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    • VOL. 1, ISSUE 1 (2025)
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  • Home
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    • VOL. 1, ISSUE 1 (2025)
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    • VOL. 1, ISSUE 1 (2025)
    • VOL. 1, ISSUE 2 (2025)
    • VOL. 1, ISSUE 3 (2025)

CONTRIBUToR BIOGRAPHIES/PAGE 1

Kurt Newton

Chris Pavey

Chris Pavey

Bio:  Kurt Newton's poetry has appeared in Strange Horizons, Space & Time, Star*Line, Eye to the Telescope, Dreams and Nightmares, and Spectral Realms. His recent collections include Songs of the Underland, A Troubled Sleep, The Ever-Evolving Alphabet, and The Body Snatchers. A new collection, Moonlight Apocrypha, is forthcoming from Island of Wak-Wak. An illustrated collection, Denizens of the Cityscape, will appear later this year from Lycan Valley Press. 

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))

Chris Pavey

Chris Pavey

Chris Pavey

Bio:   Chris Pavey is a teacher from the South West of England, where he lives with his wife and three children. He generally writes poetry for his own amusement, and this is his first time being published.

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))

Kelley Tai

Chris Pavey

Kim Whysall-Hammond

Bio:   Born to Chinese-Taiwanese immigrants, Kelley Tai (she/her) is a speculative fiction writer and a 2024 CSFFA Aurora Award-nominated poet. She is the Founding Editor of Bramble & Crow Books and the Managing Editor, Online at Augur Society. In her free time, Kelley enjoys cuddling with her two kitties, playing around with mechanical keyboards, and traveling to unforgettable destinations.

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))

Kim Whysall-Hammond

Kim Whysall-Hammond

Kim Whysall-Hammond

Bio:  Kim Whysall-Hammond is a Londoner who  lives deep in the English countryside. She has worked in both Climate Research and the technical side of Telecommunications.  A lifelong love of SF led her to speculative poetry.  Her poetry has appeared in Andromeda Spaceways, Dreams and Nightmares, Frozen Wavelets, Kaleidotrope, On Spec, Silver Blade, Star*line and others. She also has poems in anthologies from Milk and Cake Press and Brigids Gate Press. She won joint Third in the 2023 Dwarf Star Award. Her debut pamphlet, Messages from the Road, was published by Palewell Press in late 2024. Find her on Bluesky @kimwhysallhammond.bsky.social

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))

Sterling Blue

Kim Whysall-Hammond

Sterling Blue

Bio:   Sterling Blue is an emerging writer who likes dipping their fingers into all of the different writing categories—fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and even literary analysis essays. With a Bachelor's in English Education and a Master's in English, they love learning and teaching the art of writing. “Soft” is their first published work in an official magazine. 

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))

Oliver Smith

Kim Whysall-Hammond

Sterling Blue

Bio:   Oliver Smith is a visual artist and writer from Cheltenham, UK. He is inspired by Tristan Tzara, J G Ballard, and Max Ernst; by the poetry of chance encounters, by frenzied rocks towering above the silent swamp; by unlikely collisions between place and myth and memory.

His poetry has been published in ‘Abyss & Apex’, ‘Ink, Sweat, and Tears’, ‘Strange Horizons’ and ‘Sylvia Magazine’ and has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

He holds a PhD in Literary and Critical Studies from the University of Gloucestershire.

For more information see his website: https://oliversimonsmithwriter.wordpress.com

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))


Colleen Anderson

Leslie Golding Mastroianni

Leslie Golding Mastroianni

Bio:   Multiple nominated and award-winning author Colleen Anderson has works widely published in seven countries, such as in Weird Tales, Cemetery Dance, and the award-winning Shadow Atlas. Her Rhysling winning poem “Machine (r)Evolution” is in Tenebrous Press’s Brave New Weird, and she has won SFPA’s dwarf poetry contest for two years. Colleen lives in Vancouver, BC, and her poetry collections The Lore of Inscrutable Dreams, I Dreamed a World, and Weird Worlds, plus fiction collections A Body of Work and Embers Amongst the Fallen are available online. Her fourth poetry book, Vellum Leaves and Lettered Skins is coming in late 2025.


