notes on issue 9 contributors
Ali Al-Jamri is a Bahraini poet, producer, translator and editor of the Between Two Islands: Poetry by Bahrainis in Britain anthology. His poems have been published in Consilience, Zindabad, Between Two Islands and anthologies, with a translation in Modern Poetry in Translation. Instagram: @alialjamri_scribbles Twitter: @ali_mn_aljamri. Leo Boix is a Latino-British poet, translator and journalist based in the UK. He is the author of an English collection, Ballad of a Happy Immigrant (Chatto & Windus, 2021) and two Spanish collections, Un lugarpropio (2015) and Mar de noche (2017). He has won the Bart Wolffe Poetry Prize Award and the Keats-Shelley Prize for Poetry. Rogelio Braga is an exiled playwright, novelist, essayist, and a political activist from the Philippines. He published two novels, a collection of short stories, and a book of plays before he left the archipelago in 2018. Jane Commane is a poet, writer and editor-director of Nine Arches Press based in the Midlands, UK. Her debut collection of poems, Assembly Lines, was published by Bloodaxe Books in February 2018. Eduardo C. Corral is an American poet and MFA Assistant Professor in the Department of English at NC State University. His first collection, Slow Lightning, published by Yale University Press, was the winner of the 2011 Yale Younger Series Poets award, making him the first Latino recipient of this prize. His 2020 work, guillotine, was awarded the 2021 Lambda Literary Award for gay poetry. Roula-Maria Dib is a creative writer and literary scholar, author of the poetry collection, Simply Being (Chiron, 2021). She is the founding editor of literary and arts journal Indelible, and teaches a MOOC titled ‘Why Online Creative Communities Matter’ on Academia.edu. She is a professor of English at the American University in Dubai. Mark Dimaisip is a Filipino poet based in Manila. His poem ‘Underwater Tongue’ placed in the EAL category of 2021 Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition. He has spoken word tracks in Bigkas Pilipinas, and has performed for stages in the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, and Australia. Angela Gabrielle Fabunan was raised in NYC and lives in the Philippines. She is a poetry editor at Inklette Magazine and a copyeditor at Balangiga Press. Her first book of poetry, The Sea That Beckoned, is available from Platypus Press. Her second book of poetry, Young Enough to Play is forthcoming from UP Press. Erica Hesketh lives in London and works in the arts. She writes songs and poems – the latter currently mostly about pregnancy and new motherhood. Erica has a poem forthcoming in a zine, edited Liz Berry, from the Mum Poem Press. Seán Hewitt was born in 1990. His debut collection, Tongues of Fire, is published by Jonathan Cape. He is a book critic for The Irish Times and teaches Modern British & Irish Literature at Trinity College Dublin. A wanderer with a wheelchair, Harriet Jae lives in Ghent, Belgium. Her poems are published or upcoming in Stand, The Rialto, Poetry Wales, Poetry Salzburg, Mslexia, Culture Matters, Acumen and elsewhere. Harriet was longlisted for the Mslexia Poetry Competition in 2021. Christiana Jasutan (she/her) is a Chinese-Indonesian writer currently pursuing her degree in BA English and Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham. She is the Publication Editor for Writers’ Bloc and Anthology Editor for small leaf press. In her work, she explores the body, identity, childhood, love, emotions, and metaphors. Suha Kudsieh is an emerging poet. She teaches writing and literature in New York City. She grew up in the Middle East and spent her summers in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt. Her poems appeared in Postcolonial Text. She is preparing a collection of poems on the rise and fall of the Arab Left in the Middle East. Dionissios Kollias’s work has appeared in Hobart, No Dear Magazine, Pinwheel, and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. Özge Lena is an Istanbul-based writer/poet and English language teacher who has a published novella titled Otopsi (The Autopsy). Her poems have appeared in Ink Sweat & Tears, Green Ink Poetry, Fahmidan Journal, Fragmented Voices, and elsewhere. Her poem ‘Summerlepsy’ was shortlisted by Will Harris for The Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition 2021. Andrew McMillan’s first collection, physical, was the first poetry collection to win the Guardian First Book Award. His second collection, playtime, won the inaugural Polari Prize. His third collection, pandemonium, is out with Jonathan Cape. He is a senior lecturer at the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. William Pagdatoon is a writer from New Jersey and is currently an MFA poetry candidate at Queens College – CUNY. His work explores music, film, and the Filipino-American experience including history, diaspora, and identity. Sunra Rainz is a Pakistani-born British poet and writer based in Birmingham, UK. She has been writing for years and is a member of multiple poetry groups in the UK. She has had work published by Visual Verse, Free Verse Revolution, Whispers & Echoes, Red Ink and Sheffield Libraries’ Dear 2021 anthology. Gita Ralleigh is a writer and NHS doctor born to Indian immigrant parents in London. She has been published by Wasafiri, Bellevue Literary Review, Magma Poetry and The Rialto among others. Her debut poetry collection A Terrible Thing was published by Bad Betty Press in 2020. You can find her on Twitter @storyvilled. Ali Seegar is a writer living in Luxembourg, where she juggles multiple languages on a daily basis. The first book in her ‘Tommy Turner’ children’s series was a finalist in the Wishing Shelf Book Awards and her second a Red Ribbon Winner. She regularly holds workshops at various schools in Luxembourg to encourage the children to read and write creatively. Anna Teresa Slater is a teacher from Iloilo, Philippines. Her work is published in Channel Lit Mag, Ghost City Review, The Literary Nest, Song of Eretz Poetry Review, Muddy River Poetry Review, and more. Her first poetry collection, A Singular, Spectacular Chore (Kasingkasing Press) is forthcoming in 2021. Anna lives on a farm with her husband, dog, and cat. Yuan Changming edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan in Vancouver. Credits include 12 Pushcart nominations and 12 chapbooks (most recently LIMERENCE) besides appearances in Best of the Best Canadian Poetry (2008-17) and BestNewPoemsOnline, among 1,889 others across 47 countries. Yuan served on the poetry jury for Canada’s 44th National Magazine Award.