Author Bios

Tani Arness has been living, teaching, and writing in New Mexico, with much gratitude, for the past twenty-six years. She strives to integrate her writing and teaching with humanity, nature, and spirit. A collection of her poems can be found in Tzimtzum: 5 contemporary poets lend us their hearts by Mercury Heartlink Press. Her poetry is also in numerous literary magazines including North American Review, Rhino, Amethyst, Malpais, and Crab Orchard Review. See also: www.tani-arness.com

Marcia Krause Bilyk is a retired pastor and former spiritual advisor at a residential treatment center for substance use disorders. She lives in rural New Jersey with her husband. Her essays have appeared in FIVE:2:ONE, Drunk Monkeys, Brevity blog, Compose Journal, Tiferet Journal, Foliate Oak Literature Magazine, The Upper Room, The Interpreter, and elsewhere.

Tricia Gates Brown’s poetry has appeared in Portland Review, Christian Century Magazine, and Friends Journal, among other publications, and her debut novel Wren won a 2022 Independent Publishers Award Bronze Medal. By trade, she is an editor and co-writer, mainly working for the National Park Service and Native tribes. Her first poetry collection is forthcoming from Fernwood Press in 2025. She holds a PhD in theology from University of St. Andrews and writes a column at Patheos on “religion, doubt, and why they matter.” For fun, she makes art.

Julia Daniel is a writer and English professor at Baylor University. Her chapbook in progress, Tachycardia: A Devotional, takes women’s embodiment and theodicy as its center of gravity. She is the author of Building Natures, an academic stroll through the poetics of city and national parks, and has served as the co-editor of the T. S. Eliot Studies Annual. 

Lauren Delapenha is a Jamaican poet and English teacher. She earned her master’s in creative writing from the University of Oxford, and her work has received an Oxbelly Fellowship, a Helen Zell and Jamaica Poet Laureate’s Young Writers Prize for Poetry, a Grindstone International Poetry Prize, and a Pushcart nomination. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Cortland Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Ekstasis, DMQ, Stand, and various anthologies. She currently lives and teaches in Connecticut. Find more of her work here: https://www.laurendelapenha.com

Sharon Dolin is the author of seven books of poetry, most recently Imperfect Present; a memoir entitled Hitchcock Blonde; and two books of translation, most recently Late to the House of Words: Selected Poems by Gemma, winner of Saturnalia Books Malinda A. Markham Translation Prize and finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize. Dolin is Associate Editor of Barrow Street Press and teaches poetry workshops in New York City. https://sharondolin.com

Rebecca Fox is a writer based in Minnesota. She received her MFA from the University of Central Florida, and she now teaches writing at the University of Northwestern - St. Paul. Her work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in the Chicago Quarterly Review, The Under Review, Flyway, and Ecotone.

Renée Giovarelli is a writer and a lawyer, who has spent many years working on women’s rights to and control over land they farm. She worked in Central Asia and other post-Soviet countries, as well as countries in Africa and Asia. Aside from her professional publishing with the World Bank, USAID, and United Nations, Renée has published essays in New Letters, Numéro Cinq, and R.K.V.R.Y. She graduated from Vermont College of Fine Arts with an MFA in Creative Nonfiction. Renée lives on San Juan Island in the Salish Sea between the US and Canada with her husband, two dogs, and a bunny named Oliver.

The poetry of Alice Haines has appeared in, or is upcoming in, Off the Coast, The Healing Muse, Northern New England Review, Touchstone Literary Magazine, Pangyrus LitMag and others. A retired family physician who volunteers at an urban free clinic, Alice lives in Maine with her husband, where she enjoys nurturing native plants, birding and tracking wildlife.

Bethany Jarmul is an Appalachian writer, poet, writing coach, and workshop instructor. She’s the author of a poetry collection, Lightning Is a Mother and a mini-memoir, Take Me Home. Her work has been published in many magazines including Rattle, Brevity, and Salamander. Her writing was selected for Best Spiritual Literature 2023 and Best Small Fictions 2024, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and The Best of the Net. Connect with her at bethanyjarmul.com or on social media: @BethanyJarmul.