(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))

Leslie Golding Mastroianni

Leslie Golding Mastroianni

Leslie Golding Mastroianni

Bio: Leslie Golding Mastroianni holds an M.Ed in Counseling. Along with working with troubled families she has led creative writing workshops at Bloomsburg University, elementary schools, and many “senior” facilities. Her work has been published multiple times in various literary journals, including Pennsylvania Literary Journal and Jewish Literary Journal. 

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))

Hamant Singh

Leslie Golding Mastroianni

Hamant Singh

Bio:   HAMANT SINGH is a Singaporean writer who is inspired by the Sublime in horror, different cultures and the occult. Andromeda Dreams(2024) is his fifth release after The Sibyl (2002), CHAOS: RRR(2023), NÁUSEA | CONFESIÓN (2023) and VALTOHA (2024). 

After a poem was nominated for the 2022 Rhysling Award by the Science Fiction Poetry Association, The Sibyl was listed on the preliminary ballot for the 2023 Bram Stoker Awards (Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection). In 2023, The Sibyl was also nominated for the Elgin Award. 

Hamant currently resides in Guadalajara, Mexico where he is currently working on an art/poetry collaboration with Irish artist, Shane Reilly and other different projects.


(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))


CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES/PAGE 2

Sheikha A.

Clarabelle Miray Fields

Clarabelle Miray Fields

Bio:   Sheikha A. is from Pakistan and United Arab Emirates.  Her poetry has been published in various literary venues, both print and online, including several anthologies by different presses.  Her poetry has been translated into 8 languages so far. More about her can be found at  sheikha82.wordpress.com 

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))


Clarabelle Miray Fields

Clarabelle Miray Fields

Clarabelle Miray Fields


Bio:   Clarabelle Miray Fields is a Rhysling-nominated, award-winning speculative writer from Boulder, Colorado, whose work has appeared in Corvid Queen, Circe’s Cauldron, and elsewhere. She holds a BA in classical languages (summa cum laude, 2018) and often writes at the intersection of feminism and ancient myth. She currently serves as editor-in-chief for Carmina Magazine, a publication dedicated to modern mythmaking. When not writing, she enjoys being active outdoors, reading, and drinking the darkest coffee she can find. Connect with her on Instagram @cfieldswriting or through her website at https://clarabellefields.com. 

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))

Frank William Finney

Clarabelle Miray Fields

Frank William Finney

Bio: Frank William Finney is an award-winning poet from Massachusetts who taught literature in Thailand for 25 years. His poems have appeared in CommuterLit, The Frogmore Papers, long con magazine, Parcham Magazine, Penmen Review, Seventh Quarry Press, Ultramarine Literary Review, Viridine Literary, and elsewhere. His chapbook The Folding of the Wings was published in 2022.

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))

Amelia Weissman

LindaAnn LoSchiavo

Frank William Finney

Bio:   Amelia is a mom of six with her Master's in marine biology. She has been published as a scientific writer in research journals and as a fiction writer in Starward Shadows Quarterly ezine and Black Hare Press Anthology Year Four.

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))

LindaAnn LoSchiavo

LindaAnn LoSchiavo

LindaAnn LoSchiavo

Bio:   Native New Yorker and award-winner, LindaAnn LoSchiavo is a member of British Fantasy Society, HWA, SFPA, and The Dramatists Guild.
 

      Titles published in 2024:  “Always Haunted: Hallowe’en Poems” [Wild Ink], “Apprenticed to the Night” [UniVerse Press], and “Felones de Se: Poems about Suicide” [Ukiyoto].
 

       New releases for 2025: “Cancer Courts My Mother” [Prolific Pulse Press, November 2025] and "Vampire Verses" [Twisted Dreams Press, October 2025]..

        Book  Accolades earned:  Elgin Award for “A Route Obscure and Lonely” and the Chrysalis BREW Project’s Award for Excellence &  Readers' Choice Award for “Always Haunted: Hallowe’en Poems”  and the Spotlyts Story Award from Spotlyts Magazine  for  "Apprenticed to the Night."

