contributors

Julia Mallory is a storyteller working with a range of medium from text to textiles. Descending from Alabama and Georgia folk, her stories are a practice of ancestral reverence. She is the founder of the creative container, Black Mermaids and serves as the Senior Poetry Editor for Raising Mothers and a Poetry Editor for The Loveliest Review. Their work can be found in Barrelhouse, the Black Speculative Arts Movement exhibition “Curating the End of the World: RED SPRING”, Emergent Literary, The Lumiere Review, The Offing, Stellium Literary Magazine, Sugarcane Magazine, Torch Literary Arts, and elsewhere. Their short, experimental film, Grief is the Glitch, debuted in 2022. For more information, visit www.thejuliamallory.com.

Sonia K McCallum is a writer, author, yoga teacher, and healing facilitator living in Charlotte, NC. An avid reader and art enthusiast, Sonia’s writing centers coming of age and growth stories from the perspective of women of color. She served as a contributing author to the book “Mind Your Mental Health: 21 Empowering Stories of Growth and Healing” and her poetry is published in volumes I and II of Sistories literary magazine. She has also contributed work to Engendered magazine on Medium.com. Visit her website SoniaKMcCallum.com, or on Instagram @pleasesaythekay and Facebook @SoniaKMcCallum.

Danteryia J. Murray was born in sunny California and raised on salmon croquettes in Mississippi. She graduated from The Texas A&M University with a B.A. in English and minor in Creative Studies. Her work ranges from existential-dread inducing poetry to speculative fiction that pushes the reader to question their own morality. She was awarded the Charles Gardone Award for Creative Writing in both poetry and fiction. She is mother to two larger-than-normal cats and enjoys spending time with her friends ruminating on the collapse of modern society.

Cynthia Robinson Young lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee with her family. Her writing has appeared in journals and magazines, including Grist, The Amistad, Sixfold, The Ekphrastic Review, Rigorous, and The Writer’s Chronicle. For her chapbook, Migration (Finishing Line Press), she was named Finalist in the Blue Light Press chapbook contest, and the 2019 Georgia Author of the Year Award in her category. Her novel excerpt, “Why Mama Mae Believed in Magic” appears in the anthology, Dreams for a Broken World (Essential Dreams Press, 2022).

Camille Ross is a junior Interdisciplinary Humanities major, history & math double minor at Howard University. As the proud daughter of a long line of community leaders and educators living in Georgia and Virginia, she has been dedicated to the task of acquiring and preserving the stories and ideas of Black Americans for as long as she can remember. She has trained extensively as a dancer and singer, and uses poetry and literature as an extension of that study to continue the preservation of specifically black performance and storytelling traditions.

Natalie IsaBel (Natalie Warren) is a 26-year-old writer who graduated from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte with a bachelor’s degree in Sociology. She self-published her own book in 2018 titled “Thoughts of a Born Writer”. The influence of sociology can be found throughout her works. Some of their other influences include their Afro Latine and Afro American background, their spirituality and their identity as a gender fluid bisexual femme. Natalie IsaBel intends to do just that-be a bell. For all to hear. Her poetry is meant to make readers question, think, learn, and above all connect with their most authentic selves.

Leah Nicole Whitcomb is a proud Mississippian who writes about Black folks, love and magic. A VONA Alum and WNBA Authentic Voices Fellow, her writing has been featured in MadameNoire, Root Work Journal, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. Leah co-hosts the Hoodoo Plant Mamas podcast.

Patrice N. Wilson (she/her/they/them/he/him) is an educator, language enthusiast, spoken word artist and creative, from Charlotte, N.C. Patrice received both her undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Through her educational and creative pursuits, Patrice champions diversity, intersectionality, equity, communal connection and understanding. Patrice believes that education and action, if used correctly, can be vehicles for sustainable growth and change within society. Patrice loves to write and create. Patrice believes the power of creativity and expression of it is underrated and desires to use their power of creativity and expression to foster community, growth and understanding.