12 or 20 (second series) questions with Alicia Swain

Alicia Swain is the author of Steel Slides and Yellow Walls, a feminist poetry collection releasing in August 2025. Her work has been featured in several online publications, including Vast Chasm and The Vehicle. Swain studied English at Penn State University and Eastern Illinois University. She can be found on her website at aliciaswain.com, on Bluesky as @aliciamswain.bsky.social, and on Instagram as @aliciamswain.   

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different? 

While there are many experiences to come still, the process of working with a publisher was eye-opening. It showed me my weak spots and what crutches I use to hide them, what words I have a habit of repeating and why, and what themes I bury in my work that I don’t always mean to include. Since editing Steel Slides and Yellow Walls, I’ve found myself exploring different poetic forms and writing far longer pieces than I did before. I think learning about what I did that worked, and what didn’t, allowed me to feel more confident and eager to try new things. The new collection I’ve written, but is not yet published, has a completely different feel to it.  

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction? 

I’ve been drawn to poetry since I was in middle school, which is when an English teacher really opened my eyes to it (thanks, Mrs. Troop!). Something about its concision and abstract nature speaks to me, and writing poetry comes more naturally than any other form of writing. I can write a poem on any day at any time, from the minute I wake up to seconds before I fall asleep.  

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes? 

When it comes to poetry, the ideas come quickly, but the organization comes slowly. The first draft will emerge, but when I read my work through for the first time, I often find unexpected threads and thematic connections. In a way, I like to let the ideas pour out as they arrive and worry about the rest later.  

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning? 

For my debut collection, Steel Slides and Yellow Walls, it was a matter of writing short pieces over time and eventually putting them into a collection. I’m certain I will do that again in the future, but the next collection I am working on is more chronological and was written with the intention of being a book from day one.  

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings? 

I enjoy doing readings, and I am actually seeking more opportunities to do them these days. One thing I’ve discovered, however, is that I need to approach work I intend to read aloud differently than work I intend to publish on paper. I love to play with form and use the placement of text on a page to add meaning, and that doesn’t always translate well aloud.   

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are? 

Feminist theory takes center stage in a lot of my work, in one way or another. I want to follow the threads that formed the cloth women are forced to wear because I want to find the knot holding it all together and untie it. It’s my hope that what I write can answer questions about the present and the future: how do we experience the systems in place? What can a woman achieve when she is not burdened by oppressive systems? What would it take to build a more idyllic world that’s built with equality in its roots?  

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be? 

I believe it’s the job of writers and artists to take risks and show the truth about our world without letting the fear of others dampen our message. In America, we are seeing a lot of book bans and threats that aim to silence the creative world. I think it’s up to writers to criticize loudly, to tell the stories of real people and their experiences, and to craft paths forward because our creativity and our ability to portray new ideas has power.  

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)? 

I love working with an editor. Like any art form, writing gets interpreted by people that don’t know my mind or my intentions. An outside editor can come in and see where my intentions are getting lost and what opportunities I missed. Every opportunity I have to work with an editor, I emerge with new ideas and feel inspired. I welcome critique. I know everything I do won’t be effective the first time around, and that’s okay.  

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)? 

When I was in college, I took a course with Robin Becker. She was tough as nails and asked every poet to take the course as seriously as they would take any other subject. I adored her, and, to this day, still think about what I learned from her. That advice, to take art seriously and treat it as respectfully as one would calculus or physics, gave me a laser focus and shaped me moving forward.  

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to non-fiction to fiction to drama)? What do you see as the appeal? 

I think writing other genres teaches me to be a better poet, but I also think being a poet shapes my narrative style with prose. I am working on a speculative fiction novel, and how I choose to approach describing setting or a character’s experience is often rooted in poetic language. That said, learning to branch out and shift from brevity to a more uninhibited structure requires some serious mental exercise. I notice that I tend to focus on either a larger poetry project or my novel, but never both at once, because it is too challenging to switch modes. When I return to the other genre, everything feels fresh, and I have a renewed outlook on how to approach the work.  

