The Guild Complex’s 35 Writers to Watch list celebrates the Guild’s 35+ years of innovative programming by featuring local writers whose careers represent the future of the literary arts in Chicago, and whose work reflects the spirit and values of the Guild Complex today. Names were put forth by our folks from the Guild’s diverse literary network of writers and organizers from across Chicago’s geographies and communities (and beyond).
Past “Writers to Watch” lists — curated to celebrate the Guild’s 25th and 30th anniversaries — have included such writers as Kenyatta Rogers, Kathleen Rooney, Tara Betts, Faisal Mohyuddin, Roger Reeves, Megan Stielstra, Jamila Woods, and Erika L. Sånchez.
Temperance
Aghamohammadi
Temperance Aghamohammadi is an Acolyte of the Exquisite. A trans Iranian-American poet, medium, and critic, she is the author of BATTALION SHAPED GIRL (DISCOUNT GUILLOTINE, 2025) and Behnt (New Delta Review, 2026), selected by Dorothea Lasky as the winner of The New Delta Review Chapbook Prize. Her work appears in The Kenyon Review, The Yale Review, New England Review, and elsewhere. She is currently an English PhD student at Northwestern University studying irruptive grammars in experimental film and letters, and an associate editor at RHINO Poetry.
Chris
Aldana
Christian Aldana is a Filipinx artist, educator, community organizer, and sometimes-drag-king based in Chicago. They are the author of the poetry collection, The Water We Swim In. Christian is the founder and co-organizer of Luya, a poetry organization that centers the voices of BIPOC artists. They want to live in a world free of imperialism, prisons, and police, where people don’t have to accept exploitation and enslavement just to survive. They write towards a world where we are all free.
Brian
Anderson
Brian Anderson has been a Webby Award-winning senior features editor, writer, and producer at VICE in New York City (2011-2019). More recently, Anderson did a stint as science editor at The Atlantic (2020), where he was part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning team for pandemic coverage, and was later a senior editor at Vox (2021-2022). His first book, LOUD AND CLEAR: The Grateful Dead’s Wall of Sound and the Quest for Audio Perfection, was released in June 2025 on St. Martin’s Press. It became an instant New York Times Bestseller. He currently teaches journalism at Northwestern University.
Jotham
Austin II
Jotham Austin, II, Ph.D. is a research associate professor at the University of Chicago and an author whose work blends science, identity, and the supernatural. His debut novel, Will You Still Love Me, If I Become Someone Else?, is a sci-fi psychological thriller exploring memory, identity, and transformation. His short Lives Matter explores inherited generational trauma through horror, appears in Red Line: Chicago Horror Stories.
Jotham also co-hosts the Rabbit Hole of Research podcast which explores science through the lens of sci-fi, pop-culture, horror and fantasy.
Jotham also serves on the board of the Chicago Writers Association. When not writing or recording in the Basement Studio, Jotham enjoys gardening, woodworking, and discovering new craft beers.
Connect with him at jothamaustin.com and find Rabbit Hole of Research Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
Mallory Raven-Ellen
Backstrom
Mallory Raven-Ellen Backstrom is the founder and creator of Fairy Tales for Sunkissed Women, a collection of stories and artisanal products that bridge magic and matter, ritual and romance, shadow work and narrative alchemy. An award-winning playwright, author, illustrator, and intuitive healer. Her play, Cephianne’s Reflection, received the prestigious L. Arnold Weissberger New Play Award and the Jay Harris Commission from Williamstown Theatre Festival, where she is also an artist-in-residence. An alumna of the Playwrights’ Unit at Goodman Theatre, she developed her work in both Future Labs and The New Stages Festival. Hailed by Forbes Magazine for “redefining what it means to be a playwright-entrepreneur.” Mallory has received the Chicago Esteemed Artist Award, the B2B Arts grant, is a 3Arts Make-A-Wave awardee, and a Chicago Dramatists Tutterow Fellow. She was the inaugural Sullivan Playwright-in-Residence at the University of Illinois. The Story Theatre, Sideshow Theatre, The Athena Project, and The New Coordinates Theatre have supported her work. “A craftsman of the English language,” Windy City Reviews praised her debut novel, Reasons for Being. Going on to say, “Mallory’s writing is as clear and beautiful as springtime in a meadow. You inhale the delicate natural musk to make it a part of your very being.” Her children’s book, Let’s Catch a Happily Ever After, is the first in her collection of Fairy Tales for Starkissed Children. Connect with her @fairytalesforsunkissedwomen and www.fairytalesforsunkissedwomen.com. A poetic worldbuilder, her passion for storytelling, diverse representation, mindfulness, and mysticism shines through the universes she conjures on the page, stage, and canvas.