Website:  https://vampireventurespoems.com/ 

Blue Sky:   @ghostlyverse.bsky.social 

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))

Mea Andrews

LindaAnn LoSchiavo

LindaAnn LoSchiavo

Bio:  Mea Andrews is a writer from Georgia, who currently resides in Shenzhen. She has just finished her MFA from Lindenwood University and is only recently back on the publication scene. You can find her in Gordon Square Review, Rappahannock Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, Potomac Review, and others. She was a 2022 Pushcart prize nominee, and has a poem currently up for Best of the Net. She has two chapbooks and poetry collections available for publication, should anyone be interested.

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))
 

Kate Sullivan

Kate Sullivan

Kate Sullivan

Bio: Kate Sullivan likes to play around with words, music and pictures.  She has written and illustrated two children’s books, On Linden Square (Sleeping Bear Press) and What Do You Hear?(Schiffer), sung chansons at NYC Mme Tussaud’s Wax Museum and her Fugitum est was performed at Carnegie Hall by The Kremlin Chamber Orchestra as part of their tribute to Mozart.  Her poems, essays and paintings have appeared in Flash Frog, Loud Coffee Press, Rush Literary among others. Her flash Mudlarking at the Beauport was nominated for a Pushcart prize.     

She also paints ostriches and plays the musical saw to impress people.  

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))

Anna Remennik

Kate Sullivan

Kate Sullivan

Bio:  Anna Remennik is a chemical engineer working in Silicon Valley, and enjoys writing poems about automatic titrators, technical supply chain processes, and occasionally even more fantastical things. Her work has recently appeared in Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Radon Journal, and New Myths.com (including a poem nominated for the Rhysling Award) and was awarded third prize at the 2022 Patricia Eschen Prize for Poetry. She can be found at https://annaremennik.wordpress.com/ 

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))

Makena Metz

Kate Sullivan

Marisca Pichette

Bio: Makena Metz is a Writer & Songwriter for the Page, Screen, and Stage. She has an MFA in Creative Writing and MA in English from Chapman University. Her prose and poetry have been published with The Literary Hatchet, The Clockhouse Review, For Page and Screen, The Fantastic Other, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Arkana, Strange Horizons, and many more. Find her work  @ makenametz on social media and check out makenametz.com

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))

Marisca Pichette

Helen Victoria Murray

Marisca Pichette

Bio:   Marisca Pichette is a queer author based in Massachusetts. More of her work appears in Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld, Vastarien, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Fantasy Magazine, Asimov's, Nightmare Magazine, and others. Her speculative poetry collection, Rivers in Your Skin, Sirens in Your Hair, was a finalist for the Bram Stoker and Elgin Awards. Their eco-horror novella, Every Dark Cloud, is out now from Ghost Orchid Press.

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))

Helen Victoria Murray

Helen Victoria Murray

Helen Victoria Murray

Bio: Helen Victoria Murray is a Glaswegian writer. An interdisciplinarian, she writes across fiction, poetry and criticism. She is interested in weird houses, obsolete formats and bodies with intangible boundaries. As Research Associate in Victorian Cultural and Material History at Lancaster University, Helen unites scholarly and creative fields by researching themes of embodiment, materiality and temporality.

Helen has recently published work in theHythe, Feast Zine, Occulum, Seedlings, and the fiction anthology And One Day We Will Die: Strange Stories Inspired by the Music of Neutral Milk Hotel.

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))

CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES/PAGE 3

Sarah Cannavo

Bernardo Villela

Sarah Cannavo

Bio: Sarah Cannavo is a writer haunting southern New Jersey. Her poetry has appeared in Star*Line, Dreams and Nightmares, Eye to the Telescope, 34 Orchard, and Daikaijuzine, among others, and has been nominated for the Rhysling and Dwarf Stars Awards. Her story “Unreality” and novella “Wolf of the Pines” are available now on Amazon. She’s been rumored to post on her site The Moody Muse at www.moodilymusing.blogspot.com, and occasionally been sighted Tweeting @moodilymusing. If you listen closely on moonless nights, you may be able to hear her screaming “DAENERYS DESERVED BETTER” into the darkness.

