June Freeman Baswell, a native of Greenville, South Carolina, lives and writes just a few miles from her birthplace. Her stories and poems have appeared in several small literary magazines including The Petigru Review, The moonShine Review, and Thema. In 2018, she placed second in the Carrie McCray competition for short fiction and third in poetry. In 2022, she received the Hub City/Emrys prize for fiction for her short story, “Scheherazade.” Endlessly curious, she loves to make people laugh. She is currently revising a comic, romantic, metafictional fantasy novel, inspired by the work of Flann O’Brien, but having little resemblance to it. Ever the optimist, she already has a sequel in the works.

Evelyn Berry (she/her) is a trans, Southern editor, educator, and agitator. She’s the author of the forthcoming debut poetry collection Grief Slut (Sundress Publications, 2024) and poetry chapbook Buggery, winner of the 2020 BOOM Chapbook Prize from Bateau Press. Evelyn is the recipient of a 2023 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Creative Writing, 2022 Dr. Linda Veldheer Memorial Prize, and 2019 Broad River Prize for Prose, among other honors. Her work has appeared in beestung, South Carolina Review, Raleigh Review, Drunk Monkeys, Taco Bell Quarterly, and elsewhere. She lives in South Carolina.

Sydney Bollinger (she/her) is a writer, editor, and the Words Lead at Peregrine Coast Press. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Northwest Review, Grimsy Literary Magazine, Hash Journal, Dunes Review, Hear Us Scream, This Present Former Glory, and other places. She performed original poetry in “Collective Truths” at the 2022 Free Verse Poetry Festival and is a featured reader for the 2023 Park Circle Pride Poetry event. Her first zine, Death Wish, was published in 2023. She lives in Charleston, SC, with her partner and their two cats. Follow her @sydboll and find her work at sydboll.com. 

Michael Bose spent his childhood building elaborate stories full of ninjas and space wizards with his small lego collection. A true exemplar of education, Michael was often found rushing through his classwork to curl up in the back of the classroom and read. Thankfully, he grew out of that habit, and is now fresh out of college with a bachelor’s degree in English, working two day jobs to pay the bills while writing hard to get into Masters programs. When he’s not doing that, some say that he can be found lounging on his back porch in the suburbs of South Carolina, working on his novel and a dozen other side projects, scribbling tall tales of steampunk cities, mystical martial artists, and all things weird and majestical. 

Jayne Bowers, a retired instructor from two of South Carolina’s technical colleges, was too busy working and raising three amazing children to do much writing in her younger years. She retired after forty years and wrote Eve’s Sisters and several self-published books including a family history, a “how to succeed in college” primer, and two anthologies with her local (Camden) writing group. Jayne has had articles and stories published in moonShine Review, The Main Street Rag, The Petigru Review, the Ensign, and Guideposts. Prizes? Only one—first place winner in the 2016 Carrie McCray Nonfiction category.

Colin Burch is a senior lecturer in English at Coastal Carolina University, where he teaches, edits Waccamaw: A Journal of Contemporary Literature, and advises undergraduate student media. He spent 11 years in newspapers as a reporter and editor, including stints as business editor and features editor at The Sun News in Myrtle Beach, S.C. In 2008, he completed his MFA in Creative Nonfiction at Queens University in Charlotte. He freelanced columns for the Weekly Surge from 2006 to 2013. He has published poems in Iodine and New Mirage Journal, flash fiction in Ironology 2015, and travel articles in several newspapers.

Benjamin Culbreth is a freelance writer who works for multiple corporate clients and news publications. His work has appeared in The Summerville Journal Scene, Georgetown Times, South Carolina Living, and The Southern Edge. He also writes essays, non-fiction, and human interest stories. He now resides in West Columbia, South Carolina. 

Brittany Davis (She/They) is a lesbian, transfemme poet and fiction writer operating out of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. She is currently working towards her MA in Writing at Coastal Carolina University, with plans to pursue an MFA after graduation. Her work has previously appeared in Cerasus, TEMPO, and Archarios, and she has pieces forthcoming in publications such as Beyond Queer Words and Grimsy. She was also named a finalist for the 2023 Tobias Wolff Award for Fiction. When not writing about horrible monsters or lesbians kissing, Brittany enjoys sudoku, Dungeons & Dragons, and spending too much money on trading card games.