Joss
Barton
Joss Barton is a writer, journalist, and spoken word performance artist exploring and documenting queer and trans* life, love, and liberation. Her work blends femme-fever dreams over the soundtrack of the American nightmare. Combining prose poetry, non-fiction confessional essays, drag artistry, and spoken word stage performances, Joss examines the myriad states of queer trans womanhoods from historical, political, and pop cultural identities of death, desires, dreams, and disco.
She currently curates Transvengence: A Transgender Performance Showcase in Chicago, and her first book of poems Goodbye To A Dream Believed! Is forthcoming from FuturePoem Press in 2026.
Rowan
Beaird
Rowan Beaird is a fiction writer whose work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, and The Common, among others. She is the recipient of the Ploughshares Emerging Writer Award, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart. She has received scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and StoryStudio, and she currently works at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her first novel, The Divorcées, was named a best book by Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, People, The Independent, and the Chicago Review of Books. Her second novel, Tenderness, will be published in July 2026.
Tina Jenkins
Bell
Tina Jenkins Bell is a published fiction writer, playwright, freelance journalist, and literary activist. She has had numerous short works published in journals and anthologies, including “Kaiko,” The Overturning anthology (2025), “The Avalon Haint,” Redline: Chicago Horror Stories, “To the Moon and Back,” Hypertext Journal, which was nominated for an Illinois Arts Council award and “Swimming,” Jet Fuel Review, which was selected as best small fiction by Somber Press and nominated as best short fiction on the web. “The Visit,” Re-Living Mythology received a favorable write up in the Publisher’s Weekly, and in 2023 National League of American Pen, Inc. competition, Bell’s work was a Top Ten Finalist. A playwright, two of Bell’s plays, Cut the Baby in Half and A Conversation with Lorraine Hansberry and Gwendolyn Brooks, a collaborative piece were produced as staged readings at the Green Line Performing Arts Center and the Chicago Humanities Festival, respectively. Bell is currently finishing the novel manuscript, Down and Dirty in Kosciusko, Mississippi and her play, Death of a Marriage, is a part of Definition Theater’s Amplify New Plays Program. Bell conducts writing workshops regionally. Her generative writing and critique workshops have helped writers create, get effective critiques, and get published. As a co-founder of FLOW (For Love of Writing), Bell has collaborated with numerous writing and arts organizations, authors, and bookstores to offer literary programming in Chicago’s underserved communities. Bell recently started a critique circle, called The Write Jam.
Felix
Browne
Felix Browne is a producer and artistic creator in Chicago whose work explores multimedia protest extravaganzas. They have worked for nearly a decade in nonprofit administration, gaining extensive experience with cross-departmental collaboration, community outreach, public programming, grants management, and data-driven storytelling. Their creative, professional and educational experiences have been guided by my mission to empower Black, Trans, and Queer people and cultivate spaces where BTQ voices and experiences are heard and respected.
Letrice
Buckingham
Le’Trice Buckingham is a Chicago based multi-disciplinary artist whose practice weaves together visual art, storytelling, and poetry to subvert and conjure. Her work has been featured in literary journals, exhibitions, and community-based art initiatives.
Drawing from oral traditions, folklore and lived experiences, Buckingham infuses her storytelling with rhythm, movement and
historical resonance. With acrylic paint on canvas, she creates spaces for reimagining through bold abstract imagery and layered symbolism. More on her work can be found at Artconjure.com
Taylor
Byas
Dr. Taylor Byas, Ph.D. is a Black Chicago native currently living in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she is a Features Editor for The Rumpus, an Editorial Advisor for Jackleg Press, a member of the Beloit Poetry Journal Editorial Board, and a Poetry Editor-at-Large for Texas Review Press. Her debut full-length, I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times from Soft Skull Press, won the 2023 Maya Angelou Book Award, the 2023 Chicago Review of Books Award in Poetry, and the 2024 Ohioana Book Award in Poetry. Her second full-length, Resting Bitch Face (2025), is a September pick for Roxane Gay’s Audacious Book Club. She is also a coeditor of The Southern Poetry Anthology, Vol X: Alabama, from Texas Review Press, and Poemhood: Our Black Revival, a YA anthology from HarperCollins. She is represented by Noah Grey Rosenzweig at Triangle House Literary.