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin? 

I should have more of a routine than I do. I have a habit of starting poems when I get up and get ready in the morning, so it’s integrated in my regular routine in a way. I’ll jot down lines in my Notes app and come back to it later in the evening. Saturdays are the only time I get to fully immerse myself in writing for as many hours as I would like, and so it’s my favorite day of the week.  

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration? 

For better or for worse, when I feel stuck on a piece, I start something new. A new project is always invigorating. This sometimes means, as in the case with my novel, that a project doesn’t get finished for some time, but when I return to it, I have a new perspective and fresh eyes.  

13 - What was your last Hallowe'en costume? 

I’ll be honest, I haven’t dressed up in several years! COVID definitely changed that for me. I did buy all the needed pieces to embody Galadriel for an evening a couple years back, so it’s high time I broke that out.  

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art? 

Nature and visual art inspire a lot of my work. I have an ekphrastic chapbook searching for its home as we speak, so I have a lot of love for writing inspired by art. As for nature, I draw connections between our lives as humans and the ways of nature very regularly, including in Steel Slides and Yellow Walls. It’s my goal to find myself back in a mountainous, rural area to soak in the natural beauty and let it guide my hand.  

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work? 

For many years, I read only speculative fiction and poetry for pleasure. At this point in my life, however, I find nonfiction important for my work because it allows me to immerse myself in subjects that align with what I am currently writing about. Since difficult topics like sexual violence and homophobia are very present in what I’m writing now, I’ve been reading works like Is Rape a Crime? by Michelle Bowdler, The Stonewall Reader by the New York Public Library, and, currently, Missoula by Jon Krakauer.  

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done? 

I am determined to find an agent for my speculative fiction novel. I love poetry and frequently abandon prose projects to satisfy my curiosity about new poetry ideas, but I really want to see through finishing and publishing a novel traditionally.  

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer? 

A piece of me wishes I pursued law school. I love tearing apart the language of a document and finding its weak points, pondering the art of persuasion, and fighting for what I believe in. Whenever I read about or watch a movie about a lawyer that uses their knowledge and skill set to improve people’s lives, I feel so inspired and wish I could do the same. The justice system is flawed, and lawyers are essential for helping people navigate its complexities.  

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else? 

While it’s not all I do for a living, writing is my passion and has always been. Putting words to paper comes more naturally to me than any other means of expression or any other subject. When I went to college, I tried to fight that at first. I thought I might be a psychologist or an engineer, but I knew, deep in my heart, that writing and literature were what I loved and wanted to spend my life surrounded with.  

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film? 

This is tough because I’ve been reading a lot of stellar books lately. I would say The 272 by Rachel L. Swarns and, like so many people are talking about right now, James by Percival Everett are two that have really stuck with me. As for film, I haven’t been watching many movies lately because I’ve been watching a lot of series at home. I finally got my husband to watch Breaking Bad recently, which was fun to revisit.  

20 - What are you currently working on? 

I am currently sending out a poetry collection about endometriosis and an ekphrastic chapbook to publishers to find a home for them. Steel Slides and Yellow Walls and some of my volunteer work has been taking a lot of my free time lately, but I am trying to return to my novel to get a full round of editing completed and get it one step closer to query-ready.  

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Ongoing notes: the ottawa small press book fair (part two : Pearl Pirie, Sacha Archer + STUMPT 7 + issue eight,

[nina jane drystek, jwcurry + Chris Johnson doing the first of their two sound performances mid-fair]

[see the first part of these notes here]