Paul Davis is a prize-winning journalist and Brown University graduate. As a freelance writer and reporter, he has written for large and small newspapers, from the Tampa Tribune to The New York Times. At the Providence Journal, he chaired the newspaper’s in-house writing committee. The Journal submitted his series on the Rhode Island-South Carolina slave trade for a Pulitzer Prize. He helped launch the Historical Writers of America before joining the SCWA board. He lives in Aiken, where he works as a book coach and freelance writer. He is a 2021 Porter Fleming Literary Competition winner for nonfiction.

Mary Alice Dixon grew up in Carolina red clay and Appalachian coal dust. She has been a popcorn waitress and a professor of architectural and landscape history, a Pushcart nominee, Best Short Fiction nominee, and Pinesong award winner. In 2023 the NC Poetry Society named her a Poet Laureate Award finalist. Her writing appears in Fourth River, Kakalak, Main Street Rag, moonShine Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Stonecoast Review, and elsewhere. Mary Alice lives in Charlotte, NC where she gardens with cow manure, and communes with trees and the ghosts of her dead cats, Alice B. Toklas and Thomas Merton. 

W. Keith Everett is a writer and Social Studies teacher whose work has appeared in Swimming World magazine and thirty book reviews in Military Review, Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin, and Infantry Journal. He was fired from the Army Reserves as a Lieutenant Colonel after 32 years and ten months and was fired from Immigration Customs Enforcement, where he served variously as a Border Patrol Agent, Special Operations Inspector, Criminal Investigator, and Assistant Field Office Director after 26 years.  He is currently teaching at Cane Bay high school in Summerville and lives in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina area. 

Ginny Foard wonders about a lot. What might it be like to live through different things or to see things from another angle? She recently reread the memoir of a family friend and Clemson graduate, Willis Hastings, who spent the last nine months of World War II as a prisoner of war. It led to her piece, “Carrying.” For Ginny, stories sometimes unexpectedly bring us wisdom for life in a bumpy world.

Virginia “Ginny” Hall-Apicella spent over thirty years as a practicing psychologist in New York before retiring to Beaufort, South Carolina. From a career of listening to the narratives of countless people and, with her own as avocation as a voracious reader, she has “thousands of stories and lifetimes surging in her head.” She is completing a historical novel based on her eighteenth century emigrant family. When not writing stories, Ginny enjoys playing competitive croquet, painting, walking, and traveling to far-off, exotic places. Her other loves are her husband of almost fifty years, her three children, and her four grandchildren.

Jennifer Wade Hesse won’t tell her daughter how old she is. But suffice it to say she’s old enough to have interesting experiences to write about and young enough (at heart) to think she might still be able to learn some new tricks. A middle school Gifted and Talented teacher from Louisville, Kentucky, Jennifer is also a step-mom, mother, dog mom and devoted wife who does everything with her full heart if not full attention. She’s thrilled to be included in this issue and looks forward to continuing the search for the right word.

Mary Lash (she/her) is the author of Love and the TSA, a finalist in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards; A Roller Coaster Down, runner-up in the Young Adult category of the Eric Hoffer Book Award; and a nonfiction case study, The Desert Murders: How Junk Science, Witness Contamination, and Arizona Politics Condemned an Innocent Man. Her stories have appeared in MoonShine Review and Catfish Stew. She has worked as an advertising copywriter, a production editor for agricultural engineering publications, and an adult-education teacher. She lives in Piedmont, South Carolina. 

Robert Leventhal was a sales and marketing executive for the O-Cedar Vining cleaning products company for 19 years. In 2001, he combined his MBA and his Masters in Jewish Education to create a unique synagogue consulting practice for over 20 years at the Alban Institute and as Director of Leadership for United Synagogue. He is the author of Byachad: Synagogue Board Development and Stepping Forward Together: Synagogue Visioning and Planning. He recently finished a memoir, Swept Away: From Family Broom Business to Synagogue Consulting. He is currently working on a book of poetry called “Bob’s Memory Chest.” He is married to Carolyn Reinach Wolf who is a health care attorney. They split their time between Manhattan, NY and Charleston, SC.

Amy Lyons has had work published in several places, including Autofocus, Rejection Letters, Waxwing, Prime Number, HAD, Flash Frog, BULL, Literary Mama, No Contact, Lunch Ticket, Schuylkill Valley Journal, FRiGG, and Best Microfiction 2022. She’s an alum of Vermont Studio Center, Millay Colony, and Tin House. She holds an MFA from Bennington.

