BREE is a poet and migraneur living in Farmland, USA. If you are a poet, she will be inviting you to a festival soon to take place in KY. The newly middle-aged editor founded Green Panda Press in Cleveland, OH 2001.
MILENKO (MILES) BUDIMIR’s newest book of poems is Licorice Heart (Roadside Press). He’s also the author of two poetry chapbooks; Departures (Burning River) and Rustbelt Romance (deep cleveland). During the daytime, he works as a philosophy lecturer and a technical writer and editor. At night, it’s anyone’s guess what he does, though it’s rumored that he tends to vegetable gardens, reads, and makes art, even occasionally playing drums with sketchy performance troupes.
TODD CIRILLO was born of bastard lineage. His books include: Sucker’s Paradise, Burning the Evidence, Roxy, Three for the Road, Kisses from a Straight Razor, Disposable Darlings and his latest Three Poets Walk Into a Bar. His poems have appeared in numerous national and international literary journals, magazines and on cocktail napkins everywhere. He is editor and co-founder of Six Ft. Swells Press and has hosted numerous poetry series and events across the United States. Todd lives in New Orleans, Louisiana where he seeks out shiny moments and strange wisdom while looking pretty. www.toddcirillo.com
JULIET COOK doesn’t fit inside an Easy-Bake Oven and rarely cooks. Her poetry has appeared in a peculiar multitude of literary publications. She is the author of numerous poetry chapbooks, most recently including “red flames burning out” (Grey Book Press, 2023), “Contorted Doom Conveyor” (Gutter Snob Books, 2023), “Your Mouth is Moving Backwards” (Ethel Zine & Micro Press, 2023), “REVOLTING” (Cul-de-sac of Blood, 2024), and “Blue Stingers Instead of Wings” (Pure Sleeze Press, 2025). You can find out more at https://julietcook.weebly.
A.S. COOMER is a writer & musician. He was commissioned a Kentucky Colonel for his social & literary work. Books include Memorabilia, Birth of a Monster, Songs for Leaving, The Flock Unseen, & many others. He runs Lost, Long Gone, Forgotten Records, a “record label” for Poetry.
CURTIS A. DEETER is an author of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. When he is not writing, he enjoys spending time with his family, discovering new music, and taste-testing craft beer at local breweries.
DAN DENTON is a former UAW chief steward, veteran of four dozen different factory jobs and current full time writer. His work has often been featured in magazines, union journals, and newspapers, and has been widely published amongst today’s best underground and independent writers. He is the author of the novel $100-A-Week Motel (Punk Hostage Press) the poetry/novella hybrid Finding Jesus & Prayers To My Saints (Gutter Snob Books) and The Dead and the Desperate (Roadside Press).
ALEATHIA DREHMER spends a lot of time thinking up new challenges for herself when writing poetry, but mostly, you can find her gardening, making fire cider and herbal teas, and messing around with astrology. She is the co-editor of Brian Fugett: Poems that is forthcoming from Citizens for Decent Literature Press. Aleathia is the author of seven chapbooks and currently has four collections of poetry available: Little Graveyards (Roadside Press), We Don’t Get to Write the Ending (Roadside Press), Looking for Wild Things (Impspired), and Layers of Half-Sung Hymns (Cajun Mutt Press). You can follow Aleathia’s journey at www.aleathiadrehmer.com
PELLA FELTON has never published a chapbook of her poems. Pella Felton has never had poems selected by a major literary journal. However, these facts have not stopped Pella baffling audiences all over Northwest Ohio with her lyrical, incisive, and reality-altering performances. In the last three years Pella has been a featured performer at dozens of literary events including Uncloistered Poetry, the Momentum Arts Festival, Toledo Fringe Festival, Cincinatti Improv, and most recently Intersectional Press’ Monthly Open Mic at Book Suey in Hamtramck MI. She also appears regularly with her comrades from the Appalachian Poetry Resistance Tour, and recently completed a 3 day poetry tour of the midwest with her friend Kyrsten Hodge.
