Annell López is the winner of the Louise Meriwether First Book Prize and the author of the short story collection I’LL GIVE YOU A REASON (Feminist Press), named a best short story collection of 2024 by Electric Literature. López received her MFA from the University of New Orleans. 

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Joél Leon (he/him), author of the 2025 Gotham Book Prize-nominated Everything and Nothing At Once: A Black Man's Reimagined Soundtrack For the Future is a Bronx-born girl dad, poet, performer, and cultural critic who writes and tells stories for Black people.

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Anastacia-Renee (She/They) is a queer writer, educator, interdisciplinary artist, speaker and podcaster. She is the author of (v.) (Black Ocean) and Forget It (Black Radish) and, Here in the (Middle) of Nowhere and Sidenotes from the Archivist forthcoming from Amistad (an imprint of HarperCollins). Anastacia-Renee was former Seattle Civic Poet (2017-2019), Hugo House Poet-in-Residence (2015-2017), Arc Artist Fellow (2020) and Jack Straw Curator (2020). Her work has been anthologized in: Teaching Black: The Craft of Teaching on Black Life and Literature, Home is Where You Queer Your Heart, Stone: Lessons from Kubota’s Garden, and many more. Her work has appeared in Hobart, Foglifter, Auburn Avenue, Catapult, Alta, Hennepin Review, Ms. Magazine, and others.

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DESIREE S. EVANS writes speculative fiction for children, teens, and adults. She is the co-editor of the critically-acclaimed, Indie-bestselling young-adult horror fiction anthology The Black Girl Survives in This One (Flatiron Books, 2024). Desiree’s creative writing has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and has appeared or is forthcoming in literary journals such as Obsidian, Gulf Coast, The Offing, and other venues. Desiree holds an MFA in Fiction from the Michener Center for Writers at The University of Texas at Austin, as well as degrees in journalism from Northwestern University and international affairs from Columbia University.

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