Hema Padhu is a writer and a marketer. Her short fiction has appeared in The Michigan Quarterly Review, The Common, New Letters, The Pinch, Fourteen Hills, Litro Magazine, and more. She was a finalist in the  2024 Narrative Story Contest and has received three Pushcart Nominations. She’s an alumnus of The Kenyon Workshop, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and The Napa Valley Conference. She lives in San Francisco and is working on a linked stories collection.

Allyson Noman is a first-generation Pakistani-Korean writer and artist with ties to New York City, Miami Beach, and much of California. Her work explores identity, love, and addiction. In addition to Sonoma County Writers Camp, she’s received support from the Tin House Workshops, Northern California Writers’ Retreat, and Napa Valley Writers Conference, amongst other programs. Her work has appeared in The Hellebore Press and on JancisRobinson.com. 

Julie Ushio is Japanese-American, raised in western Nebraska, now living in Hawaii. Her work appears in Bamboo Ridge, Noyo River Review, and Brevity Blog. She is currently working on a historical fiction novel. She writes about Issei pioneer women, first generation Japanese immigrants.  She’s drawn to exploring the challenges these women faced, how they blended and melded a new identity, and the strength and resolve they drew on from their native culture as they navigated life in a new country.

Diana Veiga is a Spelman woman, a DC resident, and a DC Public Library employee. Her short stories have been published in Barrelhouse, The Northern Virginia Review, The Rumpus, and Apogee. She is an inaugural member of Kimbilio, a Fellowship dedicated to developing, empowering and sustaining fiction writers from the African diaspora.  She was the 2021 One Story Adina Talve-Goodman Fellow. A comedienne and storyteller, her one-woman show, I’m Just Doing My Job, premiered at the 2022 Capital Fringe Festival. Learn more at dianaveiga.com

Tracy Hauff is an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota Tribe, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. She is a contributing writer to annual museum exhibits curated by the Center for American Indian Research and Native Studies and the author of the poems “Touch the Pen,” Articles of a Treaty; “The Sunflower,” The Gift; and “These Men,” which is forthcoming for The Corps of Discovery. Her children’s book, Far From the Forest, will be released in 2023 by Wiyounkihipi Productions. She resides on treaty land in the sacred Black Hills of South Dakota.

Lilly U. Nguyen is a writer and editor based in San Diego. She is the American-born daughter of Vietnamese boat people and is currently preparing a memoir-in-essays on the questions of inheritance, obligation, and the refugee self. Several essays are forthcoming in River Teeth and and The Southern Review. Her has been recognized by awards from PEN Emerging Voices and TinHouse. 

Lakeya Omogun, Ph.D. is a Nigerian and Black American woman. Growing up between both cultures and places shaped her views on womanhood.

She identifies an artist first, and her artistic nature is infused in all her work as a professor, writer, and speaker. Her core mission remains the same in each of these roles — shifting static ideas about identity, culture, and language. She does this work across educational, community, and digital spaces.

Lakeya is a big advocate for women building and living the life of their dreams. When she’s not busy working, you can find her in motion — on a plane to visit her favorite people and new places, in the gym, or on a long-distance run.

Tria Wen is a creative nonfiction and freelance writer whose work has appeared in the Washington Post, the NYT Now app, Narratively, and The Rumpus, among other places. 2021 California Arts Council Emerging Artist fellow, she is at work on a memoir manuscript, and is a founding editor of the Black Allyship column at Mochi Magazine. If literature is to be a representative record of our human existence, her goal as a writer and editor is to steward more stories from the margins to the page. You can find her on Instagram.

Jordynn Paz is Apsaalooké from Garryowen, Montana on the Crow Indian Reservation. She grew up dancing at powwows, watching movies with her family and reading everything she could get her hands on. She recently graduated from the University of Montana with her bachelor’s in journalism and Native American studies. It’s her goal to share Indigenous stories and experiences through writing. She hopes to get her MFA in fiction.

Born and raised in Cairo, Egypt, and a naturalized American citizen, Dina Mousa writes about the culture, heritage, mythologies, and folktales of Egypt.

Before coming to the US, Mousa lived in South Korea and traveled around Asia, where she indulged her love of food and culture. She now lives in San Diego with her partner and two wonderful cats.

Dina is a Young Cultural Innovator Fellow-Salzburg Global Seminar, an Artist-in-Residence at Headlands Center for the Arts, and a Writer-in-Residence at Banff Center for Arts & Creativity.