by Christine L Roland Christine L Roland is a Florida-based writer living with fibromyalgia. She teaches creative writing to high schoolers and is the former Editor in Chief for The Talon Review . Her creative work has appeared in Hellbender , Five on the Fifth , and Ignatian Literary Magazine , centers around themes of identity and agency, and invites readers to explore life’s perplexities via introspection.

by Gabe Montesanti “Lose Yourself” is an excerpt from my book, Drag Thing: A Memoir of Mania and Mirrors , (Arsenal Pulp Press, April 2026). The book chronicles my immersion in the drag scene in St. Louis, Missouri and the way in which my drag persona and my rapid- cycling mania gradually become indistinguishable from each other. This chapter takes place in the first half of the book when I am befriending Rocky B. Goode, a non-binary drag performer, contending with difficulti

by Brenna Womer Brenna Womer (she/they) is a queer, sober, childfree, Latine prose writer, poet, and artist. She's the author of two full-length collections, Unbrained (FlowerSong Press, 2023) and Honeypot (Spuyten Duyvil, 2019), and three chapbooks—most recently, Dear Mom (Petrichor, 2025). Her work across genres has appeared in North American Review , Blackbird , DIAGRAM , Pinch , Indiana Review , and elsewhere. She's an Assistant Professor of English teaching in the MFA p

by Catherine Garbinsky Catherine Garbinsky is a writer living in Knoxville, Tennessee, where they are a PhD candidate at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and serve as poetry co-editor for Grist . Catherine has written two chapbooks: All Spells Are Strong Here (Ghost City Press) and Even Curses End (Animal Heart Press), and her work has been featured in Yes Poetry, Coffin Bell Journal, and Cream City Review.