MJ
Dean
MJ Dean is a Chicago-based writer, originally. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in RHINO Poetry, Sobotka Literary Magazine, Hooligan Magazine, and elsewhere. Her work has also been commissioned by the Goodman Theatre and Poetry Foundation for the Play on Words program. She is a founding member of the Family Resemblance performance series, and a collaborator with Exhibit B: A Literary Variety Show. She earned their MFA in Creative Writing from DePaul University.
Noa
Fields
Noa Micaela Fields is an echodeviant enjambment queen (translation: trans poet with hearing aids). Her debut collection E is out from Nightboat Books. You can also find her writing in Anomaly, Poem of the Day, Sixty Inches From Center, Tripwire, and Zoeglossia, among other places. She lives in Chicago, where she curates readings at the Poetry Foundation, edits for trans youth literary magazine Chrysalis, and disemvowels on the dance floor.
Rocio
Franco
Rocío Franco is a Chicana poet born and raised in Chicago. She holds fellowships from The Watering Hole, Roots Wounds Words, and Periplus Collective. The following organizations have supported her work: the Frost Place, The Lighthouse Writers Workshop, VONA, Tin House, and Storystudio Chicago. She is a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee. Her poems have appeared in The Acentos Review, Exposition Review, Lunch Ticket, L@tino Literatures Journal, AGNI, Chicago Reader, Newcity magazine, Milwaukee Avenue Messenger, and others. Her debut chapbook, Where the Monarchs Never Die, won the 2025 Arcana Poetry Press Chapbook Contest. You can connect with her work on Instagram at @chio_la_chingona and on her website, rociofranco.com.
Benji
Hart
Benji Hart is an interdisciplinary artist, author, and educator whose words have appeared in anthologies from Oxford University Press, Beacon Press, Haymarket Books, Pluto Press, and been published in Hammer & Hope, Time, Teen Vogue, The Funambulist, and elsewhere. They have led popular education and arts-based workshops for organizations internationally, including Dissenters, the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, SisterSong, and Interrupting Criminalization, and been a featured presenter at the American Repertory Theater, the Race & Performance Lab at the University of Virginia, the Barnard Center for Research on Women, and the National Museum of African American History & Culture. Their performances have been shown at the Seattle Art Museum, OUTsider Fest, Steppenwolf, and Den Frie. They have received support from the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography, Yaddo, MacDowell, and Chicago Dancemakers Forum. They were born and raised in Massachusetts, and are based in the Bronzeville neighborhood.
Marcy Rae
Henry
Marcy Rae Henry is a multidisciplinary Xicana artist originally from the Borderlands. She is the author of death is a mariachi (Bauhan Press), winner of the May Sarton NH Poetry Prize and CHIRBy (Chicago Review of Books) finalist, when to go to the Taj Mahal (Bottlecap Press), the body is where it all begins (Querencia Press), dream life of night owls (Open Country Press), winner of the Open Country Chapbook Contest, and We Are Primary Colors (DoubleCross Press). Her work has received a Chicago Community Arts Assistance Grant, an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship, four Pushcart nominations, first prize in Suburbia’s Novel Excerpt Contest and Kaveh Akbar selected her fiction collection as a finalist for the George Garrett Fiction Prize. MRae is professor of English, literature and creative writing at Wilbur Wright College, a Hispanic Serving Institution, and a senior editor for RHINO. She is a digital minimalist with no social media accounts. See work at: https://www.pw.org/directory/writers/marcy_rae_henry and marcyraehenry.com
Fei
Hernandez
féi iká shumarí (b.1993, Chihuahua, Mexico) is a two spirit/trans woman, (un)documented writer, performance artist, and graphic designer. She is a 2023 Lambda Literary fellow and 2022 Tin House Scholar. féi is the author of HOOD CRIATURA (Sundress Publications, 2020), the forthcoming (UN)DOCU MENTE (Noemi Press, 2027) and CHABÓCHI DOLL (Abode Press, 2026). féi’s poetry/ prose is published in Los Angeles Review of Books, POETRY, Academy of American Poets, Hayden Ferry’s Review, Oxford Review of Books, TransLash Media, Somewhere we are Human( Harper Collins, 2022), Here to Stay (Harper Collins, 2024), Split This Rock, F News Magazine, and more. féi is descendent of the Pi’ma, Rarámuri, and Cora peoples. To stay up to date with her writing suscribe to feiikashumari.Substack.com. For more of her projects, designs, services and products visit: feiikashumari.com
Ann
Hudson
Ann Hudson is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Subtraction Isn’t Always Less (Next Page Press, 2024). She has received residencies from Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Midwest Writing Center, and was the finalist for a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg poetry prize. Ann is a senior editor for the poetry journal Rhino and a teaching artist and Director of Education for Hive Center for the Book Arts in Evanston, Illinois.