Pella is also an accomplished media and performance scholar who has presented her research at the Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association, The Society for Cinema and Media Studies, and the Great Lakes Association of Sound Studies. In 2023 Pella Presented her Ted Talk “Transphilogyny: Filpping the Script on Transfemininity” as part of the Marvin Centers TEDx Conference at Bowling Green State University.
STEVE GOLDBERG lives by the mantra of faking it until he makes it, but with no intention of actually making it. He kicks back and enjoys the knowledge that he has scammed every employer he ever had with this creed by convincing them he was a competent engineer. To keep this skill sharp, he continues to practice in the poetry community of hometown Cleveland and beyond. His latest book, History is an Afterthought regretfully published by Luchador Press, proves that he is still a master of the game. Redemptively, his hugs are sincere.
In a yearbook somewhere in Wisconsin WESTLEY HEINE was voted most likely to be on the cover of People Magazine. From highschool he went straight to jail for using his fists rather than his words. Heine learned more behind bars than he did in Art School over the next four years. In college he rented himself out as a dark brooding boyfriend to young women turned on by existential angst over American football. When they learned the tortured poet thing wasn’t just an act he was left for dead. He is banned for life from the Los Vegas Strip for destruction of property. He moved to Los Angeles twice and both times he has been chewed up and spit out. After the housing market crash in 2008 he lived as a street musician squatting on the Westside of Chicago. He is now the Poet Laureate of drinking forties on Lower Wacker Drive. He has twice featured at the original Poetry Slam at The Green Mill where the crowd would heckle him for not being uplifting so he started his own open mic at The Gallery Cabaret encouraging all styles including the surreal and the grotesque. Once he slept in Central Park, saw God in Mexico, cursed in New Orleans, married in Austin, and honeymooned in Paris. He now lives in Chicago with his demons.
Westley Heine is the author of Busking Blues: Recollections of a Street Musician and Squatter (Roadside Press 2022), and a short story collection 12 Chicago Cabbies (Newington Blue Press 2021). Most recently Roadside Press has released a poetry collection Street Corner Spirits (2023), and a new collection of short stories and poems entitled Cloud Watching in the Inferno (2025), both of which have spoken word albums available on all streaming services. He is a member of the Society of Midland Authors, Pushcart Nominated, and was the poet chosen to represent Chicago and Illinois at the Route 66 Poetry and Arts Festival 2025.
W. JOE HOPPE has been doing readings since the mid-80s. He holds a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing from the University of Texas, and spent 25 years teaching English and Creative Writing at Austin Community College. In addition to publishing many chapbooks under his Lucky Tiger Press imprimatur, Dalton Press published his first full length poetry book, Galvanized, (2007), and OBSOLETE! Press has published his full length poetry book Diamond Plate (2012), chapbooks Hot Rod Golgotha (2020) and Trying Not to be a Nature Poet (2025). After over 30 years in Austin, TX, he returned to his home state of Michigan to help out his folks and work the family Xmas tree farm. He lives in Chelsea with his wife the artist P.S. Monear.
LORI JAKIELA is the author of eight books, most recently ALL SKATE: True Stories from Middle Life (Roadside 2025). Her work has been widely published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Brevity, Pittsburgh Magazine, Pittsburgh Quarterly, The Chicago Tribune and more. Her awards include The Saroyan Prize for International Literature from Stanford University, The City of Asylum-Pittsburgh Prize, The Wicked Woman Prize from Brickhouse Books, and more. She lives in Trafford, Pennsylvania, and teaches writing at The University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg and The Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. Her author website is http://lorijakiela.net.
KARL KOWESKI chooses not to define himself by the mutual animosity he shares with Billy Zane. If it were up to Karl Koweski, he’d want you to know that his latest collection of short stories, Thrift Store Jackets and his two full length poetry collections, Under Normal Conditions, and Abandoned By All Things, published by Roadside Press are far more culturally significant than all of Billy Zane’s abstract paintings combined. Karl Koweski doesn’t need to remind anybody that Billy Zane’s meager charisma is but the dim bulb of a child’s night light compared to the megawatt beacon of grooviness embodied by the man often referred to as The Polish Hammer. Karl Koweski (not Billy Zane).
