Letters from the Editors
by Gwyneth Henke and Amy Dotson
Kitchen Towel
Lucy Ryan
Art
Issue 51
Spring 2025
Fiction
Poetry
Study #2 for cm
by Nico Amador
My father’s mouth
by Joe Lozano
The Secret
by EB Ramzi
I could tell you why I walk like this
by Diem Okoye
Nonfiction
Contributors
Nico Amador
Nico Amador’s poems and essays have appeared in Bettering American Poetry, 44 Poems on Being with Each Other: A Poetry Unbound Collection, Poem-A-Day, West Branch, Pleiades, Cherry Tree, fourteen poems, and elsewhere. His chapbook, Flower Wars, was selected as the winner of the Anzaldúa Poetry Prize and was published by Newfound Press. He received his MFA from Bennington College, is an alumni of the Lambda Literary Foundation’s Writers Retreat, and a recent Outpost Vermont Fellow. Nico works to build the capacity of LGBTQ+ community centers across the country and is involved in national and international movements for trans rights.
Ryan Bender-Murphy
Ryan Bender-Murphy received an MFA in poetry from the University of Texas at Austin and currently lives in Seattle, Washington. His fiction has appeared in The Black Fork Review, BRUISER, Dumbo Press, Maudlin House, and Red Rock Review, among other publications. He is also the author of the poetry chapbook First Man on Mars (Phantom Books, 2013). Find him on Instagram at ryan.bender.murphy.
Roger Camp
Roger Camp is the author of three photography books including the award-winning Butterflies in Flight, Thames & Hudson, 2002 and Heat, Charta, Milano, 2008. His documentary photography has been awarded the prestigious Leica Medal of Photography. His photographs are represented by the Robin Rice Gallery, NYC.
Patrice DiChristina
Raised by the ocean and cracked open by the desert, Patrice sees the magic within and between all things.
Mark Yale Harris
Sculptor Mark Yale Harris realized his true passion – stone carving – in the 1990s. In Santa Fe, he was mentored by Bill Prokopiof (Aleut) and Doug Hyde (Nez Perce). Harris’ alabaster, marble, limestone and bronze works express the inherent duality in man’s essence. Harris has had 250+ (90+ solo) gallery, museum and international exhibitions. 120+ publications have featured his sculpture. Harris is represented by 18 galleries (US/UK) and has works in permanent collections in museums, various states’ public art venues, upscale hotels and hospitals.
Hannah Hazel
Hannah Hazel creates stained glass and hand-drawn patterns from her home studio in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Photograph by Courtney Haussmann.
Tarah Knaresbo
Tarah Knaresboro is a writer, teacher, and dog aficionado from San Jose, California. Her fiction can be found in Electric Literature, The Los Angeles Review, and others. Skills include: generating realistic bird noises, making tamale versions of friends and pets, identifying edible weeds, and giving animals sincere compliments. She is a recent graduate of Arizona State University’s MFA program and is at work writing a memoir about her time in mixed martial arts. Tarah carries snacks. Tarah thanks you for your time.
Kelsey Leach
Kelsey Leach is a writer and creative director based in Pittsburgh, PA. She earned her MFA from Chatham University, where she was the recipient of the Margaret Whitford Fellowship from 2015-2016. Her creative work has appeared online in apt and The Common. Read more at https://kleach.carrd.co.
Joe Lozano
Joe Lozano was raised in Austin, TX where he still resides with his family. A first-generation US citizen and college graduate, Joe immersed himself back into the community he grew up with and became a teacher, an organizer, and a mentor. Joe went on to explore and develop his writing at Texas State University’s MFA program in Poetry. As he continues his education and develop his craft as an English and Spanish language writer, Joe hopes to inspire a new generation of bilingual poets to continue with the tradition of utilizing the power of language to enact change, personally and socially.
Antonio Muñiz
Antonio Muñiz is an artist in pursuit of metaphysical truth. Born and raised in Chihuahua, Mexico, the self-taught painter seeks a mystical awakening through his artistic process. Integral to Muñiz’s practice is the technique of Fumage, the intuitive application of smoke to canvas. He begins each painting with this autonomic process, unconsciously manipulating the smoke to establish a compositional structure for the work. Harnessing his unconscious, Muñiz relies on sheer physicality to create his work. He sees the canvas as a space for transformation, a place to confront the obstacles of fixed ideas and explore the raw power of chance.
Diem Okoye
Diem Okoye is a writer and teacher. She lives with two German Shepherds and two neurotic cats. She moonlights as a copy editor and loves spending time with her family and friends.
Kasey Payette
Kasey Payette, a queer writer based in Minneapolis, is obsessed with garden vegetables and utopian longing. Her essays and stories have been published in the Best Small Fictions anthology, Blue Earth Review, CALYX Journal, Gulf Coast Review, Water~Stone Review, and elsewhere. Her work has been supported by the Loft Literary Center’s Mentor Series program and the Minnesota State Arts Board. Kasey has taught community writing workshops in Minnesota and Washington, and is currently pursuing an MFA through the Bennington Writing Seminars. Visit kaseypayette.com to learn more.
EB Ramzi
EB Ramzi writes poetry, fiction and non-fiction about Palestine and the Palestinian diaspora experience. Her writing has been published in Bring Me Gold: 50 Poems for Palestine, The Rumpus, and others.
Bruce Rehn
Bruce is from Albuquerque New Mexico. He works as a baker and has two cats.
Bette Ridgeway
Bette Ridgeway is best known for her large-scale, luminous poured canvases that push the boundaries of light, color and design. For the past two decades, the high desert light of Santa Fe, NM has fueled Ridgeway’s art practice. Her three decades of mentorship by the acclaimed Abstract Expressionist Paul Jenkins set her on her lifetime journey of non-objective painting on large canvas. She explores the interrelation and change of color in various conditions and on a variety of surfaces. Bette Ridgeway has exhibited globally with 80+ prestigious venues, including: Palais Royale, Paris and Embassy of Madagascar. Awards include Top 60 Contemporary Masters and Leonardo DaVinci Prize.