Andrew Lansdown is a widely published and award-winning Australian writer whose works include 3 novels, 2 short story collections, 2 children’s poetry collections, 2 photography-and-poetry collections and 15 poetry collections. His most recent books are Abundance: New and Selected Poems and The Farewell Suites (both published by Wipf and Stock/ Cascade Books, Oregon, USA). His website is: www.andrewlansdown.com

Clay Matthews has published poetry in journals such as American Poetry Review, Image, Kenyon Review, Appalachian Review, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. He is the author of several collections of poetry, and his next collection, Birds Sing, Anyway, is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press. He currently lives in Elizabethtown, KY and teaches at Elizabethtown Community & Technical College.

Sarah G. Pouliot is a writer from Titusville, Florida. As the recipient of Palm Beach Atlantic University’s Outstanding Graduate for English Award, Sarah has served as the senior editor of Living Waters Review and the centennial journal intern of Sigma Tau Delta’s Rectangle and Review. She has won prestigious awards for her writing, such as Sigma Tau Delta’s Runner-Up Award in creative nonfiction and Palm Beach Civic Association’s Next Generation Award for fiction writing. You can read Sarah’s poems and stories in Saw Palm, Blue Marble Review, Living Waters Review, and Sigma Tau Delta Rectangle.

Marta Regn (she/her) is a writer and yoga instructor living along the edge of the Chesapeake Bay. She holds an MFA from Hollins University, and her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Hunger Mountain, Necessary Fiction, X-R-A-Y, Had, and Wildness, among other venues. Previously, she served as a contributing writer for the World Wildlife Fund's associated travel blog, Good Nature.

Kelli Sallman freelances in Overland Park, Kansas, as a writer, editor, and writing mentor. Coauthor or ghostwriter of several books, she holds a Master of Theology degree from Dallas Theological Seminary. She curates an annual visual and literary art exhibit in the Kansas City area and writes poetry that explores human experience, especially experiences of loss and chronic illness, through a lens of faith.

Alyssa Stadtlander is a writer and actress based in Boise, Idaho. Her work is published in Ekstasis, Epiphany, Christianity Today, Mudfish Magazine, Fathom, and others, along with several anthologies, including An Homage to Soren Kierkegaard: A Poetry Anthology, edited by Dana Gioia and Mary Grace Mangano. Her poem, “You, Moved,” appears as text in the chamber music piece, “To the Invisible Listener”, by composer Jacob Beranek. She is the recipient of the 16th Annual Mudfish Magazine Poetry Prize, judged by Marie Howe. For more, visit her website at www.alyssastadtlander.com.

Angela Townsend (she/her) writes for a cat sanctuary. She is a five-time Pushcart Prize nominee, nineteen-time Best of the Net nominee, and the winner of West Trade Review's 704 Prize for Flash Fiction. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Arts & Letters, Blackbird, The Iowa Review, JMWW, The Offing, SmokeLong Quarterly, trampset, and Witness, among others. She graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary and Vassar College. Angela has lived with Type 1 diabetes for over 30 years and laughs with her poet mother every morning.

Tommy Welty is a poet and pastor from Southern California. His work has appeared in Vita Poetica, Heart of Flesh Literary Magazine, Stone Circle Review, and elsewhere.

Diana Woodcock has authored seven poetry collections, most recently Reverent Flora ~ The Arabian Desert’s Botanical Bounty (Shanti Arts, 2025), Heaven Underfoot (2022 Codhill Press Pauline Uchmanowicz Poetry Award), Holy Sparks (2020 Paraclete Press Poetry Award finalist), and Facing Aridity (2020 Prism Prize for Climate Literature finalist). A three-time Pushcart Prize nominee and Best of the Net nominee, she received the 2011 Vernice Quebodeaux Pathways Poetry Prize for Women for her debut collection, Swaying on the Elephant’s Shoulders. Currently teaching at VCUarts Qatar, she holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Lancaster University, where she researched poetry's role in the search for an environmental ethic. 