JEN MCCONNELL has published prose and poetry in more than forty literary magazines and her work has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize. Recent short stories and flash fiction can be found in The Good Life Review, Burningword, Does it Have Pockets?, Bridge Eight and more. Her first story collection, Welcome, Anybody, was published by Press 53. She holds an MFA from Goddard College. A California native, she’s lived in the Midwest long enough that she should be used to the winters by now.
MICHELE MCDANNOLD has organized poetry events and/or performed poetry with a bunch of unabashed free-thinkers across this great United States, most happily by roadtrip but sometimes by plane, train or coincidence. She spends most of her time producing and publishing books, when she’s not out killing miles with her magical jeep. Stealing the Midnight from a Handful of Days (Punk Hostage Press) and By Plane, Train or Coincidence (Roadside Press) are her full-length poetry collections.
PATRICK MCGEE was born and raised in Toledo, Ohio. He moved to the Memphis area in September 2018. Patrick has been playing music professionally for twenty-five years. He has performed solo, accompanied other musicians and has performed in various bands, including a 70s R&B cover band and the performance art group Logic Alley.
Patrick currently lives in beautiful Byhalia, MS with his poet wife, their black cat and a dog that bites. He is quietly mastering the fine art of BBQ tacos.
JONIE MCINTIRE is the first female Poet Laureate of Lucas County, Ohio. Her most recent chapbook, Semidomesticated (re-released by Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2022) won Red Flag Poetry’s 2020 chapbook contest. Her prior chapbooks are Beyond the Sidewalk (Nightballet Press, 2017) and Not All Who Are Lost Wander (Finishing Line Press, 2016). She is poetry editor at Of Rust and Glass, Treasurer at Ohio Poetry Association, and hosts a monthly reading series called Uncloistered Poetry from Toledo, Ohio.
SHAWN MISENER lives and writes in Michigan. Since 2007 he has had over 250 stories and poems published, both in print and online. He is currently finishing work on his first novel.
TIM MURRAY(b. 1977) is a gifted flamenco dancer. His dream vacation is to visit Northwest Indiana. Talk to him in Ohio, and he’ll probably tell you more stuff.
DAVE NEWMAN, a recent Pushcart winner for fiction, is the author of ten books, including Better Than the Best American Poetry (Roadside Press, 2025) and the story collection She Throws Herself Forward to Stop the Fall (Roadside Press, 2024). His collection The Slaughterhouse Poems (White Gorilla Press, 2013) was named one of the best books of the year by L Magazine. He was a finalist for the Rattle Poetry Prize and won their Readers’ Choice Award in 2024. His poems, essays, and stories have appeared in magazines and journals around the world, including Ambit (U.K.), Tears In The Fence (U.K.), Gulf Stream, Belt, and the legendary Nerve Cowboy. He appeared in the PBS documentary narrated by Rick Sebak about Pittsburgh writers. Newman lives in Trafford, PA, the last town in the Electric Valley, with his wife, the writer Lori Jakiela. After a decade of working in medical research, he currently teaches in the Creative and Professional Writing Program at The University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg, his alma mater.
JOSH OLSEN is a librarian and a columnist for SlamWrestling.net. His latest book, Things You Never Knew Existed: Essays, is available from Roadside Press.
BOB PHILLIPS: Born 1945. High School, Navy, various jobs. Never owned a new car. It’s okay. Have 4 out-of -print chapbooks and lots of unpublished poems. Am working on 2 new books of poems.
HUNTOR PREY is a poet, hip hop artist, and writer from Toledo Ohio. Huntor’s artistry is aligned with activism, education, and mental health which are significant issues in his community. As a poet and music artist, Huntor has performed nationally with The Last Poets, Ed Mabrey, Talaam Acey, and opened for musical acts like Music Soulchild, Sa Roc, and Torae. He has also written and performed for various causes and organizations including the Fresh Water Initiative and the Toledo Mud Hens and Walleye (2020). His most recent work was with the Underground Railroad Whistle Stop Poetry Tour hosted by Poets Against Racism and Hate (2024).