I.S.
Jones
I.S. Jones is the author of Bloodmercy, chosen by Nicole Sealey as the winner of the 2025 APR / Honickman First Book Prize and the chapbook Spells of My Name, selected by Newfound in 2021 for their Emerging Writers Series. Currently, she is a Senior Editor for Poetry Northwest, where she runs her column, The Legacy Suite, a three-part interview documenting the journey of writers publishing their debut poetry collections. Her works have appeared in Granta, LA Review of Books, Guernica, Prairie Schooner, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. While she has lived in many places across the U.S., she gratefully calls Chicago home.
Nakiyah T.M.
Jordan
Nakiyah T.M. Jordan is a performer, poet, and painter from southern Mississippi.
The figure—as well as things that mimic it—and language—how it shows up in our bodies—is the fulcrum of Nakiyah’s work, both written and visual. It is always of the body and the tongue.
She is a founding member of Family Resemblance, an ensemble member of The Neo-Futurists, a collaborator with Every House Has a Door, and a member of Exhibit B: A Literary Variety Show. Nakiyah is the curator of literary performances, PENDULUM and GAMES. Her written work has appeared in Places to Spit by TEMPER Press. Nakiyah holds an MFA in Writing from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA with an emphasis in painting from the University of Mississippi.
Matt
Kelsey
Matthew Kelsey is from Glens Falls, NY, and currently lives in Chicago, where he teaches for the Kenyon Review Young Writers Program and Hive Center for the Book Arts, and volunteers for RHINO. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Copper Nickel, Colorado Review, and elsewhere, and he co-authored a joke book for National Geographic Kids in 2018. Matthew has received scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and a Writers Week Fellowship from Idyllwild Arts.
LP
Kindred
LP Kindred is a Chicagoan-Angeleno writer, musician, teaching artist, culture worker, and podcaster creating speculative fiction at the axes of Black and Queer Identities. An alum of Hurston-Wright, VONA, and Clarion Foundation Workshops, Kindred’s words appear in Carnegie Hall’s website for its 2022 Afrofuturism Festival, LeVar Burton Reads, Fiyah Literary Magazine, Apex Magazine, Tor.com, EscapePod, PodCastle, Speculative City, and Anathema Spec from the Margins. LP is a co-host of Just Keep Writing, “a podcast for writers, by writers, to keep you writing” which nears 200 episodes. Kindred is a cocoa-founder of Voodoonauts, a grassroots collective addressing the underrepresentation and isolation of Black Creatives in speculative fiction. He’s a 3x Ignyte Award nominee for his fiction (Wanderlust, ANATHEMA SPEC FROM THE MARGINS 2023) as well as community work with Voodoonauts and co-editing alongside other founders VOODDOONATUS PRESENTS: (RE)LIVING MYTHOLOGY (Android Press, 2022). LP Kindred is in his “Year of Novella,” which includes analysis of published mid-form, drafting mutliple mid-form projects, as well as contributing to a craft book on the topic with Angeleno Horror Writer/Instructor, Kate Maruyama. LP returned to Chicago in 2024 to joyously redefine his relationship to the city that made him.
Roy
Kinsey
Roy Kinsey is an anomaly when it comes to tradition in his respective industries. Where being a black, queer-identified, rapper, and librarian may be an intimidating choice for some, Roy Kinsey’s non-conformist ideology has informed his poignant releases, BLACKIE: A Story by Roy Kinsey, Kinsey: A Memoir, and most recently 3 RINGS. KINSEY: A Memoir, and Blackie: A Story by Roy Kinsey, capture the darkness of his shadow work, as sinister, yet sincere lyrics provide a potent musical performance by Kinsey. “Kinsey’s observations are strong on ‘Memoir,’; shaped by early traumas that threatened to debilitate his belief in himself as well as the abilities of his family. His music is the manifestation of a black queer man, coming of age in Chicago.” – Leor Galil Chicago Reader. Gracing the the cover of prominent publications like Chicago Reader, Chicago Tribune, Billboard, LA Times, NPR, WBEZ’s Vocalo, and WGCI to name a few, this coverage proves that Kinsey’s goal to preserve rap as a literary art form resonates. His contributions are offerings to the cannon of black queer literature, and hip hop. Kinsey’s visual for his record BSAYF (B****, She Ain’t You Friend), exploring black queer identity, friendship and spirituality, premiered at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), the Art Institute of Chicago, the Harold Washington Cultural Center and the Du sable Museum. Kinsey has shared his lyrics on the stages of the legendary Pritzker Pavilion at Millennium Park, the Silver Room Block Party, Pride at the Park in Grant Park, First Avenue in Minnesota, Thalia Hall, Soho House, Empty Bottle, and House of Blues.His professional development in librarianship has fueled his desire for self-examination, reporting his findings, in rhyme. He believes his creative works touch the hearts of many because it comes from the heart.
