Ananda Lima’s work has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Poets.org, Kenyon Review Online, Colorado Review, Rattle, Jubilat, The Common and elsewhere. She has an MA in Linguistics from UCLA and an MFA in Creative Writing in Fiction from Rutgers University, Newark. She has served as the poetry judge for the AWP Kurt Brown Prize, as staff at the Sewanee Writers Conference and as a mentor in the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Immigrant Artist Program. She has taught at UCLA, Montclair State University and Rutgers University. Her chapbook, Translation (Paper Nautilus, 2019), won the 2018 Vella Chapbook Contest.

Dorothy Rice is the author of two published memoirs, GRAY IS THE NEW BLACK (Otis Books, June 2019) and THE RELUCTANT ARTIST (Shanti Arts, 2015). Her personal essays and fiction have been published in dozens of journals and magazines, including The Rumpus, Brain, Child Magazine, The Saturday Evening Post, Hippocampus and the Brevity blog. An essay about her mother’s descent into Alzheimer’s was awarded second place in the 2018 Kalanithi Awards (honoring Paul Kalanithi, author of When Breath Becomes Air) and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart and Best of the Net. After raising five children and retiring from a career managing statewide environmental protection programs, Rice earned an MFA in Creative Writing from UC Riverside, Palm Desert, at 60. She is a certified Amherst Writers & Artists Method creative writing workshop facilitator and works for 916 Ink, a youth literacy nonprofit. You can find Dorothy at dorothyriceauthor.com, and on twitter at @dorothyrowena.

R.L. Maizes is the author of the short story collection WE LOVE ANDERSON COOPER (Celadon Books/Macmillan). Her novel, OTHER PEOPLE’S PETS (Celadon Books), is forthcoming July 14, 2020. Her fiction has aired on National Public Radio and has appeared in Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, Witness, Bellevue Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her nonfiction has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and has aired on NPR. Find her at RLMaizes.com and on Twitter @RL_Maizes. Photo credit: Adrianne Mathiowetz