Contributors
Ivars Balkits
A dual-citizen of Latvia and the USA since 2016, Ivars Balkits lives part of the year in Ohio but mostly in a small mountain village in Crete, Greece. His poems and prose have been most recently published by Pnyx, Punt Volat, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Frighten the Horses, Bear Creek Gazette, Synchronized Chaos, Otoliths, Sulφur Surrealist Jungle, Seneca Review, Anvil Tongue Radio, Harpy Hybrid Review, and Lotus Eater. He is a recipient of two Individual Excellence Awards from the Ohio Arts Council, for poetry in 1999 and creative nonfiction in 2014.
Sergei Burbank
Sergei Burbank is a screenwriter, playwright, performer, audiobook narrator, and producer in New York City. He has been published by Indie Theater Now, NYTheaterNow, Parabasis, Howlround, fwriction:review, and Baseball Prospectus. He is resident playwright with Quick Silver Theater Company, member of Actors’ Equity Association, and has an MFA in Playwriting from the Writer's Foundry at St. Joseph’s University.
Acabatha Christie
acabath Christie is the alias of a sometimes-writer and full-time student of solidarity based in South London. Other interests include gardening, plotting and the cripss you have on holiday.
Nathan Coles
Nathan Coles was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, but don't hold that against him. A precocious child, he attended the College of Humanities at Carleton University in Ottawa; this was the best time in his life and all else has been entropic decay. He then became a lawyer, working himself up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty. Realizing that despite selling out his happiness for wealth he would receive neither, he ran screaming from the legal profession and now spends his time in public libraries and schools making sure the next generation is better read than you are. His hobbies include witnessing the inevitable collapse of civilization.
Julia Colley
IG:@juliacolleyart, Portfolio
Julia Colley is a graphic designer, illustrator, and artist based in Ontario. Ever curious about the world around her, her background in art informs her strong creative instincts and ability to merge concept development with her design and illustration work. She is passionate about using her creative skills to support arts and culture and create a positive social impact.
Kellie Denny
Kellie Denny would like to say she is from somewhere exotic and exciting, but she can't - she is born and raised in Ottawa. She looks forward to travelling this summer in search of Irish and Scottish roof dogs.
Ashley Denny Petch
Ashley Denny Petch was born and raised in Ottawa. She is a militant pedestrian. She has lived and walked in Canada, the UK and Greece. She created Vernacular Journal in the pursuit of some creative dignity.
Amir Dotan
Amir Dotan has been living in Stoke Newington, North East London, since 2002 and has been researching the area's fascinating 1000-year history as a hobby since 2011. He shares his findings daily on Instagram (@HistoryOfStokey), Facebook (@StokeNewingtonHistory), and X/Twitter (@HistoryOfStokey), providing insights into every aspect of Stoke Newington. From the evolution of its colorful shops over the decades to the presence of decorative Victorian coalhole covers still found outside many houses, Amir enjoys exploring and documenting the rich history of the area.
Bart Edelman
Bart Edelman’s poetry collections include Crossing the Hackensack, Under Damaris’ Dress, The Alphabet of Love, The Gentle Man, The Last Mojito, The Geographer’s Wife, Whistling to Trick the Wind, and This Body Is Never at Rest: New and Selected Poems 1993 – 2023. He has taught at Glendale College, where he edited Eclipse, a literary journal, and, most recently, in the MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles. His work has been widely anthologized in textbooks published by City Lights Books, Etruscan Press, Fountainhead Press, Harcourt Brace, Longman, McGraw-Hill, Prentice Hall, Simon & Schuster, Thomson/Heinle, the University of Iowa Press, Wadsworth, and others. He lives in Pasadena, California.
Devon Hansen
Devon Hansen (1988-) is a public servant grateful to be from unceded Anishinaabe territory (Ottawa, ON), and to be living with his husband on unceded Mi'kmaw territory in Kjipuktuk (Halifax, NS). A classical musician by education, he holds a Bachelor of Music from the University of Ottawa (2010), a Certificate in Carillon Studies from Carleton University (2017), and is a Carillonneur member of the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America (2017). He has written and arranged music for carillon, as well as chamber ensembles, while maintaining a strong interest in poetry and language. A casual writer of poetry throughout his life, this is his first public project.
