Meet Leah Duarte! Two of Leah’s poems will be featured in our upcoming issue, vol. 13!

How Leah describes “incomplete list of what i should’ve written on the bathroom wall before graduating from the all-girls’ catholic school that raised me” in 12 words or less:
“The rage of a middle school girl in the hot humid dark”

How Leah describes “to alleviate the crushing weight of 8 pm anxiety my therapist tells me to sit out on my front step” in 12 words or less:
“Recognition, healing and the non-linearity of both in the rain”

Leah Duarte is a Portuguese-Canadian poet and fiction writer. A graduate of the University of Toronto’s MA in English program, her thematic interests are shaped by her experiences grappling with diasporic distance and the violence of female identity. Her recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in The /tƐmz/ Review, The Four Faced Liar, Thuya Poetry Review and elsewhere. She is the winner of the gritLIT 2022 Youth Flash Fiction contest, and is currently at work on her first poetry collection. Find her on Twitter @llduart_.

Meet Doris Corcese! Doris’ nonfiction piece, “HERO,” will be featured in our upcoming issue vol. 13!

How Doris describes “HERO” in 12 words or less:
“A tea reading, a dangerous encounter, and the strangers we live with”

A former analyst, profiler and researcher, Doris Corcese is a graduate of the 2017 Vancouver Manuscript Intensive program and was runner-up in the Federation of B.C. Writers’ 2021 Creative Nonfiction Contest. In 2022, she was published in The Humber Literary Review and recently finished writing her first novel.

Meet Franklin K. R. Cline! Franklin’s poems, “Strangers” and “Useless Motherfuckers,” will be featured in our upcoming issue, vol. 13!

How Franklin describes these poems in 12 words or less:
“Barbaric yawns over the roofs of Kansas City. Dig it if you want it.”

Franklin K. R. Cline is the author of So What and The Beatles’ Second Album, both via Vegetarian Alcoholic Press. An enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation, he is an educator in Kansas City, Missouri, where he lives with Six and Olivia.