Meet Yasmin Wooldridge! Yasmin’s poems, “6:45 a.m.” and “Memori,” will be featured in our upcoming issue, Vol. 15!

How Yasmin describes “6:45 a.m.” and “Memori,” in 12 words or less:
“Grief juxtaposed between absence of life and presence in nature; fluidity of time within a memory.”

Yasmin Wooldridge is a creative bog-hag, primarily a poet, living on Treaty 4 Territory. Born in Karachi, Pakistan, she and her family lived there for 18 months, then they spent five years in Doha, Qatar. In her youth she and family travelled widely, giving her a great scope of experiences and knowledge. She inherited a curious, wandering spirit from her mother, and it is the elements of travel and grief that reflect in her work. She was a reader for the Jaipur Literature Festival Toronto 2020 and the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild Book Bytes series 2022, and has been published in [SPACE] Magazine.

Meet Anna Veprinska! Anna’s poem, “(O),” will be featured in our upcoming issue, Vol. 15!

How Anna describes “(O)” in 12 words or less:
“Lost between homelands, negotiating the distance between history and memory.”

Anna Veprinska is a poet and scholar. She is the author of the poetry collection Sew with Butterflies (Steel Bananas, 2014); the chapbooks Stone Blossom (Anstruther Press, 2022) and Spirit-clenched (Gap Riot Press, 2020); and the monograph Empathy in Contemporary Poetry after Crisis (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), which received Honourable Mention in the Memory Studies Association First Book Award. She has a collection of poems forthcoming with the University of Calgary Press. Her poetry was shortlisted for the 2021 Austin Clarke Prize in Literary Excellence and was finalist for Best of the Net in 2022.

Meet Mahaila Smith! Mahaila’s poem, “I vowed to be of service to other beings,” will be featured in our upcoming issue, Vol. 15!

How Mahaila describes “I vowed to be of service to other beings” in 12 words or less:
“I see animals in everything and crochet little sweaters for the table.”

Mahaila Smith (any pronouns) is a young femme writer, living and working on the traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabeg in Ottawa, Ontario. They are one of the co-editors for The Sprawl Mag. They like learning theory and writing speculative poetry. Their debut chapbook, Claw Machine, was published by Anstruther Press in 2020. Their second chapbook, Water-Kin, was published by Metatron Press in 2024. You can find more of their work on their website: mahailasmith.ca