[Image Description: A brown-haired, brown-eyed sixtyish white man with a short graying beard, in a white polo shirt, looking at the camera with his head tilted slightly to his left, neither smiling, nor frowning.]

Michael Albright

Michael Albright has published poems in various journals, including decomP, Rogue Agent, Stirring, Rust + Moth, Tar River Poetry, Pembroke Magazine, Cider Press Review, Moon City Review, and the chapbook In the Hall of Dead Birds and Viking Tools. He lives on a windy hilltop near Greensburg, PA. with his wife Lori and an ever-changing array of children and other animals.

[Image Description: An Indonesian woman with short hair is seated in a top and dress, leaning forward and looking to her right, with cut tree trunks behind her in the background. The photograph is in black and white. Photo credit: Wasi Daniju.]

Khairani Barokka

Khairani Barokka is a writer, poet and artist based in London. Previously an NYU Tisch Departmental Fellow, Indonesia’s first Writer-in-Residence at Vermont Studio Center, and named a UNFPA Indonesian Young Leader Driving Social Change, Okka is currently a PhD Researcher at Goldsmiths in the Visual Cultures Department. She is the writer/performer/producer of, among others, a deaf-accessible, solo poetry/art show, Eve and Mary Are Having Coffee, Edinburgh Fringe’s only Indonesian representative in 2014. Published internationally in anthologies and journals, Okka has presented work extensively, in nine countries, and been awarded six residencies and various grants. Her works include Indigenous Species and co-editing Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back. Her first full-length poetry collection, Rope, will be published by Nine Arches Press in October 2017.

[Image Description: A white- and male-presenting figure stands with his head bent downward. He is wearing sunglasses and has shoulder-length hair that appears brown where shadows fall across it and bright blonde where the sunlight streaming in from an out-of-frame window. His clothes are black, green plaid, and gray. In the background, art supplies such as brushes and turpentine are visible, as well as the edges of brightly-painted canvases. The photo is taken at a striking angle and the figure is lined up with a door frame in the background.]

Carl Bowlby

Carl Bowlby was born and raised in the Berkshires, MA and currently resides there. He first attended college in 1990 at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY studying poetry and fiction, and then transferred to New York University where he took up painting, as well, in 1992. He graduated from NYU in 1995 with a B.A. in Independent Studies from The Gallatin School of Individualized Study. 

More of his work can be seen at: www.saatchiart.com/carlbowlbyart

Photo by Isabelle Chin. [Image Description: A female- and white-presenting person wears multiple orthotics: a neck brace, wrist, brace, knee brace, and ankle braces. They have shoulder-length brown hair and don a simple, black outfit. They stand defiantly in the middle of a pathway with dramatic tree shadows falling across the scene. They look directly at the camera.]

Kaitlyn Brennan

Kaitlyn (Katy) Brennan is a teenager living with multiple chronic illnesses including Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, Hemiplegic Migraines, and more. She uses her writing and photography to help spread awareness for her various conditions. She is also very involved in Best Buddies, Sign Language, JSA and Interact along with being a third grade cheerleading coach. You can find her writing on The Mighty and The Odyssey. Kaitlyn sends a special thank you to the amazing photographers, Isabelle Chin and Sophie Perry, who perfectly captured their photographs.

[Image Description: a black and white image of a black girl with her eyes closed and smiling in a field of grass.]

Lydia Flores

Lydia Flores is a writer and photographer from Harlem, New York. She holds a BA in studio art from UNCG & an MFA in creative writing from LIU Brooklyn. 

Her work has been featured in Downtown Brooklyn, Visceral Brooklyn, Crab Fat Magazine, Snapdragon Journal and several others. Find her at inlightofmysoul.com or @inlightofmysoul

[Image Description: A white genderqueer womxn standing in front of a white background. She has curly silver hair and is wearing a black dress. They are wearing red lipstick, red and gold eyeshadow, and winged eyeliner. There are three black dots under their left eye and a silver ring in their ear. She is balancing a light wooden cane over her shoulders.]

Torrin Greathouse

torrin a. greathouse (they/them or she/her pronouns) is a genderqueer, cripple-punk from Southern California. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Black Napkin Press. Their work is published or forthcoming in Bettering American Poetry, The Offing, Duende, Apogee, Frontier, Tinderbox, Lunch Ticket, Assaracus, and Glass: Journal of Poetry. She is a 2016 Best New Poets, and Pushcart Prize nominee, and semifinalist for the Adroit Poetry Prize. torrin’s first chapbook, Therǝ is a Case That I Ɐm, is forthcoming from Damaged Goods Press in  2017. 

[Image Description: A female- and white-presenting person sits on a motorized scooter. It is a sunny day, but the trees overhead cast shadows in speckled patterns over the human and the ground below. The person wears a wide-brimmed sun hat, sunglasses, a European-style scarf, and a bright pink shirt with long sleeves. They smile at the camera while grasping the handles of the scooter as if ready to peel out.]

