetry, Samantha explores concepts of Asianness, belonging and erasure, and invites readers to contemplate these tensions within taken-for-granted spaces.

Meet Alexander Hollenberg! Alexander’s poem, “no room for exiles,” will be featured in our upcoming issue, vol. 13!

How Alexander describes “no room for exiles” in 12 words or less:
“Offering Countee Cullen some potpourri, with mixed results”

Alexander Hollenberg is a Canadian writer and professor of narrative theory whose work can be found in such journals as Riddle Fence, Poetica Magazine, The Literary Review of Canada and English Studies in Canada. In 2021, his suite “Cod Jigging Near Twillingate” was longlisted for the CBC poetry prize, and most recently two of his poems were shortlisted for The Fiddlehead’s Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize.