David Galef has published over fifteen books, including Brevity: A Flash Fiction Handbook (Columbia University Press); The Supporting Cast: A Study of Flat and Minor Characters (Penn State Press); three novels from The Permanent Press: Flesh, Turning Japanese, and How to Cope with Suburban Stress (Kirkus Best 30 Books of the Year), and Where I Went Wrong (Regal House); the short-story collections Laugh Track (University Press of Mississippi) and My Date with Neanderthal Woman (Dzanc Books' Short Story Collection Award); two children's books, The Little Red Bicycle by Random House and Tracks by William Morrow Junior; Japanese Proverbs: Wit and Wisdom (Tuttle); a co-edited anthology of fiction called 20 over 40 (University Press of Mississippi); and the poetry collections Flaws and Kanji Poems (David Roberts Books). He's a professor of English and the creative writing program director at Montclair State University. His website is davidgalef.com.

Blaise Allysen Kearsley is a writer, teacher, artist, and storyteller. She identifies as Black, Black-biracial, or Person of Color. Her writing has appeared in three anthologies including Nonwhite and Woman: 131 Micro Essays About Being in The World, and her stories have been published in Catapult, Longreads, VICE, Electric Literature’s The Nervous Breakdown, Yellow Arrow Journal, and elsewhere. She teaches memoir and flash nonfiction at Blaise Writers Workshop and is also the creator, producer, and host of the long-running show How I Learned, a live storytelling / comedy / reading series. Learn how to pronounce all her names at blaiseallysenkearsley.com. Find her on Instagram and Twitter: @blaiseallysen.

Mandira Pattnaik’s work appears in The Cincinnati Review, The Rumpus, Emerson Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, McNeese Review, Penn Review, Quarterly West, Passages North, Timber, Contrary, Quarter After Eight, AAWW, Best Small Fictions (2021 and 2024) and Best Microfiction (2024), among other places. Her writing has also been recognized in Wigleaf’s Top 50 List of Very Small Fictions (2023 and 2025) and longlisted in Commonwealth Short Story Prize (2025) and won second place in Bacopa Literary Contest 2024 and honorable mentions in CRAFT 2021 and Litro 2022 contests. Her collections include Anatomy of a Storm-Weathered Quaint Townspeople (2022), Girls Who Don’t Cry (2023), Where We Set Our Easel (2023), Glass/Fire (2024), and White Hot Moon (forthcoming). More about her work can be found at mandirapattnaik.com.

Christopher Notarnicola’s work has appeared in AGNI, American Short Fiction, Bellevue Literary Review, Best American Essays, Chicago Quarterly Review, Image, River Teeth, The Southampton Review, and other publications. Find him in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and at christophernotarnicola.com.

Phil Olsen is a writer from Liverpool, UK, with a Creative Writing MA from the University of Manchester’s Centre for New Writing. His short fiction has been published by Ad Hoc Fiction, Cnfing, The Liminal Residency, Storgy, and Strix. First prize in the University of Liverpool Short Story Competition 2022, the Northern Short Story Festival 2017 flash slam, Writing on the Wall’s WoWFest 2016, and Book Week Scotland 2014. Commissions: “Journey Through Objects with Bedwyr Williams” (Science Museum, 2021-22) and “Weekend of Words” (Victoria Baths, 2019). He is also the fiction editor at Sabotage Reviews. Find him at polsen.co.uk or on Twitter: @Liverpolsen.

Lucy Zhang writes, codes, and watches anime. Her work has appeared in Black Warrior Review, New Orleans Review, The Offing, Passages North, SmokeLong Quarterly, West Branch and elsewhere. She is the author of the chapbooks Hollowed (Thirty West Publishing, 2022) and Absorption (Harbor Review, 2022). Find her at https://lucyzhang.tech or on Twitter @Dango_Ramen.

Angie Kang makes art in LA. She is the author/illustrator of Our Lake (Kokila) which received a Caldecott Honor, the Charlotte Zolotow Award, the Dilys Evans Founder's Award, and was featured on “Best of” lists by NPR, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, School Library Journal, Horn Book, and more. She is also the illustrator of Navigating Night, written by Julie Leung (Anne Schwartz Books). Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Believer, Best Small Fictions,and elsewhere. She is the 2024 Ezra Jack Keats Fellow at MacDowell and was shortlisted for the 2023 Cartoonist Studio Prize. Find her at angiekang.net or on Instagram @anqiekanq.