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))

Angela Acosta

Bernardo Villela

Sarah Cannavo

Bio: Angela Acosta, Ph.D. (she/her) is a bilingual Mexican American poet and Assistant Professor of Spanish at the University of South Carolina. She is a 2022 Dream Foundry Contest for Emerging Writers Finalist, 2022 Somos en Escrito Extra-Fiction Contest Honorable Mention, and Utopia Award nominee. Her poetry has appeared in Copihue Poetry, The Acentos Review, Shoreline of Infinity, and Radon Journal. She is author of Summoning Space Travelers (Hiraeth Publishing, 2022) and A Belief in Cosmic Dailiness (Red Ogre Review, 2023). 

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))

Bernardo Villela

Bernardo Villela

Daniel Christensen

Bio: Bernardo Villela lives in Wilmington, Delaware. He’s had short fiction included in periodicals such as LatineLit, Penumbra Online and Horror Tree and in anthologies such as We Deserve to Exist, Dismember the Coop and There's More of Us Than You Know. He’s had original poetry published by Phantom Kangaroo, Straylight, and Raven’s Quoth Press and translations published by Mantis, AzonaL, Red Fern Review. You can find his other works here:  https://linktr.ee/bernardovillela.

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))

Daniel Christensen

Charles Richard Livesay

Daniel Christensen

Bio: Daniel Christensen is a caregiver residing in Central Florida. He is an author of poetry, science fiction and high fantasy stories. His poem "Of Colors" was featured on Book XI and his poem "Brooklyn" won the Editor's Choice Award for The Last Stanza Magazine and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2025. His poem "End of Summer" was published by Bramble Online Journal. His poem "The Urban Wasteland" was published by A Sufferers Digest. His poem "This Small Universe" was published by Trollbreath Magazine.

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))

Arvee Fantilagan

Charles Richard Livesay

Charles Richard Livesay

Bio: Arvee Fantilagan grew up in the Philippines, lives in Japan, and has more of his works at sites.google.com/view/arveef. He hopes to write a better bio someday.

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))

Charles Richard Livesay

Charles Richard Livesay

Charles Richard Livesay

Bio: Charles Richard Livesay is a teacher from Knoxville, TN. He is just beginning his publishing career. He watches birds, reads books, and sometimes forgets to take out his earbuds when he falls asleep. The music leads him into some interesting dreams. 

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))

Miranda Jensen

Ngo Binh Anh Khoa

John C. Mannone

Bio: Miranda Jensen is a creative activist with roots in the San Francisco Bay Area. Through her writing and critical theory, she seeks not merely to interpret the world, but to change it. Her work has been published in Nature Futures, Across the Margin, Snowflake Magazine, and Rough Cut Press, among others. You can find her at www.mirandajensen.com and on X @MirandaLJensen.

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))

John C. Mannone

Ngo Binh Anh Khoa

John C. Mannone

Bio: John C. Mannone has poems in Windhover, North Dakota Quarterly, Poetry South, Sublimation, Snakeskin, and others. He won the Dwarf Stars Award (2020) and was awarded an HWA Scholarship (2017). Among his 10 collections (5 full-length) is Sacred Flute (Iris Press, 2024), which is a semifinalist for the 2025 Tennessee Book Award (as well as an Elgin nominee). Dark Wind, Dark Water, a horror fiction collection, is forthcoming from Mind’s Eye Publishing (2025). He edits poetry for Abyss & Apex and Silver Blade. He’s a semi-retired professor of physics in East Tennessee.

http://jcmannone.wordpress.com 

https://www.facebook.com/jcmannone/

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))

Ngo Binh Anh Khoa

Ngo Binh Anh Khoa

Ngo Binh Anh Khoa

Bio: Ngo Binh Anh Khoa is a teacher of English in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. In his free time, he enjoys reading fiction and writing speculative poems, some of which have appeared in Weirdbook, Star*Line, Spectral Realms, Eye to the Telescope, and other venues.

