Born and raised in East Los Angeles, Pat Alderete writes about the beauty and brutality of varrio life, rendering the complex inner worlds and strict social hierarchies of a community seldom observed in literature.  

Pablo Alvarez is first-generation Chicanx from Pico Rivera, California. He is grounded in collaborations that unearth the legacies of Latinx AIDS queer ancestry. He is an assistant professor in Women and Gender Studies and Queer Studies at CSUF.

Kimberly Esslinger is a poet and digital media artist. Her work has appeared in Spillway, Nerve Cowboy, and Chiron Review.

Yvonne M. Estrada is a poet, photographer, and Emergency Med Tech for the County of Los Angeles. She is the author of My Name on Top of Yours, a crown of sonnets that features her original photography. Her work has been widely published and anthologized.

Andy French is a music business executive with a B.A. in psychology from the University of Washington. His debut novel is set at the beginning of Seattle’s grunge music explosion and against the backdrop of the AIDS crisis.

Katherine Rupley lives in Long Beach, CA with her wife, Deb, and four cats. Her debut novel, Calculated Risk, was published by Bella Books in 2021. Her new book, Antarctica, will be published in March 2024.

Terry Wolverton is author of eleven books of poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction, including Embers, a novel in poems, and Insurgent Muse: art and life at the Woman’s Building, a memoir. Her twelfth book, Season of Eclipse, a novel, is forthcoming from Bella Books.