Lily Alvarado is a Nuyorican feminista who was born and raised in The Bronx. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in English Literature and is particularly interested in diaspora studies, decolonial theory, gender studies, queer theory, and Latinx and Caribbean Literature. Outside of school, Lily works as an Information Assistant for the New York Public Library and has written for publications such as Autostraddle, mitu, and At the Inkwell.
Zaira Bardos is an English MA candidate at Western Washington University. She received her B.A in English, Language, & Literature specializing in Creative Writing from the University of Washington. Growing up in a small town in the valley below Mt. Rainier, she found writing was a safe spot for her stories on angry women of color, girlhood, and living in the diaspora.
Noah Baum is a master’s student in the Department of English at New York University, focusing primarily on relation, embodiment, and ecology. Central to their study of the Anthropocene is interrogating and recognizing the material consequences of the variously inflected definitions of the “anthropos” which uphold systems of ontological and epistemic violence produced by Western neoliberal humanism. In addition to thinking about how bodies and subjectivities are constituted within socio-ecological frameworks, Noah is also invested in thinking through the bodies of acrobats and aerialists to meditate on issues of corporeal (mis)recognition and bodily illegibility.
Kayla Baur is a graduating student in the English MA program at Queens College. She self-published her first book at the age of seventeen and, as of 2024, she has self-published eight books. As she continues to expand her academic writing experiences through her academic career at Queens College, she teaches ninth-grade American Literature and Short Stories at her alma mater.
Hayley Blair is a Navy veteran with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a master’s degree in cybersecurity. She is currently pursuing her master’s degree in English at Fordham University.
Brandon Borcoman earned his MFA in poetry from The New School and is completing his master’s degree in English Literature this spring. He currently teaches as an adjunct professor at CCNY and will be applying to PhD programs in the fall.
Julie Goodale is a professional musician and MFA candidate in fiction at Queens College. Her writing has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in Drunken Boat, The Examined Life Journal, BioStories, and other publications. When not playing music or writing, Julie can often be found running, hiking, or hunting for mushrooms in the woods.
Amanda Long completed her BA and MA at QC. She is currently a graduate lecturer in the English Department. She is always seeking ways that theory and craft can be practiced as a means of resistance against settler colonial narratives.
Richard Prins is a lifelong New Yorker. His poems appear in publications like Gulf Coast, jubilat, and Ploughshares and his essays have received “Notable” mentions in Best American Essays and Best American Travel Writing. His translations of Swahili literature have been awarded a 2023 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant and a 2024 National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowship.
Sarina Sandwell is currently a first-year MA student in the English and American literature program at NYU. Her interests include postcolonial theory, theories of the state, prison writing, and speculative fiction.
Sal Sayema is an Anthropology major and Honors in the Social Sciences minor getting their bachelors at Queens College, CUNY. They are a Mellon Mays Undergraduate fellow, currently working on an undergraduate thesis on student activism in New York.
Elle Schwetz is an English MA student at Queens College with an interest in researching women’s anticolonial writing. They are particularly compelled by the ways in which literature can be used to build a better world through deconstructing existing conditions and imagining potential ways to move forward. In addition to working on projects related to those themes, Elle has spent much of this past year invested in composition, further developing their appreciation and understanding of writing as a craft.
Yasmin Tehrani is a student at Hunter College’s Literature, Language, and Theory M.A. program. Her work largely focuses on the relationship between modernist works, temporality, and history.
