Cade Leebron
twitter: @CadeyLadey
She is currently finishing up her MFA at The Ohio State University, where she serves as an editor at The Journal. She also serves as the managing editor at Us for President. She’s the two-time recipient of the Haidee Forsyth Burkhardt Award, a recipient of a 2016 Winchester Award from Wesleyan University, and the recipient of the 2015 Helen Earnhart Harley Creative Writing Fellowship in Nonfiction. She lives with some cool people and complicated animals in Columbus, Ohio. She recently finished writing two MFA thesis, for reasons she cannot fully explain. Next, she’s planning a wedding, which sometimes feels like a (very cheerful but also weirdly detail-oriented) part-time job.
She spends her time walking around (no bike, no car, no license, what a world), thinking about ableism, and hoping she’ll continue to have healthcare. Also, sometimes she knits and watches The Bachelor. She has a B.A. in political science which she would love to put to some use. In her most lucky spare time, she’s known as Fennel the Millennial.
Selected Works: “Late”, “Medusa in Paradise”, “Growing Up Under Fire in Gettysburg”, “Liar, Liar: On Writing About Rape Online”
Website: mslifeisbestlife.com
Lucian Mattison
twitter: @luciannumerouno
He is an Argentinian-American poet and author, tank-top collector and summertime clothes enthusiast. He has two collections of poetry, Reaper’s Milonga, forthcoming from YesYes Books in 2017, and Peregrine Nation (The Broadkill River Press, 2014). He will accept challenges from people in the following formats: backgammon, 8-ball pool, racing in an actual pool, table tennis, and anything involving food. He enjoys growing herbs and hot peppers, cooking for people, making hot sauce, and drinking on balconies. As you might imagine the idea of Soylent is offensive to him. He won the 2016 Puerto Del Sol Poetry Prize and works at The George Washington University and is an associate editor for Big Lucks.
He plans to move to Spain for short period of time (perhaps, during the 2018 World Cup) and put together his third collection of poems, translate another South American poet’s collection of poetry, and attempt a novella. He also knows this may be a little too ambitious of a plan, but whatever, even if only one of these things happen, he still gets to watch the world cup in Spain.
He is currently translating the Chilean poet, Diego Alfaro Palma’s collection, Tordo (Blackbird). His translations appear or are forthcoming in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Newfound, and The Offing. He is now actively seeking a publisher for the whole collection.
Selected Works: “Paper Skirts”, “Upon Not Seeing the Ghosts of a Velociraptor or My Dead Grandmother”, “Ash Wednesday”, “Taking Death as a Lover & Good Son”
Website: lucianmattison.com
Leigh Marques
twitter: @mo0ndrool
Leigh Marques is a non-binary witch, poet, and Gemini moon currently living and pretending to know how to bartend in Philadelphia. They are a recent graduate of Virginia Tech, where they organized Glossolalia: The Literary Festival and took to confronting administration about the university’s endorsement of unethical global labor practices.
Most of their poetry focuses on using daydreams and meditations to cope with trauma. They are currently working on several projects, including a book of poetry framing the genetics of emotion, which centers women and non-binary people through a fairytale-like lens, as well as a book of spells. Leigh likes to spend their free time nurturing personal relationships, playing in mud, thinking about angels, and making herbal berry lemonade.
Selected Works: “tincture”, “a book of angels”, “m-“
Instagram: mo0ndrool