Robert J. Williams is the author of Strivers and Other Stories, winner of the 2016 Washington Writers’ Publishing House (WWPH) Fiction Prize. His work has also appeared in the Callaloo literary journal. A 2024 Kimbilio Fiction Fellow, he is the recipient of four Larry Neal Writers’ Awards.

Sid Gold is the author of five books of poetry, including Very Eyes (Poets’ Choice, 2023) and Working Vocabulary (Washington Writers’ Publishing House, 1997, reissued in 2021). He is a twice recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award for Poetry, and his work has appeared in a variety of journals, reviews, and […]

Steven Leyva was born in New Orleans, Louisiana and raised in Houston, Texas. He is the author of The Understudy’s Handbook, which won the Jean Feldman Poetry Prize from Washington Writers’ Publishing House. His second book of poems, The Opposite of Cruelty, was published by Blair Publishing in spring 2025.

Suzanne Feldman received her Masters in Creative Writing from Johns Hopkins University. She is the author of five novels, including Absalom’s Daughters (Holt, 2016, starred review in Kirkus). In 2022, she was awarded a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council and won the Washington Writers’ Publishing House Fiction Prize for her short story collection […]

Varun Gauri was born in India and raised in the American Midwest. He now teaches at Princeton University and lives with his family in Bethesda, Maryland. His short fiction was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and recognized in Best American Nonrequired Reading. His debut novel, For the Blessings of Jupiter and Venus (WWPH 2024), won […]

Christopher Ankney’s first book of poems, Hearsay, won the Jean Feldman Prize from Washington Writers’ Publishing House and was a finalist for the 2015 Ohioana Prize for Poetry. His work has appeared in journals including Gulf Coast, Fourteen Hills, Hayden’s Ferry, Hunger Mountain, Linebreak, and Prairie Schooner. Raised in Defiance, Ohio, at the confluence of […]

Born in Baltimore, biologist, poet, and writer Myra Sklarew earned a BS in biology at Tufts University and an MA from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. She began her career in the sciences, conducting research at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Yale University School of Medicine. Sklarew’s poetry, previously published by Washington Writers’ […]

Miguel Avero is a poet, narrator, essayist, teacher, and researcher whose work has been translated into English and French. He writes literary reviews for the weekly Brecha and has appeared in various national and international anthologies. Since 2011, he has published nearly a dozen books of poetry and fiction. His first poetry collection in English, […]

Laura Fargas is a Washington, D.C. poet who practiced occupational safety and health law for 27 years. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, including Poetry and The Paris Review, and her most recent book is An Animal of the Sixth Day (Texas Tech University Press). She currently teaches at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda […]

Brandel France de Bravo’s third collection of poems, Locomotive Cathedral, was published in March 2025 by Backwaters Press, an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press. Her poems have recently appeared in Best American Poetry, 32 Poems, Barrow Street, Conduit, Southern Humanities Review, and elsewhere