MISTI RAINWATER-LITES shuffles tarot cards to keep the lights on and scribbles lines and makes sick beats to maintain a semblance of sanity while melting from triple digit heat and menopause in San Antonio, Texas. She does it all for the nookie so you can take that cookie and shove it up your ass.
LINDSEY RANKIN is alumni from the 2012 reading at the Collingwood where she met Brian Fugett in person and did her first reading ever AND was initiated into the world of “poetry bombs.” It’s been a minute, but Saturn is calling her back. Lindsey is a co-editor of the long dormant Kleft Jaw Press, and author of Blind Date at the Glass Eye Disco.
A native Toledoan, SANDRA RIVERS-GILL is an award-winning poet and teaching artist. Her most recent work is featured in anthologies; Sunflowers Rising: Poets for Peace, Where the Mountains Were and Traitor/Patriot: A Reflection of January 6th; and literary journals, ONE ART, Sheila-Na-Gig, Silver Birch Press, Rise Up Review, As It Ought To Be, and elsewhere. Her poetry collection, As We Cover Ourselves With Light, (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2023), was a finalist for the 2024 Eric Hoffer Book Award. www.sandrariversgill.com
DANNY SHOT’s Works was published in 2018 by CavanKerry Press. His new collection of poems The Jersey Slide will be published on November 1, 2025 also from CavanKerry Press. His prose, collected in Night Bird Flying was published in February 2025 by Roadside Press. Danny is a New Generation Beat Poet Laureate (2024-Lifetime), and Poet in Residence of the Hoboken Historical Museum. Danny Shot was the longtime publisher and editor of Long Shot arts and literary magazine, which he founded along with Eliot Katz in 1982 in New Brunswick, NJ. More information can be found on his website: dannyshot.com
RYAN SNELLMAN is a Sasquatch haunting the rainforests and coastlines of the PNW. Living on coffee and sorrow he imagines kindness in every raindrop and aches for the day when serenity eases into the day.
WILLIAM TAYLOR JR. lives and writes in San Francisco. He is the author of numerous books of poetry, and a volume of fiction. His work has been published widely in literary journals, including Rattle, The New York Quarterly, and The Chiron Review. He was a recipient of the 2013 Kathy Acker Award, and edited Cocky Moon: Selected Poems of Jack Micheline (Zeitgeist Press, 2014). His new poetry collection, The People Are Like Wolves to Me, is forthcoming from Roadside Press.
KERRY TRAUTMAN is a lifelong Ohioan whose work has appeared in numerous international anthologies and literary journals. She has served as judge or workshop leader for the Northwest region of Ohio’s “Poetry Out Loud” competition annually since 2016. In 2024, her one-act play “Mass” received a staged reading as a winner of The Toledo Repertoire Theater’s “Toledo Voices” competition. Her books are Things That Come in Boxes (King Craft Press 2012,) To Have Hoped (Finishing Line Press 2015,) Artifacts (NightBallet Press 2017,) To be Nonchalantly Alive (Kelsay Books 2020,) Marilyn: Self-Portrait, Oil on Canvas (Gutter Snob Books 2022,) Unknowable Things (Roadside Press 2022,) and Irregulars (Stanchion Books 2023.)
RICHARD VARGAS earned his B.A. at Cal State University, Long Beach, where he studied under Gerald Locklin and Richard Lee. He edited/published five issues of The Tequila Review, 1978-1980, and twelve issues of The Mas Tequila Review from 2010-2015. Vargas received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of New Mexico, 2010, where he workshopped his poems with Joy Harjo. Published collections: McLife, 2005; American Jesus, 2007; Guernica, revisited, 2014; How A Civilization Begins, 2022, and leaving a tip at the Blue Moon Motel, 2023. A sixth book, The Screw City Poems, was released in July 2025, Roadside Press. He has joined the editorial staff of the Chiron Review and currently resides in Wisconsin, near the lake where Otis Redding’s plane crashed. https://www.richardvargaspoet.com/