Toronto ON/rural QC: From Quebec poet Pearl Pirie comes the chapbook we astronauts (Pinhole Poetry, 2025), a title the acknowledgements suggest “could be considered a sequel to Sex in Sevens (above/ground, Sept. 2016).” With a poetics that includes collage-movement and haiku, this small collection again works Pirie’s own familiar forms while expanding her nuance, her repertoire, of poetic assemblage, collision, sketch-notes and density. “inside the exquisite loss of everything / except where skin knows sweat,” begins the poem “vacation day,” “time and all else will be someone else’s problem, / here is birdsong and wave crash, // eyelash and breath, lips as if warmed silk / and a hiking up onto one elbow.” Her phrases almost read accumulatively, with the slight disconnect between each one, allowing the poem to exist in the collision between descriptive phrases. What amuses, as well, is Pirie’s further inclusion into the ongoing “Sex at 31” series [see my own notes on the origins of the project here, and my participation in same], her “sex at fifty,” a two-page poem that opens with “perhaps I have seen my last / set of menstrual cramps. // I never needed to collect / the whole bleeding set.” and ends with the couplet: “eight minutes until a / teleconferencing call.”

light on your feet

how did it take decades
for the full moon to catch
you, the sun? your sunspots,
your corona flare of backlit hair
the dinner plate of light
on your chest, and your
shoulder blades as you
rise to turn down the heat
at 9pm, the moonlight is
music scoring your ribs,
and hip notch,
slips with my eyes
down to the horizon
of your fine, sculpted
delectable ankles, arches.

Hamilton ON/Achill, Co. Mayo, Ireland: There is a beautiful compactness to Hamilton (formerly Burlington) poet, publisher, editor Sacha Archer’s latest, the delicately-lovely Second Sight (Ireland: Redfoxpress, April 2025), a title subtitled “(36 Masks)” and produced as a hardcover edition, number 214 in the “C’est mon dada” series, a “collection for visual poetry, experimental texts and works influenced by Dada and Fluxus.” I’m fascinated by these blends of handwritten text and physical object, image, stitch and erasure, and would want to hear far more on his process around such a project, and how far he might take such structures in subsequent work. And while the production for such an object is wonderfully graceful, I do hope there is an opportunity to see these works in larger renderings at some point. As the introduction to the collection offers:

The work of Second Sight repurposes facsimiles of so-called famous/canonical MSS to create masks in what is both a gesture of looking backward and forward. While reconsidering the manuscripts themselves, their relevance and legibility (handwriting and content) to the contemporary reader, the act of creating masks transforms the MSS into surface matter or, raw material, which is to say, the concrete. The mask, being a loaded tool both for its intended use as a transformative piece of costume and for its trans-cultural historical presence, not to mention the colonial exoticization of African masks met in Modernism, primarily in the work of Picasso, makes of the mask a powerful vessel for a leap of faith which is the blind gesture forward, concretizing the MSS via cutting and the addition of banal (read totemic) objects into masks which cannot be worn, but which may reveal.

Stuart Ross, Proper Tales Press

Kingston ON: If you’ve never encountered any publications from Kingston writer, editor and publisher Michael e. Casteels, through his Puddles of Sky Press, I would highly recommend: at any small press fair you might encounter Casteels at his table, quietly staping, cutting, folding and assembling small publications throughout the day, throughout the afternoon. Two of his latest include the envelope STUMPT 7 (64 copies; June 2025) and the Japanese-sewn STUMPT issue eight (60 copies; June 2025), all hand-stamped (echoing jwcurry’s own infamous production, through his 1cent series and other productions via Room 302 Books) by the publisher himself. There is a kind of care, an attention, to publications and processes such as these that photocopied items are simply unable to replicate: consider that this is not sixty-some copies of a single poem, but sixty-some times the publisher hand-printed each poem, each line, in the same way on each slice of carved paper. One has to admire the patience, and the attention, as well as the craft. STUMPT 7 is made up of three poems on cards, one per card: an untitled poem by Hamilton writer Gary Barwin, BC poet Dale Tracy’s “Soft Growth,” and Kingston poet Allison Chisholm’s “Attachment Unavailable,” which I photographed, below:

Most small press publications are very good at offering different elements of pieces by emerging, and established writers, and Casteels works a very nice balance as well, but working from a far different pool of writers than might ever appear across mainstream publishing. STUMPT issue eight, produced with hand-sewn binding, offers a poem each by Keaton Studebaker, John Grey, John Repp, daniel f. bradley, and, on the back cover, which I photographed, below, this piece by David Romanda:
 

dusie : the tuesday poem,

The Tuesday poem is more than a dozen years old, with new poems by more than six hundred six hundred and thirty-nine different authors since April 9, 2013. For those unaware, I've been curating this weekly poem series over at the dusie blog, an offshoot of the online poetry journal Dusie (http://www.dusie.org/), edited/published by American poet and publisher Susana Gardner.