Jennifer Avignon (she/her) is a queer poet who lives in Seattle with her husband and lots of houseplants. She is a graduate of the MFA program at Seattle Pacific University. She serves on the editorial board of The WEIGHT journal. Her work also appears in miniskirt magazine, Sky Island Journal, and Neologism Poetry Journal.

Andrew Bashford is a student of language, faith, and landscapes whose work often examines what it means to feel at home. He is also a teacher of creative writing and rhetoric, both in the classroom and on his almost-popular YouTube channel, Writing with Andrew.

Elijah Perseus Blumov is a poet, critic, and host of the poetry analysis podcast, Versecraft. His poetry has been published in or is forthcoming from numerous periodicals including Birmingham Poetry Review, Literary Matters, Modern Age, Think Journal, and others. He lives in Chicago.

Kali Joy Cramer (he/she) is from Chicago. He was a 2024 Ireland Chair of Poetry Student Award Winner while completing an M.A. in Poetry through the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen's University Belfast. She has been published in The Apiary and The Penwood Review. 

Kate Deimling is a poet, writer, and French translator. Her poems have appeared in Tar River Poetry, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Presence, Sheila-Na-Gig, Twelve Mile Review, and other journals. Her debut poetry collection is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press in 2026. Kate lives in Brooklyn, New York and is co-editor of Bracken magazine.

David Dixon is a physician, poet, and musician who lives and practices in the foothills of North Carolina. His work has appeared in Rock & Sling, The Northern Virginia Review, Connecticut River Review, Bear Paw Arts Journal, The Greensboro Review, Kakalak, Atlanta Review and elsewhere. He is the author of The Scattering of Saints (Hermit Feathers Press, 2022).

Ben Egerton is a poet whose most recent collection is The Seed Drill (Kelsay, 2023). He was poet-in-residence at the Rivendell Institute at Yale University during the Fall of 2024, and is a visiting fellow with Rivendell’s Center for Theology and the Arts. Ben teaches in the Faculty of Education at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.

Richard Foerster’s ninth collection, With Little Light and Sometimes None at All (Littoral Books, 2023), received a Gold Medal at the 2024 Independent Publishers of New England Book Awards. Among his other honors are the “Discovery”/The Nation Award, Poetry magazine’s Bess Hokin Prize, the Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholarship, and two National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowships. Over the years, his work has appeared in The Best American Poetry, Kenyon Review, TriQuarterly, The Gettysburg Review, Boulevard, The Southern Review, and Poetry among many others. He lives in a 100-year-old former Nazarene church in Eliot, Maine.

Willow Noelle Groskreutz is a creative writer based in Charlotte, NC. Originally from Alaska, she is the author of Mundane Magic (2023), a self-published collection of naturalistic lyric essays. Her work has appeared in Alaska Women Speak, Red Clay Journal, and Foiled, the Randell Jones Personal Story Publishing Project anthology for Spring 2025. She writes about nature, healing, and the complex ways environment influences identity.

Maura H. Harrison is a writer and artist from Fredericksburg, VA. Her works have appeared in THINK: A Journal of Poetry, Fiction, and Essays; The Windhover; Ekstasis Magazine, and others.

Kaley Hutter writes from Virginia. Her poetry and nonfiction have previously appeared in The Harvard Advocate, Meridian, Witness, West Trade Review, and multiple other journals. Kaley’s favorite color is that periwinkley stretch of sky 45 degrees above a Blue Ridge sunset. 