Charlie
Kolodziej
Charlie Kolodziej is a writer, journalist and big talker living in Chicago. Kolodziej’s reporting on everything from food trends to Chicago’s organizing scene has appeared in outlets like the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, Bon Appétit Magazine, the Chicago Reader, Block Club Chicago, and the South Side Weekly (among other pubs). They are the co-founder and managing editor of Write That Down!, a quarterly magazine capturing Chicago’s essence by collecting art and artifacts from people who call the city home. When they’re not writing, they’re busy cooking meals for their friends and avoiding practicing the drums—ba-dum tsh.
Nile
Lansana
Nile Lansana is an acclaimed interdisciplinary artist from the South Side of Chicago. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with BA degrees in Journalism and English – Creative Writing. He was a 3Arts Make A Wave Awardee in 2025. He won the UW-Madison Ronald Wallace Poetry Thesis Prize and the 2018 Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Awards. He was nominated for a 3Arts Teaching Artist Award and the inaugural Chicago Poet Laureate position. His Chicago Soul Poem premiered at Millenium Park as part of the inaugural Chicago Poet Laureate’s tenure. He is currently an inaugural awardee of the Healing Arts Chicago apprenticeship, teaching writing workshops at the Lawndale Mental Health Center. He holds fellowships from the Watering Hole, Roots Wounds Words, & Obsidian Foundation. He’s graced stages across the country, including Lollapalooza and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. His work has been published in American Gun: A Poem by 100 Chicagoans, Resisting Arrest: Poems to Stretch the Sky, & elsewhere. He has taught and mentored youth across the Midwest. He is a proud uncle and the oldest of four Black boys.
Annette
LePique
Annette LePique is a freelance writer based in Chicago. She has contributed to the Cleveland Review of Books, Frieze, Momus, and ArtReview. Annette is a board member at Sixty Inches from Center and writes frequently for NewCity’s Art and Literature sections. She is a member of the International Association of Art Critics and was the recipient of a Rabkin Prize for Arts Journalism in 2023.
Meghan
Malachi
Meghan Malachi is a poet and writer from The Bronx, New York. She is the first-place winner of the Spoon River Poetry Review 2022 Editor’s Prize Contest and runner-up of the 2024 Princemere Poetry Prize. She is the author of the chapbook The Autodidact (Ethel Zine & Micro Press, 2020). Her debut collection, No Lace Fronts in Iowa City, was selected by Allison Joseph as runner-up of Madville Publishing’s 2024 Arthur Smith Poetry Prize. She is an Associate Editor at RHINO. She lives in Chicago, Illinois.
Maya
Odim
Maya thinks deeply about the ways writing and movement are connected, and about the ways words move, can be moved and carry meaning. Maya received honorable mention in the 2024 Ruth Weiss Foundation Poetry Competition, has self published two chapbooks: Planets, Gourds, and Traveling Staffs (2011) & Places Where We Can imagine (2014), and been published in the Performance Response Journal, F News Magazine and the Chicago DanceMakers Forum Blog, and for multiple years has been honored to be a reader for the Gwendolyn Brooks Youth Poetry Awards and received a Chicago Performance Lab residency summer 2025. Along with working as a Poet in Residence with the Chicago Poetry Center, Maya is a lecturer in English at Roosevelt University & Theater and Performance Studies at the University of Chicago. If the music is right, you’ll catch Maya in the cypher (with a pen, in tennis shoes or barefoot).