Dennis Masino jokes that a law degree and experience as an associate professor teaching law is all it takes to become a freelance writer. A book deal from the folks at Thomson Reuters may have helped a little, but he calls it “a fun ride” that has lasted for 15 years. Nonfiction pays the bills, but fiction has always been his true love and secret passion, as evidenced by stacks of notebooks filled with bits and pieces of short stories waiting to be completed. A step toward completing some of those stores came this year as a flash fiction course enrollment given as a birthday gift. He is excited and grateful for this opportunity to share “The Gathering” with you.

​​Michael McIntyre is a life-long resident of the Charleston area, and has a bachelors degree from the University of South Carolina Beaufort. He got his start writing songs then transitioned into fiction, non-fiction, plays, comics, and poetry. He has had pieces published in The Pen, Humanitas, and Charleston’s Free Time. He currently lives in downtown Charleston with his wife, Amy, and their Australian Shepherds, Bruce and Bowie, named after Springsteen and David, respectively.

Selena Mendoza (she/her) is a recent graduate of the Master of Arts in Writing program at Coastal Carolina University where she also served as Poetry Co-Editor for Waccamaw Journal. She is the recipient of the 27th Paul Rice Poetry Broadside Award, and her written work has been previously published in Tempo Magazine. In her free time, she can be found organizing local open-mic events for writers, taking her dog on nature walks, and enjoying South Carolina sunsets at the beach.

Patricia Moeller is a lover of all things barbell, weightlifting, canine, chemistry and family. Beneath the sunny Southern skies, she teaches high school science, Olympic weight lifts with her family of boys to men and listens to the music of her favorite star. With a propensity for hyperbole, Patricia’s perfect day would include hours of uninterrupted story time followed by chocolate, espresso and puppies culminating with a sweet submersion into family love. 

Yvette R. Murray is an award-winning poet and the author of Hush, Puppy (Finishing Line Press). She has been published in Chestnut Review, Emrys Journal, Litmosphere, A Gathering Together, and others. She is the 2022 Susan Laughter Meyers Weymouth Fellow, a 2021 Best New Poet selection, a Watering Hole Fellow, and a Pushcart Prize nominee.  Ms. Murray lives in Charleston, South Carolina. Find her on Twitter @MissYvettewrites.

J.E. Safa is a first generation Lebanese-American writer born and raised in Brooklyn, New York.  Her poems, essays and short stories appear in The Esthetic Apostle, Coffee & Crumbs, Rusted Radishes, Running WIld Press and elsewhere. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for her short story, “In the Heart of Mama’s Belly.” She currently resides in South Carolina where she is working on a short story collection and a memoir about her struggles with infertility through the lens of an Arab Muslim woman. 

Sally Sweatt is a Southern “Boomer” voice for women, writing fiction and essays with wit and warmth. Born in Charleston, South Carolina, on Folly Beach, her characters’ stories reflect her nostalgic love for her briny brothers and sisters of the Lowcountry. Stumbling through the ‘First Fifty’ and now dashing through the ‘Second Fifty,’ Sally began writing as a therapeutic hobby long ago and now hopes to find good homes for her generational stories about women, their childhood pitfalls, adult traps, affairs of the heart, and wild expectations of themselves and those they love.

Author D. Zink enjoys sharing moments of life integrated with nature, written from the perspective of strong characters driven by will and challenged by their circumstances. These experiences are portrayed in a range of settings. The author enjoys examining characters from multiple perspectives to build depth and shape interactions. This author comes from a technical background and, after enjoying writing as a hobby, is beginning to navigate the next steps as an author.

ISSUE 16 EDITOR

Amber Wheeler Bacon (she/her) is a writer whose work has appeared in Crazyhorse, Ecotone, Five Points, New Ohio Review, Prairie Schooner and Witness. You can find her writing online at Ploughshares, CRAFT and elsewhere. She’s the recipient of the 2018 Breakout Writers Prize from The Author’s Guild and a 2021 Bread Loaf scholarship. In 2020, her story collection was a finalist for Hub City Press’s C. Michael Curtis Short Story Book Prize and Moon City Press’s Short Fiction Award. She received the 2022 Lit/South Award for flash fiction and was a finalist for the 2023 Chautauqua Janus Prize, nominated by Ecotone Magazine. Amber has an MFA from Bennington College and teaches at Coastal Carolina University. She lives by the beach in Surfside.