Ryan Keating is a pastor and writer on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. His work can be found in publications such as Ekstasis Magazine, Fare Forward, Roi Fainéant, and Funicular. He is pursuing a PhD in Philosophy of Religion at the University of Cambridge. His chapbook, A Dance In Medias Res, is now available from Wipf and Stock.

Michael Angel Martín's poetry and reviews have been published in Chariton Review, Worcester Review, Kenyon Review, Ruminate, Presence, and Green Mountains Review, and America, among other journals and magazines. He lives in Miami, FL, with his family.

Steven Peterson is the author of Walking Trees and Other Poems (Finishing Line Press, 2025). His poems appear in The Christian Century, Dappled Things, First Things, Light, The North American Anglican, Reformed Journal, The Windhover, several other journals, and in the anthology Taking Root in the Heart (Paraclete Press, 2023). His plays have been produced in theaters around the USA. Steve and his wife live in Chicago and northern Wisconsin. 

Esther Ra alternates between California and Seoul, South Korea. She is the author of A Glossary of Light and Shadow (Diode Editions, 2023) and book of untranslatable things (Grayson Books, 2018). Her work has been published in Boulevard, The Florida Review, Rattle, The Rumpus, PBQ, and Korea Times, among others. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Pushcart Prize, Indiana Review Creative Nonfiction Award, 49th Parallel Award for Poetry, and Sweet Lit Poetry Award. Esther is currently a J.D. candidate at Stanford Law School. (estherra.com)

Whitney Rio-Ross is the author of the chapbook Birthmarks (Wipf & Stock) and the forthcoming collection thunder makes us (Belle Point Press). Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Image, Whale Road Review, Presence, EcoTheo, minnesota review, and elsewhere. She serves as poetry editor for Fare Forward and lives with her husband and pups in Nashville, TN.

Richard Smith has worked as a teacher and editor in Aotearoa New Zealand, the UK, and Cambodia, where he also worked as a prison chaplain. His writing can be found in ezines such as Turbine/Kapohau, Ekstasis Magazine, and London Grip. Another of his poems is soon to appear in the Landing Press anthology Then and now. Richard lives in Porirua, New Zealand. 

Jennifer Fair Stewart is the author of the chapbook Marginalia: An Interactive Book of Hours (The Orchard Street Press).  Her poetry has won multiple awards, including the 2024 Rhina Espaillat Poetry Award, and has appeared or is forthcoming in Heart of Flesh, The Orchards, Quiet Diamonds, Crescendo, Trampoline, Plough, Bacopa, and Abraxas.  Find her at https://jenniferfairstewart.carrd.co/

Jeremiah Webster is an English Professor and Associate Rector based in the Pacific Northwest. His poems have appeared in numerous journals including North American Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Crab Creek Review, Anglican Theological Review, Relief, Dappled Things, and Mockingbird. His first novel, Follow the Devil / Follow the Light (Acolyte Press) is a fantastique that draws inspiration from A Christmas Carol and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. His second poetry collection, Notes for a Postlude (Wipf and Stock), is a meditation on the aftermath of the pandemic and the dangerous rise of Trumpism. When he’s not teaching or writing poems, Jeremiah is the curator of Analog, a spiritual haven for students and working professionals, and Dungeons and Deacons, a community gaming guild, at his local Anglican parish.

Karly Noelle Abreu White is a latina writer from Southern California. Her work has been featured or is upcoming in a variety of publications such as Fathom Magazine, Pomona Valley Review, Alternative Milk Magazine, Atlas and Alice Literary Magazine and The Unmooring Journal. She has a degree in English literature from Biola University, and lives with her husband, two sons, rescue mutt, and a fussy cat.

Yance Wyatt is a hearing-impaired author from Tennessee. A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and a two-time finalist for the Charlotte Lit/South Award, his work has appeared in Grain, Los Angeles Review, The Pinch, Zyzzyva, and elsewhere. He teaches at the University of Southern California, where he formerly served as director of the Writing Center. His debut novel, The Watersmith, is forthcoming from Regal House Press.