Michael Roberts
Michael C. Roberts is a mostly retired pediatric psychologist and professor. After publishing professional articles, chapters, and books, he now seeks to be differently creative. He painted rocks during the pandemic and dropped them around the neighborhood as inspiration and motivation. Devoid of artistry, they may not have been very inspirational. He turned back to photography and creative writing. His images and written works have been published in literary magazines and on journal covers. A photographic book with essays is available on Amazon: Imaging the World with Plastic Cameras: Diana and Holga.
Lucy Ryan
Lucy is an artist based in Brooklyn, NY specializing in painting, printmaking, and drawing. She is most interested in how to capture the presence of light in her art. A New York City native, she has also lived in Texas and Maine, and has loved exploring the regional art scenes in all three places.
Winslow Schmelling
Winslow Schmelling is a writer and educator from the Sonoran Desert. As an ex-professional pizza maker and current content marketer, she feels lucky to teach creative writing in the desert where she grew up. Her MFA in fiction is from Arizona State University, and her creative work is published or forthcoming in Black Fox Literary, LitHub, Heavy Feather Review, Puerto del Sol, and elsewhere.
Shizue Seigel
Shizue Seigel is a San Franciscan who explores history, culture and spirituality through prose, poetry and art. Her Japanese American family was incarcerated during WWII, and she grew up in segregated Baltimore, Occupied Japan, and California farm labor camps. A college dropout schooled by the Haight-Ashbury, Indian ashrams, and public housing, she was recognized by a 2021Jefferson Award for supporting marginalized communities through her arts organization, Write Now! SF Bay. Her nine books include five Write Now! anthologies, and she has curated exhibitions of artists/writers of color at Sanchez Art Center, San Luis Obispo County Library, and UC Santa Barbara. You can learn more about her at www.WriteNowSF.com and www.shizueseigel.com.
Lucy Weltner
Lucy Weltner is a short story writer from New England. Over the years, they have worked as a software engineer, middle school math teacher, and professional birdwatcher. They currently live in Berkeley, CA with their partner and two cockatiels. Unlike the protagonist of 12 Parables, they love John Waters movies.
Issue 51 Masthead
Amy Dotson
Co-Editor-In-Chief
Amy Dotson is a writer from eastern Kentucky, though she has also lived in central Kentucky. She is in her third year of her MFA and is working on a sci-fi novel that’s not not about sea lions. Her work tends to deal with class, places affected by political neglect, and sea lions. Like many twenty-somethings, she has recently gotten really into rock climbing. Like many twenty-somethings, she has hurt herself while rock climbing.
Gwyneth Henke
Co-Editor-In-Chief
Gwyneth Henke (she/her) is a writer from Saint Louis, Missouri. A third-year fiction student in the MFA at the University of New Mexico, she graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a degree in religious studies and creative writing. In her reading life, she loves Haruki Murakami, Elena Ferrante, Mieko Kawakami, Jhumpa Lahiri, Diane Oliver, and Susan Choi. She also makes paper cut-outs.
Paris Baldante
Nonfiction Editor
Paris Baldante is a writer from Philadelphia and a second-year MFA student at UNM. Her fiction and nonfiction explore strange weather, ghostly locations, liminal identities, and cold intimacies. She loves to read Karen Russell, Jorge Luis Borges, bell hooks, Jennifer Egan, and Jia Tolentino.
John Hardberger
Fiction Editor
John Hardberger is a fiction writer from Lubbock, Texas. As a journalist, John wrote about music, comedy, art, and amateur wrestling for Chicago magazine, and briefly covered the hot dog beat for the Chicago Tribune. His fiction explores the liminal spaces between identities, cultures, landscapes, and religions.
Lucas Garcia
Poetry Editor
Lucas Garcia (they/them) has come home to Albuquerque. They are a second-year MFA candidate in poetry at UNM whose work in many genres explores queerness, resistance, failure, religion, survival and the discipline of hope. Incidentally, they are drawn as a reader to the work of writers with similar foci. They have a noted lack of chill.
Áine McCarthy
Associate Editor
Áine McCarthy (she/her) is a witch from New England who loves Buddhist chaplaincy, contemplative Christianity, and queer tarot. She has published poems and thoughts on labyrinths with Arsenic Lobster and Bitch Magazine. At UNM she is the Director of the Women’s Resource Center and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction. Her favorite writer is John O’Donohue.
Marisa P. Clark
Faculty Advisor
Marisa P. Clark (she/her) grew up on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, came out in Atlanta, Georgia, and relocated to beautiful New Mexico in 1998. She holds a PhD in fiction-writing from Georgia State University and an MA in American literature and a BS in psychology from the University of Southern Mississippi. A lecturer for more than two decades at UNM, she has taught all genres of undergraduate creative writing, queer texts and other literature courses, first- and second-year composition courses, and ESL, along with taking on various roles with Blue Mesa Review. She is the author of the poetry collection BIRD, and her prose and poetry appear in numerous literary publications journals.
Graduate Readers
Jas Colorado
E.C. Gannon
Hannah Janson
Mark Kellermeyer
Candra Lowery
Stormy Stewart
Darian Wharton
Undergraduate Readers
Lito Appell
Teddy Bloyd
Emilee Gallegos
Taylor Kirk
Ash Leon
Tas Lewis
Megan Osborn
N. Rigg
Elijah Ritch
Ari Romero
Kayla Stottenberg
Alex Wells
AJ Wood