Paul Hostovsky
Paul Hostovsky's poems appear and disappear simultaneously (voila!), and have recently been sighted in places where they pay you for your trouble with your own trouble doubled, and other people's troubles thrown in, which never seem to him as great as his troubles, though he tries not to compare. He has no life and spends it with his poems, trying to perfect their perfect disappearances, which is the working title of his new collection, which is looking for a publisher and for itself.
Penn Kemp
Poet, performer and playwright Penn Kemp has been celebrated as a trailblazer since her first publication of poetry by Coach House (1972). Penn has long been a keen participant/activist in Canada’s cultural life, with thirty+ books of poetry, prose and drama; seven plays and ten CDs produced as well as award-winning videopoems. Penn has performed in arts festivals around the world, giving readings and workshops in various writer-in-residencies from the Yukon to Labrador and throughout India and Brazil, Britain and Germany. Her work has been translated into many languages: “poem for peace in many voices”, for instance, is out in 136 languages. Out now is POEMS IN RESPONSE TO PERIL: an anthology for Ukraine and INTENT ON FLOWERING, Rose Garden Press. Penn’s new collection, INCREMENTALLY, is up as e-book and album onhttps://www.hempressbooks.com/authors/penn-kemp. Delighting in multimedia, Penn is active across the web. Updates are on www.pennkemp.weebly.com, www.pennkemp.wordpress.com andwww.pennkemp.substack.com.
Vera Kurnev
Vera Kurnev is a poet and critic based in New York. @veraidiot
E Huckleberry
E. Huckleberry (1989-23XX) is a notorious lollygagger and ardent Jacobite. Born and raised in Ottawa, he has seen a very small percentage of Ottawa with his own eyes and knows barely anything about everything. Mr. Huckleberry is eager to write the definitive history of the Tunney’s Pasture Complex, as soon as he can articulate the idea to a publisher without having them fall asleep halfway through the pitch meeting. Eric Huckleberry has been mad online about the Ottawa Senators since 2007. He aspires one day to live in a city with functional rail transit.
Eleanor Lines
Eleanor is an artist and artist educator born and raised in South London specialising in screen printing. She now lives and works between Athens and London and is currently working on a book about the doors in her local neighbourhood in Athens. Architecture, geometry, pattern and structure are all prevailing themes within her work. She has founded a screen printing studio; Kypseli Print Studio which is open to the local and international artist community, providing educational workshops and artist residencies.
Instagram: @eleanorlines @doorsofkypseli @kypseliprintstudio
Margo McCall
Margo McCall's short stories have appeared in Pacific Review, Heliotrope, Hypertext, Sidewalks, Raven Review, Toasted Cheese, and other journals. Her nonfiction has appeared in Herizons, Lifeboat: A Journal of Memoir, Pilgrimage, the Los Angeles Times, and a variety of other publications. A graduate of the M.A. creative writing program at California State University Northridge, she currently calls Winnipeg, Canada home, although still pines a little for Paonia. For more information, visit http://www.margomccall.com.
Mariana Meireles Curado
Mariana is a Lisbon-born Londoner who has a complicated relationship with the Big Smoke, where she moved to in 2016. She is an aspiring class war accelerationist with a passion for political ecology and reclaiming the commons.
Cynthia Mitchell
Cynthia spent four glorious summers working at LSPP from 2006-2009. She calls Ottawa, ON home but often dreams about swimming in Lake Superior. Cynthia enjoys riding around town on her bicycle, reading stories with her nephews and niece, and eating BBQ chips. Daniel Walker is hands down her favourite radio VJ of all time.
Treasa Nealon
Treasa Nealon is a writer and theatre creator from Leitrim. She has had work published in Razur Cuts Zine, Thimble Literary Journal and Free the Verse. She is a participant of Irish Theatre Institute’s Six in the Virtual Attic Artists Supports Programme (2023-24). You can follow her on Instagram at @tnealonxox
Keev (Boyle Darby) Ó Baoill
Keev (Boyle Darby) Ó Baoill (They/He) is an Irish poet, writer, artist and researcher. His work explores the affectual realities of mundanity. In particular, how mundanity is navigate through embodied experiences of transness and how the affectual reality of those mundane experiences might impact our capacities to build resilience and form resistance through trans, t4t community and relationships. Keev is the Co-founder of tinycrowdcollective (@tinycrowdzine). Their work has been published by SEXTANT, Channel Mag, Powder Press, The Places Zine and Gay Community News, among others. You can find him and their work @keevobaoill on Instagram and @kvrbyrl on Twitter.
