Omaria Sanchez Pratt Omaria Pratt (they/them) is a Black trans writer from North Carolina. They hold an M.F.A. from the University of Kentucky where they were a recipient of the 2018 Nikky Finney Fellowship. They have received fellowships from Periplus Mentorship Collective, Kimbilio for Black Fiction, Lambda Literary,  Roots. Wounds. Words. and the Hurston/Wright Foundation. Their work can be found in Taint Taint Taint Magazine, StoryMagazine issue 9, and the Anthology of Appalachian Writers–VolumeXII, where they were nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

A lover of language in all forms and a word laborer who is not shy about correcting errors, politics be damned, Mary C. Lewis balances her enthusiasm for grammar with a commitment to act creatively on her knowledge. Throughout more than four decades, Mary has built a communications portfolio. She began her career as editorial assistant and then managing editor of Ebony Jr! (Johnson Publishing), entering self-employment in 1980. She has edited manuscripts for book publishers; served as “last eyes” on stewardship reports at universities; helped implement first responses to the Affordable Care Act; and composed intranet articles on cultural events for a global investment firm. Her latest day job, as a senior editor, involves her in analyses of transformative destinations. Those are day jobs. Mary also unearths characters’ footsteps and voices, to bring collective fulfillment to as many ancestors and contemporaries as her daily 4 a.m. rising allows. eMerge has published her short fiction, and her essays appeared in Under Her Skin and Sleeping with One Eye Open. Her début novel, Strangers and Pilgrims, will extend to a sequel. Mary enjoys cooking, films, books, and conversations among the sun, moon, and innocent, determined creatures.

JM Holmes is a father of two, whose family was displaced by the Eaton Canyon Fire in LA. He used to write for TV but now organizes full time with the All African People’s Revolutionary Party and Black Men Build. He has an old collection of stories with Little, Brown and a forthcoming debut novel from Common Notions Press.

Jason Harris is a Baltimore based futurist, educator and cultural activist. He is the founder and facilitator of the BlkRobot Project, a long term multi-modal educational art effort designed to place STEM educational opportunities in predominantly Black neighborhoods in the U.S. and Africa. Jason is also a writer whose work has appeared in Black Enterprise magazine, Catalyst Literary journal, Chicory, BmoreArt.com and various online publications. He self-published the speculative fiction anthology entitled, “Redlines: Baltimore 2028′′ in 2012, and is a 2015 Kimbilio Fiction Fellow. He also runs the “SoulBot Saturday Design Squad”, a S.T.E.A.M. based learning course for youth in Baltimore. He co-facilitated “Future Cities” course at Goucher College, and has previously facilitated classes/workshops at the University of Baltimore and the University of the Bahamas. He currently teaches technology classes at the Enoch Pratt Free Library System in Baltimore. You can find him on BlueSky @jharrisfuture, Instagram @jharrisfuture and via Google Sites at https://sites.google.com/site/jharrisfuturenow/home

Leesa Fenderson is an IP attorney and has recently completed her Doctoral studies in USC’s Creative Writing and Literature program. She is polishing a collection of short stories. Her work appears in Joyland Magazine, Story Magazine, CRAFT, Callaloo Journal, and elsewhere. Leesa believes deeply that art and rest are modes of resistance.

Shinelle L. Espaillat is a writer whose work has appeared in midnight & indigo, Pleiades Magazine, Torch Literary Arts, Tahoma Literary Review, Two Hawks Quarterly, Minerva Rising, Ghost Parachute, among others, as well as in the collections Ghost Parachute: 105 Flash Fiction Stories, Shale: Extreme Fiction for Extreme Conditions, and How Higher Education Feels: Commentaries on Poems That Illuminate Emotions in Learning and Teaching. Her stories have been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net Prizes. She holds an M.A. in English-Creative Writing from Temple University. She teaches at Westchester Community College in NY.

Jamiyla Chisholm is an author, journalist and educator. She is the author of the book The Community: A Memoir. Jamiyla has appeared in The New York Times, and her writing has been published by BET, Colorlines, Essence, TIME’S UP and other companies and publications. As a writer and editor, Jamiyla leads creative content and storytelling for New York City’s first women’s college and has created narratives that seek to empower people of color and the silenced. As an educator, Jamiyla teaches on the importance of storytelling to create positive narrative and social change. In 2024, she joined the Kimbilio team as a Fellow.

Elizabeth Bryant is a lifelong student of the Minnesota River Valley. Her writing explores black interiorities, especially in rural and small town environments in the midwest. She has studied history and black studies, and worked as a barista, literary nonprofit manager, nanny, publicist, events programmer, butcher, and farmer-trainee. Elizabeth is a founding member of the Minneapolis-based artist collective Burn Something, and a current MFA student in fiction at the University of Maryland.

Samuel Autman For the thirteen years Samuel Autman wrote for daily newspapers in Tulsa, Salt Lake City, St. Louis, and San Diego, he felt more was calling to him.  After penning a front-page story about Cupcake Brown’s remarkable journey from crack addict and street gang member to law school graduate, he found it. Since then his nonfiction has appeared in It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror, The Best of Brevity: Twenty Groundbreaking Years of Flash Nonfiction, The Kept Secret: The Half-Truth in Nonfiction, The Chalk Circle: Prizewinning Intercultural Essays, Ninth Letter, The Common Reader, Under the Gum Tree, The Little Patuxent Review, PANORAMA: The Journal of Travel, Place and Nature, Memoir Magazine, Bellevue Literary Review, The St. Louis Anthology and Sweeter Voices Still: An LGBTQ Anthology From Middle America. He’s a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee in nonfiction. When a young director named Chinonye Chukwu converted his flash nonfiction into a short film called “A Long Walk,” he began experimenting with form. His last publication, “Friends on My Screens and In My Head,” blurs the lines between personal narrative and screenwriting, television, and film history. Now a writing professor at DePauw University, he’s pursuing short fiction and screenplays.