http://dusie.blogspot.ca/

The series aims to publish a mix of authors from the dusie kollektiv, as well as Canadian and international poets, ranging from emerging to the well established. Over the next few weeks and months, watch for new work by dusies and non-dusies alike, including Michael Chang, R. Kolewe, Ashley D. Escobar, Colin Browne, Paul Ryudo Lampert, Diana Manole, arien wolf, Ronna Bloom, Babar Khan, Conal Smiley, Marita Dachsel, Kit-Xgwelemc Kennedy, Mark Laba, Chris Johnson, Nicole Mae, Eva Haas, Jamella Hagen, Ian Lockaby, Sunnylyn Ballard Thibodeaux, Holly Loveday and Jenna Jarvis, among many others.

And submissions to this series remain open: send poem(s) and bio as .doc w photo to rob_mclennan (at) hotmail (dot) com with subject line: "tuesday poem submission"

A new poem will appear every Tuesday afternoon, Central European Summer Time, just after lunch (which is 7/8am in Central Canada terms).

If you wish to receive notices for poems as they appear, sign up here for the weekly email list.

So far, the Tuesday poem series has featured new writing by Elizabeth Robinson, Megan Kaminski, Marcus McCann, Hoa Nguyen, Stephen Collis, j/j hastain, David W. McFadden, Edward Smallfield, Erín Moure,Roland Prevost, Maria Damon, Rae Armantrout, Jenna Butler, Cameron Anstee, Sarah Rosenthal, Kathryn MacLeod, Camille Martin, Pattie McCarthy, Stephen Brockwell, Rosmarie Waldrop, Nicole Markotić, Deborah Poe, Ken Belford, Hugh Thomas, nathan dueck, Hailey Higdon, Stephanie Bolster, Jessica Smith,Mark Cochrane, Amanda Earl, Robert Swereda, Colin Smith, Sarah Mangold, Joe Blades, Maxine Chernoff,Peter Jaeger, Dennis Cooley, Louise Bak, Phil Hall, Fenn Stewart, derek beaulieu, Susan Briante, Adeena Karasick, Marthe Reed, Brecken Hancock, Lea Graham, D.G. Jones, Monty Reid, Karen Mac Cormack, Elizabeth Willis, Susan Elmslie, Paul Vermeersch, Susan M. Schultz, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, K.I. Press,Méira Cook, Rachel Moritz, Kemeny Babineau, Gil McElroy, Geoffrey Nutter, Lisa Samuels, Dan Thomas-Glass, Judith Copithorne, Deborah Meadows, Meredith Quartermain, William Allegrezza, nikki reimer,Hillary Gravendyck, Catherine Wagner,Stan Rogal, Sarah de Leeuw, Tsering Wangmo Dhompa, Arielle Greenberg, lary timewell, Norma Cole, Paul Hoover, Emily Carr, Kate Schapira, Johanna Skibsrud, Joshua Marie Wilkinson, Richard Froude, Marilyn Irwin, Carrie Olivia Adams, Aaron Tucker,Mercedes Eng, Jean Donnelly, Pearl Pirie, Valerie Coulton, Lesley Yalen, Andy Weaver, Christine Stewart,Susan Lewis, Kate Greenstreet, ryan fitzpatrick, Amish Trivedi, Lola Lemire Tostevin, Lina ramona Vitkauskas, Nikki Sheppy, N.W. Lea, Barbara Henning, Chus Pato (trans Erín Moure), Stephen Cain, Lucy Ives, William Hawkins, Jan Zwicky, Rusty Morrison, Jon Boisvert, Helen