issue one

“When I Grow Up I Want to Be the Culmination of Things I Took for Granted” by Courtney LeBlanc

Courtney LeBlanc is the author of the four full-length collections, most recently Her Dark Everything. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Riot in Your Throat, an independent poetry press, and Poetry Coven, a monthly generative workshop. She loves nail polish, tattoos, and a soy latte each morning. Find her online at www.courtneyleblanc.com. 

“I want to be filled with light” by Stevie Edwards

Dr. Stevie Edwards is an Assistant Professor at Clemson University and Poetry Editor of The South Carolina Review. Stevie’s poems have appeared in Poetry, American Poetry Review, TriQuarterly, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. She is the author of Quiet Armor(Northwestern University Press, 2023), Sadness Workshop (Button Poetry, 2018), Humanly (Small Doggies Press, 2015), and Good Grief(Write Bloody Publishing, 2012). Her next book, The Weather Inside, is forthcoming from the University of Arkansas Press in Spring 2026 as part of the Miller Williams Poetry Series edited by Patricia Smith. She holds a PhD from the University of North Texas and an MFA from Cornell University. Originally a Michigander, she now lives in South Carolina with her spouse and a small herd of rescue pitbulls

“the mammy museum is closed” by Jaki Shelton Green

Jaki Shelton Green serves as the ninth and first African American Poet Laureate of North Carolina. Her recognitions include 2022-present Poetry Editor for WALTER Magazine, 2022- 2024 NC Museum of Art Poet Laureate in Residence, 2022 Forbes Magazine 50 Over 50 Lifestyle List, 2021 UNC Chapel Hill Frank B. Hanes Writer in Residence, 2019 Academy of American Poet Laureate Fellow, 2019 NC Humanities Council Caldwell Award, 2014 NC Literary Hall of Fame Inductee, 2009 NC Piedmont Laureate appointment, 2003 recipient of the North Carolina Award for Literature. She is the author of ten poetry collections, vinyl and cd recordings. Jali Shelton Green recently retired from teaching Documentary Poetry at the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies. Her business SistaWRITE provides writing retreats and creativity salons for women writers across the United States, Europe, and North Africa.

“unfamiliar dream” by Nicky Beer

Nicky Beer is a bi/queer writer, and the author of Real Phonies and Genuine Fakes(Milkweed, 2022), winner of the 2023 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Poetry. She has received honors from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, MacDowell, the Poetry Foundation, Ragdale, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She is a professor at the University of Colorado Denver, where she is a poetry editor for Copper Nickel.

“virginia creeper” by denton loving

Denton Loving’s third collection of poems is Feller, published by Mercer University Press. He is a co-founder and editor at EastOver Press and its literary journal Cutleaf. His fiction, poetry, essays and reviews have appeared in numerous publications including The Kenyon Review, Iron Horse Literary Review and Ecotone.