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))

Larina Warnock

Larina Warnock

Ngo Binh Anh Khoa

Bio: Larina Warnock is a neurodivergent writer with an autoimmune disease. She lives in Southern Oregon with her husband, three dogs, and a turtle older than she is. Larina's work has appeared in MetaStellar, Penumbric Speculative Fiction Magazine, Space & Time, Abyss & Apex, and others.

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))

R.M. Cain

Larina Warnock

Jay Caselberg

Bio: R.M. Cain is a poet originally from upstate New York, now residing in Charlotte, NC. When she’s not writing, R.M. enjoys traveling to new destinations, visiting museums, and spending time outdoors.

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))

Jay Caselberg

Larina Warnock

Jay Caselberg

Bio: Jay Caselberg is an Australian author and poet whose work has appeared around the world and been translated into several languages. From time to time, it gets included in Year's Best volumes or shortlisted for awards. He currently resides in Germany and can be found at www.caselberg.net.

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))

CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES/PAGE 4

Eugen Bacon

Dominique Hecq

Dominique Hecq

Bio: Eugen Bacon is an African Australian author. She’s a Nebula, British Fantasy and Foreword Indies Award winner, a twice World Fantasy Award finalist, and a finalist in the Shirley Jackson, Philip K. Dick Award, and the Nommo Awards for speculative fiction by Africans. Eugen is an Otherwise Fellow, and was also announced in the honor list for ‘doing exciting work in gender and speculative fiction’. Danged Black Thing made the Otherwise Award Honor List as a ‘sharp collection of Afro-Surrealist work’. Visit her at eugenbacon.com.

Dominique Hecq

Dominique Hecq

Dominique Hecq

Bio: Dominique Hecq is a widely anthologised and award-winning poet, fiction writer, essayist and translator. She lives and works on Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung land in Melbourne, Australia. Hecq writes in English and French. Her creative works comprise a novel, six collections of short stories and seventeen books of poetry. Otopos is her latest publication.  Among other honours, Hecq is the recipient of the James Tate Poetry Prize.

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))

Max Hunt

Dominique Hecq

Amanda Williams

Bio: Max Hunt is a queer and neurodivergent writer/artist from Mississippi. His fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in december, CRAFT, One Teen Story, BreakBread, Mistake House, The Blue Route, and elsewhere. Max is a graduate of the University of Mississippi and is currently pursuing an MFA in Fiction at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))


Amanda Williams

David C. Kopaska-Merkel

Amanda Williams

Bio: Amanda Williams is a PhD student researching acid-resistant bacteria that form biofilms and navigate barriers. Her writing journey began on Archive of Our Own, where her work has reached over 350,000 readers. She has published pieces in smaller anthologies and recently shifted focus to longer projects. She is currently working with her agent to publish Tea & Time Loops, a speculative novel blending cozy mystery and light magic.

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))


David C. Kopaska-Merkel

David C. Kopaska-Merkel

David C. Kopaska-Merkel

Bio:  David C. Kopaska-Merkel, a retired geologist, won the 2006 Rhysling award for best long poem (for a collaboration with Kendall Evans), and edits and publishes Dreams & Nightmares magazine (since 1986). He has edited Star*line, an issue of Eye To The Telescope, several Rhysling anthologies, co-edited the 2023 Dwarf Stars anthology, and is an SFPA Grandmaster. His poems have been published in Analog, Asimov’s, Strange Horizons, and more than 200 other venues. Some Disassembly Required, a collection of dark speculative poetry, won the 2023 Elgin award. His latest collection, Unwholesome Guests, was published in 2024 by Weird House.

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))


CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES/PAGE 5

Hannan Khan

Tracy Davidson

Tracy Davidson

Bio:  Hannan Khan — a nefelibata, poet, and scholar of literature & linguistics from Pakistan. He combs through moments of love, death, delirium & relational complexities, seraphically tracing what’s breathed and what flickers unbreathed. His pen grooves between haibun & heartbreak, ghazals & ghost games, intimacy & apocalypse. When he craves reprieve, he devours dark thrillers like he’s dissecting crime scenes — psychological, raw, unpredictable. He thrives on distorting ordinary until it sings. Sips coffee, reads Manto & lets the world unravel. Featured in Failed Haiku, IHRAM Literary Magazine, Graveside Press, SpecPoVerse, Eye To The Telescope, Abyss & Apex, The Headlight Review & forthcoming in Notch Magazine, Winds Of Asia & Native Voices Anthology. Poetry is his altar; Fiction, his rebellion. He writes to unsettle, to unearth, to unlace. For a glimpse into his life, find him on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hannan.khan.official 