Hajnoczky, Steven Heighton,Jennifer Kronovet, Ray Hsu, Steve McOrmond, Lily Brown, Daniel Scott Tysdal, Beth Bachmann, Harold Abramowitz, Sarah Burgoyne, David James Brock, Elizabeth Treadwell, Shannon Maguire, Mary Austin Speaker, Victor Coleman, Charles Bernstein, Jennifer K Dick, Eric Schmaltz, Kayla Czaga, Paige Taggart,Hugh Behm-Steinberg, Lillian Necakov, Liz Howard, Jamie Reid, Jennifer Londry, Rachel Loden, a rawlings, Jenny Haysom, Jake Kennedy, Beverly Dahlen, Kristjana Gunnars, Eleni Zisimatos, Pete Smith,Julie Carr, Natalee Caple, Anne Boyer, Alice Burdick, Buck Downs, Phinder Dulai, Bronwen Tate, Ashley-Elizabeth Best, Nelson Ball, Laura Sims, Cassidy McFazdean, Paul Zits, Geoffrey Young, Michael Sikkema,Renée Sarojini Saklikar, Emily Izsak, Michael Ruby, Kemeny Babineau, Mairéad Byrne, Amy Bagwell, Jamie Sharpe, Dina Del Bucchia, Endi Bogue Hartigan, Claire Lacey, George Bowering, Muriel Leung,Michael Lithgow, Brynne Rebele-Henry, Kate Hargreaves, Carrie Hunter, Jennifer Baker, Rita Wong, Kristina Drake, Sonnet L’Abbé, Montana Ray, Farid Matuk, Michael Cavuto, Mark Truscott, Virginia Konchan, Christine Stewart and Ted Byrne, Chris Martin, Jason Christie, Marie Buck, George Stanley, Sean Braune, Natalie Lyalin, Donato Mancini, Shannon Bramer, Anne Cecelia Holmes, Kiki Petrosino, Emily Abendroth, Melissa Bull, Barbara Langhorst, Suzanne Zelazo, Aaron McCollough, Éireann Lorsung, Alexandra Oliver, Klara du Plessis, Daphne Marlatt, CAConrad, Sarah Dowling, Sara Renee Marshall, Sarah Fox, Nyla Matuk, Cody-Rose Clevidence, Brian Henderson, Adrienne Gruber, bp sutton, Laura Walker, Jessica Popeski,Collier Nogues, Mark Goldstein, Zach Savich, Jacqueline Valencia, Gerry Shikatani, Jennifer Stella, Matthew Henriksen, Sharon Thesen, Sarah Cook, Eryk Wenziak, 신선영 Sun Yung Shin, Ander Monson, Carrie Etter, Sarah Moses, Julia Polyck-O’Neill, Aimee Herman, Christine Stoddard, Aaron Boothby, John Barton, Shazia Hafiz Ramji, Steve Venright, natalie hanna, Melissa Eleftherion, Adam Clay, Jennifer Zilm, Michelle Detorie, Kyle Flemmer, Biswamit Dwibedy, Rebecca Salazar, Ryan Eckes, Kate Siklosi, Lissa McLaughlin, Ashleigh Lambert, Shane Book, Anna Gurton-Wachter, James Meetze, Conor Mc Donnell, Jake Syersak, Domenica Martinello, Stephanie Grey, Christy Davids, Jay Ritchie, Katie Fowley, Emily Sanford, Geoffrey Nilson, Simina Banu, Marty Cain, Chelene Knight, Madhur Anand, Matthew Johnstone, Chia-Lun Chang, Andrew Wessels, Michael Martin Shea, Kimberly Quiogue Andrews and Sarah Blake, Lance La Rocque, Callie Garnet, Kerry Gilbert, Laura Theobald, Felicia Zamora, Eléna Rivera, Christian Schlegel, Janet Kaplan, Stuart Ross, Beth Ayer, Laressa Dickey, Beni Xiao, Annick MacAskill, Jenna Lyn Albert, John Phillips, MC Hyland, Di Brandt, Anthony Etherin, M.H. Vanstone, Sommer