Pidgeon
Pagonis
Pidgeon Pagonis, M.A. (Chicago, IL) has worked for over a decade as an intersex advocate, speaker, consultant, photographer and filmmaker to shed light on the human rights violations endured by intersex people. Their goal is to help end the non-consensual irreversible medical procedures meant to discipline unruly intersex bodies. Pidgeon’s accessible advocacy helps people complicate their preconceived binary notions about “biological differences”. Their work has been essential for those who want to show up for intersex people in their lives, but aren’t sure where to start. Whether advancing the intersex cause as the co-founder of the Intersex Justice Project (IJP), co-producing viral informational videos, creating art that centers intersex voices, appearing on the cover of National Geographic “Gender Revolution” special issue or being honored as a LGBT Champion of Change in by the Obama White House, Pidgeon has staked out a place at the fore of debates on intersexuality. In 2020, IJP’s #EndIntersexSurgery campaign succeeded in getting Lurie Children’s to become the first hospital in the nation to apologize and halt surgeries. Their memoir Nobody Needs to Know was published in 2023 by Little A Press.
Noel
Quinones
Noel Quiñones is an Emmy and O. Henry award-winning Nuyorican writer, educator, and speaker from the Bronx. Their work has been published in Poetry, Boston Review, Poem-a-day, and The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNEXT anthology, as well as the Michigan Quarterly Review, for which they won the 2025 Jesmyn Ward Fiction Prize. Their short story, “This Time and the Next” will be included in The Best Short Stories 2026: The O. Henry Prize Winners. They have also received fellowships from CantoMundo, Lambda Literary, the Poetry Foundation, the Watering Hole, and the Vermont Studio Center. A graduate of the University of Mississippi’s MFA program and founder of Project X, a Bronx-based spoken word poetry organization, Noel is currently a poet in residence with the Chicago Poetry Center. Their debut poetry collection, Orange, is forthcoming in May, 2026 from CavanKerry Press. Follow Noel at www.noelpquinones.com.
Julian David
Randall
Julian Randall is the author of six books across three genres, most recently the middle grade novel in verse, Shook (Holt Books for Young Readers, 2026).
Author of Refuse (University of Pittsburgh, 2018), Pilar Ramirez and the Escape from Zafa (Holt Books for Young Readers, 2022), Pilar Ramirez and the Curse of San Zenon (HBYR, 2023), The Dead Don’t Need Reminding (Bold Type Books, 2024), The Chainbreakers (HBYR, 2024) Shook (HBYR, 8/9/2026)
https://juliandavidrandall.com/
Heather Byrd
Roberts
Heather ‘Byrd’ is the founder of Byrd’s World Publishing, named a Living Legacy by Brooks Permissions, is an ancestral guided international award-winning poet and esteemed writing coach, and a catalyst of voice, story, and badassery. She is a giver of giggles and hugs, the queen of quirky, and the editor of the forthcoming anthology all about our LIBERATION, author of the guided journal Igniting Ink: 30-Day Writing Journey and her chapbook, Mahogany: A Love Letter To Black. Byrd’s accomplishments extend far and wide, including being celebrated in numerous festivals and publications, including Cagibi, Expressions from Englewood, Hope Ignited, and Trouble The Waters: Tales from the Deep Blue – a finalist for the World Fantasy Award and Locus Award. She has been recognized for her editorial and curation of the diversity, equity, and inclusion edition of the “I See You” issue of the Cornell Report, earning her the International Anthem Award alongside industry giants like Google, HBO Max, BBC, National Geographic, and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. In a world that needs amplification for the voices of women of color, Byrd ensures each person is heard, celebrated, and seen. Her favorite words are balloon and bubble.
Jim
Stewart III
James Stewart III is a Black writer and arts organizer from Chicago. His debut novel, Defiant Acts (Acre Books, 2025), has been named one of Chicago Magazine’s 2025 Summer “Required Reading” picks. He was also named to Newcity’s 2025 Lit 50 list, recognizing influential voices in Chicago’s literary culture. His writing has appeared in journals including Lampblack, The Forge, and Midwest Review. Additionally, he is a co-founder of the reading series and artist collective Exhibit B. Stewart holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, an MA from North Central College, and lives with his wife and daughter at the end of DuSable Lake Shore Drive. www.jamesstewart3.com.
Marisa
Tirado
Marisa Tirado is a writer and educator from Chicago. In 2022 Marisa published Selena Didn’t Know Spanish Either with Texas Review Press, and featured in The Atlantic, VOGUE, HipLatina, and The Poetry Foundation. Marisa studied poetry and literary translation at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her poems are featured in The Iowa Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. Follow her on Instagram at @marisatirado.
Czaerra
Ucol
Czaerra Galicinao Ucol is a queer Filipino writer from Chicago. Their debut poetry collection Pisces Urges was published by Sampaguita Press in 2023, and they are the Co-Director of Luya, a local grassroots poetry organization centering people of color.