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025), Issue 2 (2025))

Tracy Davidson

Tracy Davidson

Tracy Davidson

Bio: Tracy Davidson lives in Warwickshire, England, and writes poetry and flash fiction. Her work has appeared in various publications and anthologies, including: Poet's Market, Mslexia, Modern Haiku, Femku, The Binnacle, Black Hare Press, Shooter, Journey to Crone, The Great Gatsby Anthology, WAR, and In Protest: 150 Poems for Human Rights. 

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2025))


CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES/PAGE 6

Ariya Bandy

D. A. Cooper

D. A. Cooper

Bio:  Ariya Bandy is a writer of speculative poetry and fiction whose work appears in Nightmare Magazine, 100-Foot Crow, Stone Circle Review, The Horror Tree, and elsewhere. Her debut chapbook, Painted Winds, is out from Bottlecap Press. Find her online at @storyofariya or on ariyabandy.com. 

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 2 (2025))

D. A. Cooper

D. A. Cooper

D. A. Cooper

Bio:   D.A. Cooper is a poet from Texas. In addition to SpecPoVerse, his poetry and translations have recently appeared in Light, Lighten Up Online, Illuminations of the Fantastic, New Verse Review, and THINK, among others. He enjoys translating dialect poetry from Italy, watching The Office, and looking at trees.

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 2 (2025))


S. C. Williams

Christabel Simpson

Christabel Simpson

Bio:  S. C. Williams (she/her) lives in Indiana with her family and works in the circulation department of her local library. She is currently pursuing her master's degree in Library and Information Science. Her writing has previously appeared in The Crow's Quill, Divinations Magazine, Grey Coven Publishing Anthology, and elsewhere. You can find more on her website at sarahchristinewilliams.com. 

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 2 (2025))


Christabel Simpson

Christabel Simpson

Christabel Simpson

Bio:  Christabel Simpson writes in various genres. She was born in England to parents with a love of romantic poetry (hence the name), but spent her teens in America. She returned to England to study at university and has a BA in English Literature and Dance. She started writing seriously at school when one of her teachers told her she had a flair for it and has been doing it ever since. Other interests include live performance (seeing and creating), music, ancient Egypt, paranormal research, cosplay and photography. She currently lives in London with her gorgeous girlfriend and black cat, Spike.'

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 2 (2025))


CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES/PAGE 7

Shikhandin

Bryant O'Hara

Bryant O'Hara

Bio:  Shikhandin is the pen name of an Indian author of 7 books, including The Woman on the Red Oxide Floor (Red River Story, India), Impetuous Women (Penguin-RHI), Immoderate Men (Speaking Tiger, India), Vibhuti Cat (Duckbill-Penguin India). Shikhandin’s sci-fi/speculative fiction have appeared in ‘A Dying Planet’ (Flametree Press), ‘Avatar’ (Future Fiction), After Dinner Conversation, Reckoning, Sybil’s Garage, Silver Blade, Enchanted Conversation, Grandpa’s Deep Space Diner, SpecPoVerse, and elsewhere. She has won awards and honours in India and abroad for her prose and poetry, and is widely published in online and print journals and anthologies worldwide. . 

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 2 (2025))

Bryant O'Hara

Bryant O'Hara

Bryant O'Hara

Bio:  Bryant O'Hara is a programmer, poet, and musician - not always in that order. His poetry has been published in Star*Line Magazine, Eyedrum Periodically, Space & Time Magazine, FIYAH , Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction 2022, and SpaceFunk! anthology. His poetry collection, The Ghettobirds, was published by Frayed Edge Press. He lives in Stone Mountain, Georgia, with his wife Alice, two out of seven children, and one out of six grandchildren. To listen to more of Bryant's poems and other audio pieces, please visit https://soundcloud.com/bryant-ohara and intimateandintricate.com 

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 2 (2025))


Mary K Gowdy

Ashley Delvento

Ashley Delvento

Bio:  Mary K Gowdy is the poet behind the collections Sensuality., Where Have We Come From, Where Are We Going, and Leftover Thoughts. Her work has appeared in literary magazines such as The Anti-Misogyny Club and Sheila-Na Gig and in the indie anthology Writing Out Our Twenties. She also has published two fantasy novels in her epic series The One and the Other. When not writing, she enjoys being in nature, listening to music, and convincing her friends that poetry is nothing to be afraid of.