Browning, Melanie Dennis Unrau, Madeleine Stratford, Liz Countryman, Jamie Townsend, nina jane drystek, Nicole Steinberg, Lauren Haldeman, Catherine Cafferty, Cath Morris, Kristi Maxwell, Shira Dentz, Taryn Hubbard, Joan Naviyuk Kane, Joel Robert Ferguson, Jane Virginia Rohrer, Elisha May Rubacha, Noah Falck, Rebecca Rustin, Seth Landman, Marvyne Jenoff, Mikko Harvey, Erin Emily Ann Vance, Michael Turner, Heather Sweeney, Tanis MacDonald, Evan Gray, Conyer Clayton, Laynie Browne, Timothy Otte, Tim Atkins, Erin Bedford, Alex Manley, Jen Sookfong Lee, Kirby, Emma Bolden, Ruth Daniell, Lindsay Turner, Brenda Brooks, Rob Winger, Jordan Davis, Avonlea Fotheringham, Winston Le, Diana Arterian, Manahil Bandukwala, Samuel Ace, Zane Koss, J.I. Kleinberg, Luke Bradford, Sadie McCarney, Shelly Harder, Samuel Strathman, Ariel Dawn, Arisa White, Ian Martin, Charles Rafferty, Andrew Cantrell, Terese Mason Pierre, Guy Birchard, Kimberly Campanello and Léonce Lupette, Franco Cortese, Dale Tracy, Lucy Dawkins, Shannon Quinn, Tom Snarsky, Aja Moore, Paul Perry, Erin Lyndal Martin, Alice Notley, katie o’brien, Chad Sweeney, Nicole Raziya Fong, Emily Lu, Henry Israeli, Jónína Kirton, MLA Chernoff, Wren Hanks, Catherine Graham, Geoffrey Olsen, Jami Macarty, David Groulx, Emmalea Russo, Kyle Kinaschuk, James Hawes, Anne Lesley Selcer, Amelia Does, Franklin Bruno, Matea Kulić, Breanna Ferguson, émilie kneifel, David Bradford, Trish Salah, Astra Papachristodoulou, Amy Parkes, K.B. Thors, JoAnna Novak, Jean Van Loon, Brandon Krieg, Jennifer Wortman, Kim Fahner, Cameron Gearen, Hamish Ballantyne, Diana S. Adams, Bill Carty, Khashayar Mohammadi, Allyson Paty, Mia Ayumi Malhotra, Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch, Ginny Threefoot, Mahaila Smith, Lloyd Wallace, Nicole McCarthy, Jérôme Melançon, Jessica Q. Stark, Jaime Forsythe, SJ Fowler, Emma Tilley, Jake Byrne, Kimberly Alidio, William Vallières, Cecilia Tanburri Stuart, Michael Edwards, Julia Drescher, James Lindsay, Edric Mesmer, Kat Cameron, Brandon Brown, kevin mcpherson eckhoff, Courtney Bates-Hardy, Barry Schwabsky, Tom Prime, Jennifer Falkner, luna ray hall, Endre Farkas, Gregory Betts, Kate Angus, Ren Pike, Helen Robertson, Jack Jung, Nate Logan, Natalie Rice, Emily Brandt, Christina Shah, David Buuck, Ellen Chang-Richardson, Benjamin Niespodziany, Katie Jean Shinkle, Ken Norris, Howie Good, Lesle Lewis, Jaclyn Piudik, Alexander Joseph, Alina Pleskova, Christopher Patton, Nathanael O’Reilly, AM Ringwalt, Allison Pitinii Davis, Carla Harris, Adam O. Davis, Camille Guthrie, Paul Pearson, Andrew Dubois, Trevor Wilkes, Liam Siemens, Saba Pakdel, Moira Walsh, Natalie Jane Edson, Monica Mody, Grant Wilkins, Maw Shein Win, Jade Wallace, Wayne Miller, Meghan Kemp-Gee, Katie Naughton, Julian Day, Evan Nicholls, Therese