Helen Harley

Helen Harley is a 49 year old disabled artist and disability blogger, living in Dorset, England.  She lives with ME, POTS, and chronic neuropathic pain.  Since she was old enough to hold a pen, drawing has been the language in which she expresses who she is and what she is experiencing. Her subject has always been intense emotion, expressed through vibrant colour. Her blog about life, art and ME is online at thechronicelephant.blogspot.co.uk.

[Image Description: An overhead shot of female- and white-presenting human with dark brown hair that is pulled back into a braid or pony tail. She is in a pool with her arms outspread and white light reflects off of her skin and the green-blue water. She wears a vibrant pink/red bathing suit.]

Tamara Hattis

Tamara Hattis is a mermaid. She has a B. A. in Communicative Disorders and Creative Writing from the University of Redlands in California, where she also did her graduate work in Communicative Disorders. Her poetry has been published in The Sand Canyon Review and Ghost Town Literary Magazine. Her art has been published in Incandescent Mind and can be found at facebook.com/tamarahattisart.

[Image Description: The photograph of Samantha captures a slightly right side-profile of a young woman, from shoulders up, with dark curly hair, a minor scar through the right brow, and wearing only a simple tank-top. She gazes through thick lashes downward in seemingly deep thought, and a subtle grin is barely visible on the left side. Being in black and white, the photo is able to cast aside petty detail and can instead draw focus on the underlying emotion..]

Samantha Knight

Samantha Knight graduated from UBC, Okanagan, in 2014, specialized in English Literature and Creative Writing. Her primary career as a writer continues to help Samantha grow, as she hopes to become a published novelist; she is also a fitness instructor, teaching boxing and spin. Previous publications include various works of art and writing, including a university paper that raised awareness for mental health among the female population on campus; this was later converted into a public service announcement and was accepted to be aired on Shaw TV in 2013. Much of her work can be found on her blog: https://sknightwriting.wordpress.com/.

[Image Description: To the right of the picture's frame and seen from the shoulder up, a young white woman with naturally highlighted brown hair faces left toward a lake. The woman gazes away from the camera at a few islands that sit on the horizon. The day is cloudy, and the water and sky are a bluish grey. She wears red-rimmed glasses and a reddish t-shirt.]

River Kozhar

River Kozhar is the author of a teen fantasy novel and is seeking an agent for her second, a diverse new adult fantasy romance. She has 10+ publications in literary magazines, but “Secrets and Sleep” is her first published work of nonfiction. She is a disabled anthropologist and archaeologist and lives in Kingston, Ontario.

Photo by Rockin Ray. [Image Description: A high-contrast black-and-white image of a female performer, singing passionately into a microphone. Her skin and hair are pale and ghost-like, and her tattoos, jewelry, clothes and hairstyle bring to mind the post-punk/retro-goth alternative music scene.]

Donna Lynch

Donna Lynch is the co-founder and singer of the dark rock band, Ego Likeness, and a horror/ dark fiction novelist and poet. Her experiences with mental and chronic illness are regularly represented in her work. 
She lives in Maryland with her partner, artist and musician Steven Archer.

Music: egolikeness.com  //  Books: rawdogscreaming.com/authors/donna-lynch

[Image Description: A photograph of a white-presenting man with short brown hair and a brown beard. He's squinting, as if through sunlight. Behind him is an open road surrounded by trees.]

Elliot Lyngreen

I was born, raised, and schooled Catholic. I am a middle child of a very large mixed family. Stepsiblings and half sisters; a whole brother, and cousins upon cousins; not all blood, but all family. I am a 38-year--old electrical systems designer for a local engineering firm. Marvel music, sports, photography, films, etc. and have been writing since 15. I prose on mostly short pieces. Afflicted by an indescribable sickness, I try and aim to eliminate the idea of its definition as a frequent urgency manageable with dietary changes. Because it is so much more.

[Image Description: A close up photograph of a white woman with a dark brown curly bob, silver earrings, sunglasses, and a purple and gray patterned top. She's standing in front of red stage curtains under a spotlight.]

Emily K. Michael

Emily K. Michael is a blind poet, musician, and writing instructor from Jacksonville, FL. Her poetry and essays have appeared inWordgathering, The Hopper, The Deaf Poets Society, Nine Mile Magazine, The Fem, Disability Rhetoric, Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics, BREVITY’s Nonfiction Blog, Barriers and Belonging, AWP Writer’s Notebook, and Mosaics (Vol. 2). Emily’s work centers on ecology, disability, feminism, and music. Find her on Twitter (@ModwynEarendel) and watch her TEDx Talk, “The Confluence of Disability and Imagination.” 

[Image Description: A femme white person with short lavender hair smiles gently at the camera. She's wearing a black blazer, several gold necklaces, and a septum ring.]

Jesse Rice-Evans

Jesse Rice-Evans is a femme queer poet and steadfast Southerner. She cuts her own hair and teaches writing all over New York. Read her work in Scum, The Rain, Party, and Disaster Society, and in her collaborative poetry zine, "sundress comma fangs," among others, and reach her at jessericeevans@gmail.com.