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 2 (2025))


Ashley Delvento

Ashley Delvento

Ashley Delvento

Bio: Ashley Delvento is a software engineer and writer born and raised in Connecticut. She works to combine these two fields, using the lens of computers to explore what they can tell us about humanity. Her poetry has been previously published in "The Journal of Humanistic Mathematics" and "The Laurel". 

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 2 (2025))


CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES/PAGE 8

Leyelle M. G.

Leyelle M. G.

Leyelle M. G.

Bio:  Leyelle is an African American and Dominican author and artist from Maryland, USA, raised in part in her ancestral home of the Dominican Republic. Author of the Turnill prize-winning short story “Rain Dance” and the novel “Damsel in the Red Dress,” she’s passionate about telling a story, in any form or medium needed to express the beauty and complexity of life and human emotions. 

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 2 (2025))


James Machell

Leyelle M. G.

Leyelle M. G.

Bio: James Machell is a British writer, born in London and matured in Seoul. He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and the outreach manager for Utopia Science Fiction Magazine for which he gets to interview his favourite writers and artists, including P. Djèlí Clark, Ken Liu, and Samuel R. Delany. He is also the contest chair for the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association. 

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 2 (2025))


Frederick Charles Melancon

Frederick Charles Melancon

Frederick Charles Melancon

Bio:  Frederick Charles Melancon is a native of Louisiana but currently lives in Mississippi with his wife and daughter. 

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 2 (2025))


M. Frost

Frederick Charles Melancon

Frederick Charles Melancon

Bio: The poetry of M. Frost appears in Strange Horizons, Sublimation, Star*Line, Eye to the Telescope, Abyss & Apex, and many others, with chapbooks Cow Poetry (Finishing Line Press, 2006) and The Women of Myth (Island of Wak-Wak, Fall 2025). mfrostwords.com

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 2 (2025))


CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES/PAGE 9

Fariel Shafee

Heather D Haigh

Heather D Haigh

Bio: Fariel Shafee considers herself a true mixed pot -- born in South Asia to people who came to the land in various eras, she lived in Asia, Europe and the Americas. Her degrees are in physics and math from MIT and Princeton. However, she spends a substantial amount of her time in imaginary and often dark worlds. Her writing has been published by 34 Orchard, Parabnormal, Eccentric Orbits 5, Deracine etc. She has also won awards for art. Her website is https://fshafee.wixsite.com/farielsart

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 2 (2025))


Heather D Haigh

Heather D Haigh

Heather D Haigh

Bio: Heather is a multi-genre, working-class writer from Yorkshire. She is published by Oxford Flash Fiction, Fictive Dream, Bath Flash Fiction, The Phare, and numerous others and has won or been placed in several competitions. She is also a visual artist and lives with her husband, who valiantly jostles for space with her creative clutter.

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 2 (2025))


Nicholas De Marino

Nicholas De Marino

Nicholas De Marino

Bio:   Nicholas De Marino is a neurodivergent writer and published crackpot. He founded 5enses and is a foofaraw columnist. He likes petting spiders, watching cats, and writing about both. Read more at nicholasdemarino.blogspot.com. 

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 2 (2025))


Christina Ladd

Nicholas De Marino

Nicholas De Marino

Bio:  Christina Ladd (she/her) is a writer and editor who lives in Minneapolis. She will eventually die crushed under a pile of books, but until then she survives on a concerning amount of tea and carbs. Find more of her writing at christinaladd.com 

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 2 (2025))


CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES/PAGE 10

Kopratic

Diem Okoye

Diem Okoye

Bio: Kopratic is an agender poet who loves to read and write about strange and bizarre things in speculative fiction. In addition to writing poetry, Kopratic also teaches ESL by day.

