Contributors
John Felix Arnold III was born in Durham, NC. He received a BFA from Pratt Institute in 2002, and attended the San Francisco Art Institute for one year of continuing studies in 2007. He has shown globally, most notably with the SFMOMA, B.R.I.C. Arts House, The Luggage Store, Superchief Gallery, Aggregate Space, Bction, and Joseph Gross Gallery. He is a Los Angeles Dept. of Cultural Affairs Grant Awardee, two time Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant Nominee, and is in the private collection of Takashi Murakami. He regularly works with Master Artist in Residence Hirokazu Kosaka at the Japanese Creative Cultural Center in Los Angeles, and in 2018 was commissioned to create a site-specific piece for the historic I Magnin building in downtown Oakland, CA. He is based in California and splits his time between the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles. His work has been covered by press outlets such as the Juxtapoz, Hi-Fructose, 96 Hours (Kimberly Chun), and Supersonic Art. You can see more of his work at felixthethirdrock.com and @felixthethirdrock
Michael Bagwell received an MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence. He has work published in Bodega Magazine, Dark Sky Magazine, Whiskey Island and others. He was founding editor of El Aleph Press, lives in Austin, Texas for some reason and is somehow a software engineer.
Daniel Felsenthal is a writer of fiction and nonfiction. Originally from Chicago, he now lives in New York City, where he works as an Assistant Editor of NOON. His essays and criticism have been published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Village Voice, L.A.Weekly, Hyperallergic, The Point, and 3:AM Magazine. His fiction has also appeared in The Scores. Check out more of his work at danielfelsenthal.com.
Happy is an artist from Kiev, Ukraine whose work mixes drawings and collages influenced by Japanese culture, anime, comics, and digital art. Happy also likes to shoot short animations. See more at @hahahaappy on Instagram and haaaaaaapy.tumblr.com
Kai Johnson is an Atlanta born and raised poet. They identify as a Trap Womanist and prioritize black queer holiness in art and life.
DS Maolalai is a poet from Ireland who has been writing and publishing poetry for almost 10 years. His first collection, Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden, was published in 2016 by the Encircle Press, and he has a second collection forthcoming from Turas Press in 2019. He has been nominated for Best of the Web and twice for the Pushcart Prize.
Christopher Phelps received degrees in physics and philosophy, disciplines that discreetly inform his work, but Dickinson and the dictionary were his first loves. Some of his published poems appear in Boston Review, Colorado Review, Field, The Kenyon Review, Poetry Northwest, and in the anthology Collective Brightness: LGBTIQ Poets on Faith, Religion & Spirituality. More information can be found at www.christopher-phelps.com/details.
Ryan Psota is a Philadelphia-based illustrator, muralist, and designer who goes by the moniker “Lemon Sparkle Fantasy.” Through his public work, he strives to achieve a sincere community interaction and to empower the individual with the bold and playful imagery. His eclectic style blends elements of primitivism, psychedelia, contemporary urban art, and folk art from around the world. He received his BFA from the University of the Arts, where he studied illustration. His inspirations include urban art, natural patterns, lasers, drag queens, old man skin, pyramids, ancient scrolls, ornate sweaters, seaweed, and the aurora borealis. See more at lemonsparklefantasy.com and @lemonsparklefantasy.
S. Craig Renfroe Jr. is the author of the short story collection You Should Get That Looked At (Main Street Rag Publishing Company). Currently, he is an associate professor at Queens University of Charlotte. Also, his work has appeared in Puerto del Sol, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, PANK, Hobart, Barrelhouse, and elsewhere.
Ben Rider is a fluorescent ink-obsessed print lunatic who specializes in making vibrant prints and images with a rough, raw, punky look and feel. His approach to image-making has led to all sorts of projects, including shop fronts, murals, packaging, toys, and music videos; he’s worked for clients such as Film4, Brewdog, Sky, Samsung, 5SOS, and T2 Tea, among others, and he works collaboratively as a member of the absolutely insane Fatherless collective. Ben loves being able to work with his hands, making something with a certain soul and uniqueness that acts as a middle finger to the increasingly homogenized slick corporate world sold to us every day. You can see more of Ben’s work at benrider.com or follow him on Instagram @zombiesqueegee
Ron Riekki’s books include And Here: 100 Years of Upper Peninsula Writing, 1917-2017 (Michigan State University Press), Here: Women Writing on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (Michigan State University Press, 2016 Independent Publisher Book Award Gold Medal Great Lakes Best Regional Fiction), The Way North: Collected Upper Peninsula New Works (Wayne State University Press, 2014 Michigan Notable Book awarded by the Library of Michigan), and U.P.: a novel (Ghost Road Press).
Valerie Wayson is a writer and teacher who’s taught in Iraqi Kurdistan, Madagascar, and Texas. She holds an MFA from Georgia College and is pursuing a PhD in Creative Nonfiction at Texas Tech University.
Suhasini Yeeda is a first generation Indian-American born and raised in Dallas, Texas. Earning her MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College in 2015, she has since published work with The Los Angeles Review of Books and The Indian Review. Her debut piece “Dream State” featured in Madcap Review’s Issue 4 was nominated for Pushcart Prize XLI, The Best American Short Stories, and Best of the Net. She lives in Los Angeles and is currently at work on a collection of short stories centered on immigration, U.S. history, and what it means exactly to be an American.
Karen Zey is a Canadian writer who lives in la belle ville de Pointe-Claire, Quebec. Her work has appeared in the Brevity Blog, Cleaver, Crack the Spine, Hippocampus, Memoir Magazine, Santa Fe Writers Project Quarterly, Prick of the Spindle and other places. You can follow her @zippyzey or read more of her work at www.karenzey.com.
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