Louis Perron
Louis Perron is *every* thirty-something musician and artist from Montréal who likes to walk and bike. When he’s not feeding the insufferable yet hip hive-mind smokey scotch whiskey and weird books, he is either playing with his band S T O U T, teaching beginner guitar classes at Vanier College, or cosplaying as an adult who works at a financial institution. He also enjoys arguing about urban design and taking photos of fun looking buildings. Please Note: Louis is fuelled by home-made flatbread pizza and should be kept away from pub quiz nights unless you like, want to totally lose.
Pravasan Pillay
Pravasan Pillay is a South African writer who now lives in Sweden. He has published two poetry chapbooks, Glumlazi (2009) and 30 Poems (2015), as well as a collection of co-written comedic short stories, Shaggy (2013). His short story collection Chatsworth was published in 2018, and was translated into Swedish in 2020. His latest publication is a chapbook of short stories, Aiyo! (2023).
Virginia Reebs
Virginia was born and raised in Ottawa. She enjoys word-based board games, yoga and weightlifting and has a dog named Wyatt. She is vegetarian and looks forward to puttering around in her garden in the summer.
Lennie Roeber-Tsiongas
Lennie Roeber-Tsiongas is a writer and musician currently based in Los Angeles, CA. She recently graduated from McGill University, where she studied Psychology and Environment. She has written for Counterpoint Music Magazine, Montreal’s CKUT Radio Station blog, and you can find more of her published work online at vignetta.substack.com.
David Segaert
David Segaert is a freelance procrastinator from Ottawa, winner of 43 Golden Globes, and Eastern Ontario's only registered Jedi.
Lena Shumnaya
Lena Shumnaya is an autofiction and creative non-fiction writer from St. Petersburg. She is travelling the world and writes about life. The author of the «Letters from Seoul", has several published works, including the foreign zines. Member of the WLAG community
Stelios Tigkas
Hello w0rld! My name is Stelios. I am an information security geek. I am very interested in music, animal welfare, philosophy and health. I spend most of my time leading the Greenbridge project - a nonprofit initiative aiming to bring the computer security, creative arts and animal welfare communities closer to each other.
Terry Trowbridge
Researcher & farmer Terry Trowbridge’s poems are in Carousel, Lascaux Review, Kolkata Arts, Leere Mitte, untethered, Snakeskin Poetry, Progenitor, Nashwaak Review, Orbis, Pinhole, Big Windows, Muleskinner, Brittle Star, Mathematical Intelligencer, Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, New Note, Hearth and Coffin, Synchronized Chaos, Delta Poetry Review, Literary Veganism and ~100 more. His lit crit is in BeZine, Erato, Amsterdam Review, Ariel, British Columbia Review, Hamilton Arts& Letters, Episteme, Studies in Social Justice, Rampike, and The /t3mz/ Review. HisErdös number is 5.Terry is grateful to the Ontario Arts Councilfor his first writing grant.
Stephan Walke
Stephan Walke lives in the Yukon spending time between the traditional territories of the First Nations of Na-Cho Nyäk Dun (Mayo) and Kwanlin Dün and Ta’an Kwäch’än Council (Whitehorse). He's been writing poetry and whatnot since highschool, learned a great many things from brilliant writers and thinkers during his time in Newfoundland between 2010 and 2017 and continues to learn a great many things from the lands he is privileged to live on and the people who have kept them for countless generations.
Liam Walke
Liam was born and raised in Ottawa, Canada. He’s lived in a variety of places that never felt quite like home. He’s been reading and writing since he could read and write; running since he could walk, and railing and bubbling since he could talk. Usually in awe, but also usually at a loss (or a glut) of words to express his feelings, he’s trying to make writing a practice again. So thank you for reading.