Estacion, Jessica Laser, Matt Robinson, Ayaz Pirani, Elizabeth Clark Wessel, Sue Bracken, Gregory Crosby, Roxanna Bennett, Jessie Janeshek, Leah Sandals, Lindsey Webb, Robert Hogg, Daniel Owen, Kimberley Orton, Colin Martin, Michael Boughn, Kate Bolton Bonnici, Joey Yearous-Algozin, James Yeary, Ellie Sawatzky, Sharmila Cohen, df parizeau, Shane Kowalski, Rose Maloukis, Andrew Gorin, Vivian Vavassis, Micah Ballard, Angeline Schellenberg, Robbie Chesick, Douglas Piccinnini, Sue J. Levon, Olive Andrews, Matthew Hanick, Ben Jahn, Mary Rykov, Phillip Crymble, Chris Kerr, Sarah Feldman, Ben Meyerson, Jaeyun Yoo, Kirstin Allio, Heather Cadsby, Ori Fienberg, Isla McLaughlin, Nathan Anderson, Margo LaPierre, Chris Banks, Joseph Kidney, Anna Zumbahlen, Jay Stefanik, Clare Thiessen, Kōan Brink, Simon Brown, Dessa Bayrock, Tolu Oloruntoba, Réka Nyitrai, Brad Aaron Modlin, Miranda Mellis, Guy Elston, Jon Cone, Robyn Schelenz, Tara Borin, Emma Rhodes, Peter Myers, Adam Katz, Jessica Gigot, Kyla Houbolt, Michael Betancourt, Isaac Pickell, Emily Tristan Jones, Russell Carisse, Amanda Deutch, Matthew Owen Gwathmey, Lori Anderson Moseman, Caelan Ernest, Kate Spencer, Adriana Oniță, Alana Solin, Eric Weiskott, Lynn McClory, Jason Heroux, Terri Witek, Colin Dardis, Tricia Eddy Woods, Erin Robinsong, Jason Emde, Jerome Sala, Ian LeTourneau, Sandra Ridley, John Levy, Alina Stefanescu, Brandon Shimoda, Yoyo Comay, Lydia Unsworth, Constance Hansen, Barbara Tomash, Ron Silliman, Nicholas Molbert, J-T Kelly, Margaret Ronda, Catherine Rockwood, William Cirocco, Elana Wolff, Iordanis Papadopoulos, Bruce Whiteman, Sonia Saikaley, Summer Brenner, Robert van Vliet, Lock Baillie, Anna Reckin, Kyle McKillop, Mark Valentine, Nico Vassilakis, Isabel Sobral Campos, Maya Clubine, Henry Gould, Noah Berlatsky, Charlene Kwiatkowski, Ted Landrum, Sarah Alcaide-Escue, Ian Seed, Beatrice Szymkowiak, Nicholas Bradley, Megan Nichols, Adam Beardsworth, Concetta Principe, John Elizabeth Stintzi, Asher Ghaffar, Maggie Burton, George Shelton, Gabriel Ojeda-Sague, Karl Jirgens, Naomi Foyle, Joel Chace, Tracy Quan, Neil Surkan, John Stiles, Katie Ebbitt, Patrick Grace, Dawn Macdonald, Marilyn Bowering, Han VanderHart, Joseph Donato, David Harrison Horton, Hannah Siden, Jillian Clasky, Steven Ross Smith, Nikki Wallschlaeger, Mari-Lou Rowley, David Currie, Charlie Petch and Dag T. Straumsvåg, Catriona Strang, Maria Hardin, Beth Follett, Beatriz Hausner, Alison Stone, George Murray, c. a. r. refuse, Carlos A. Pittella, Ellen Boyette, David Martin, Cara Goodwin,  Dominic Dulin, Larkin M. Higgins, Siân Killingsworth, Sean Howard, Louise Akers, Lillian Nećakov and Gary Barwin, Fiona Tinwei Lam, Jennifer May Newhook, Jill Stengel, Lisa Pasold, Marc Perez, Mandy Sandhu, Susan Gevirtz, Paul Corman-Roberts, and Lauren Peat.