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 2 (2025))


Diem Okoye

Diem Okoye

Diem Okoye

Bio: Diem Okoye is a writer and teacher whose work has appeared in The Gay and Lesbian Review, Reckoning, Liber Review, and other literary journals. She has been awarded second place in the Blue Mesa Review Spring 2025 Contest Issue and was nominated for the 2024 Dwarf Stars Award for speculative poetry. In addition to her writing, she works as a copy editor. She lives with two German Shepherds and two neurotic cats.

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 2 (2025))


Brian Hugenbruch

Brian Hugenbruch

Brian Hugenbruch

Bio: Brian Hugenbruch is the author of more than sixty speculative fiction stories and poems.  He enjoys fishing (but only in video games); Scotch (but only in real life), and he spends his days trying to explain quantum cryptography to other nerds.  You can find him online at https://the-lettersea.com, and on social media under similar handles. No, he's not certain how to say his last name either.

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 2 (2025))


Fendy S. Tulodo

Brian Hugenbruch

Brian Hugenbruch

Bio:  Fendy is an art worker from Malang, Indonesia. He works with words and music to study how time feels different to people, and how connections linger even when they’re gone. By day, he sells motorcycles. By night, he makes moody music as Nep Kid and writes stories in different forms. His art lives in the gap between words and true feelings. 

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 2 (2025))


CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES/PAGE 11

SR Deado

Jennifer Ruth Jackson

Jennifer Ruth Jackson

Bio: Stephanie Latini (publishing as SR Deado) is a poet and speculative writer rooted in the wilds of New Hampshire. Her work lingers in the strange space between memory and invention, exploring time, identity, and transformation through a surreal, sci-fi lens. She is currently developing The Verge Cycle, a poetic mythos of fractured timelines, alternate realities, and quiet revolutions—where the impossible feels intimate and the future, deeply personal. 

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 2 (2025))


Jennifer Ruth Jackson

Jennifer Ruth Jackson

Jennifer Ruth Jackson

Bio:  Jennifer Ruth Jackson is a poet and fictionist with cerebral palsy. Her work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Vinyl Poetry and Prose, Algebra of Owls, Apex Magazine, and more. Domestic Bodies, her literary poetry collection, came out in 2023 from Querencia Press. When she isn't writing (or engaging in activism), you can find her crafting a variety of things or playing video games with her husband. Follow her on Bluesky or Instagram: @jenruthjackson.  

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 2 (2025))


Mark Thomas

Jennifer Ruth Jackson

Mark Thomas

Bio:  Mark Thomas is a writer and artist from St. Catharines Canada. His latest book is “Next to Ewe,” published by Between the Lines. Check out his work at https://flamingdogshit.com   

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 2 (2025))


Melba

Lorraine Schein

Mark Thomas

Bio:  Melba is a Dominican-American poet and author of Unplanted Yet Flourishing: A Poetic Journey Through Infertility, Loss & Healing. Through raw, nature-rooted poetry and ancestral symbolism, her work invites readers into the quiet, often unseen spaces of grief, resilience, and self-discovery. She is the founder of Poetic Nectar Collective, a creative space centered on healing through words, ritual, and connection. Melba’s poetry is deeply personal yet universally felt, offering comfort to those navigating the complexities of womanhood, identity, and longing. Her voice is both tender and powerful, grounded in truth and a deep reverence for nature. 

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 2 (2025))


Lorraine Schein

Lorraine Schein

Lorraine Schein

Bio:  Lorraine Schein is a New York writer and poet. Her work has appeared in VICE Terraform, Strange Horizons, Scientific American, NewMyths and Michigan Quarterly, and in the anthologies Wild Women and Tragedy Queens: Stories Inspired by Lana del Rey & Sylvia Plath. The Futurist’s Mistress, her poetry book, is available from Mayapple Press. Her latest book, The Lady Anarchist Cafe, is out now from Autonomedia. 

(SpecPoVerse, Vol. 1, Issue 2 (2025))


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