A World Without Books

Kristina Moriconi is a poet, essayist, and visual artist whose work has appeared in Brevity, Cobalt Review, Lumina, Literary Mama, and elsewhere. She lives in Pittsburgh with her husband and two dogs. Her book, In the Cloakroom of Proper Musings: A Lyric Narrative, was published in August 2020.

Rhiannon Garrard is a criminology and policing student who broke out into literature with a paranormal murder mystery. Her books combine her favourite things in life: martial arts, policing and fantastical horror. Rhiannon is a huge fan of Gothic and sci-fi horror books, with horror classics like Frankenstein and Lovecraft's stories being a large influence on her work. She is currently a student with a side job as a special constable with Essex police.

Christina Chiu is the winner of the James Alan McPherson Award for her novel Beauty. She is also author of Troublemaker and Other Saints, published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons.  Troublemaker was a nominee for a BOMC Stephen Crane First Fiction Award, and winner of the Asian American Literary Award. Chiu has published in Tin House, The New Guard, Washington Square, The MacGuffin, Charlie Chan is Dead 2, Not the Only One, Washington Square, and has won literary prizes from Playboy, New Stone Circle, El Dorado Writers’ Guild, World Wide Writers. Chiu hosts the virtual Let’s Talk Books Author Series and curates and co-hosts the Pen Parentis Literary Salon in NYC. She is a founding member of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop. Christina is also a shoe designer. She received her MFA in creative writing from Columbia University.

Tucker Lieberman has published three nonfiction books. His essays are in two anthologies recognized by Lambda Literary, and his poetry chapbook based on the Epic of Gilgamesh was a finalist in Grayson Books’ 2020 contest. He is originally from the United States and now lives in Bogotá, Colombia.

Jeremy Kitchen is known as Chicago's Punk Rock Librarian, and he really is a librarian and a writer. His most recent publication is a short story in the upcoming collection "Echoes of a Natural World: Tales of the Strange and Estranged" Edited by Michael Daley. He's also co-host of the Eye 94 Podcast.

R. Conrad Speer, a Canadian author, lives in Saskatchewan. His new collection of fiction, ‘Saint Lazarus Day and other stories’, was published in 2020 by Atmosphere Press. He holds a postgraduate certificate in creative writing from the University of Edinburgh.

As a writer and educator, Kelsey Freeman focuses on Indigenous rights, immigration policy, social justice, and public policy. In 2016, she received a Fulbright Fellowship to teach English and study migration in central Mexico. She is the author of No Option but North: The Migrant World and the Perilous Path Across the Border, which is based on her year of interviewing Central American migrants as they journeyed through Mexico. She currently works at Central Oregon Community College, where she runs a college-readiness program for Native American high school students. Kelsey holds a BA in Government and Legal Studies with high honors from Bowdoin College.

Ann Dávila Cardinal is a novelist and Director of Student Recruitment for Vermont College of Fine Arts (VCFA) where she also earned her MFA in Writing. She comes from a long line of Puerto Rican writers, including poets Virgilio & Jose Antonio Dávila, and her cousin, award-winning author Tere Dávila. Five Midnights was her first solo novel.

Lauren Shippen is the author of The Infinite Noise, and the creator and sole writer of the popular audio drama, The Bright Sessions. She also wrote MARVELS, an audio adaptation of the popular comic, released in 2019 by Marvel and Stitcher. MovieMaker Magazine and Austin Film Festival named Shippen one of 25 Screenwriters to Watch. She was born in New York City, and grew up in Bronxville, New York. Currently she resides in Los Angeles.

This Vietnam-era Marine solo paddled 3,500 miles of Canada’s wilderness before discovering it was never the hows that would be difficult to write about; it was those troubling whys.