our authors
Alphabetical (S-Z)
KATIE SCHMID
Former Associate Director of Composition and Rhetoric at the University of Nebraska, Katie is now Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Ursinus College. She was awarded a 2023 National Endowment for the Arts fellowship for poetry, and her poems have been published in literary periodicals including The Nation, 32 Poems, Michigan Quarterly Review, and The Gay & Lesbian Review. Her poetry book NOWHERE was published in 2021 by UNM Press. She’s been included in the Best New Poets anthology and was an AWP Intro Journals winner.
BLUE MILK (Poetry Collection) - A modern collection that explores bodily autonomy and desire through the lens of birth and motherhood; an incisive yet accessible examination of life’s most vulnerable love, and with a sprinkling of Lucille Clifton's domestic with political bent.
QUEEN NOTHING (Literary Fiction) - A searing portrayal of female relationships—their beauty and intensity, and their ability to alter the known world—framed and informed by an eerily compelling Before and After.
PETER SCHOOFF
Peter Schooff has been published in The New York Times, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and has had several short stories published on the website, East of the Web. His work was included in the humor anthology, More Mirth of a Nation: The Best Contemporary Humor. Also, Peter has been a top tech writer and editor for over fifteen years, appearing as a thought leader in books about data and business process management. Meet him on Twitter: Twitter handle: @pschooff
HELLAWEEN (Paranormal) - The trouble starts the morning after The Fifth Annual Hella Ween Bash when a group of friends discovers they've taken on the persona of their costumed characters from the party. There's Pam, who dressed up as Queen Victoria, a lesbian misfit who waitresses at a diner, and starts acting like she's all that and the Crown Jewels. There's Holly, who went as Aphrodite, her recent dry spell with men becomes a testosterone tsunami—but will that make it any easier for her to find one good guy? There's also a rookie used car salesman who is suddenly able to fly like a superhero, a devil dentist, a voodoo priestess, and Sigmund Freud (who can't stop psychoanalyzing customers in his supermarket checkout line), among others. The gang is divided over whether this is the best thing that's ever happened to them or the worst.
The bewildered gang tries to unravel the mystery of what happened, but there’s just one problem—no one can remember a thing about Halloween night. The only clue they have is a group picture taken moments before the witching hour. However, with a serial killer suddenly terrorizing the town, they worry that it might be one of their fellow partygoers. But what kind of costume would a murderer wear?
CONTACT - Dean Krystek
AIRY SINDIK
Airy Sindik has a bachelor's degree in sociology from UNAM and a master's in creative writing from the National University of Colombia. His thesis novel Without Air for the Return (Sin Aire para el Regreso) was published by the Guadalajara University Press, and his book My Grandmother and COVID-19 will be published in May 2022 by Arte Publico. He was recently chosen as a fellow at the Istanbul Fellowship. Airy has been invited to read from Without Air for the Return at events and book fairs around the world. He has also given readings at the Embassy of Western Sahara in Mexico City and the Network of Embassies of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.
MI ABUELA Y COVID 19 | MY GRANDMOTHER AND COVID 19 (Arte Publico Press - The University of Texas, October 2022) - The author’s debut children's picture book is a bilingual story of how COVID-19 changes a child's life and his relationship with his beloved grandmother, who falls ill.
Contact - Zeynep Sen
STEPHANIE SLAGLE
Stephanie Slagle is a professional freelance editor with six years of publishing industry experience. She majored in film production at San Diego State University, and writes with a cinematic eye. Her short story “Dark Space” is included in a 2022 anthology of YA stories by Latinx contributors.
THE GIRL WHO DREAMS IN FIRE (YA Fantasy) - A teen coerced by pirates must push the limits of her magic on a swashbuckling quest to save those she loves most and the kingdom they call home.
ARIELLA STEINHORN
Ariella Steinhorn is a writer and former entrepreneur. She has built two ghostwriting and media relations companies focused on exposing power imbalances not picked up on by the mainstream media, called Superposition and Lioness. Ariella’s personal writing on relationships, power, love, and free speech have been published in the New York Times, Fortune, the Boston Globe, and Newsweek. Several essays she has ghostwritten breaking open news about workplace culture and power abuse have seen millions of views. "Lioness essays” became notorious among journalists as a significant source of untold information. Her storytelling practices have been profiled in the New York Times, Elle Magazine, and Bloomberg. Ariella has spoken at Harvard Business School about whistleblowing, and has given talks to journalism schools about the future of journalism and storytelling. She recently launched an initiative called Nonlinear Love, which invites stories from the public about unconventional love without prescribing rigid advice or judgment.
NON-LINEAR
Non-Linear tells the story of the author’s non-linear journey through her 20s, through several experiences with love and sex and a love-hate relationship with power. Each story takes us through the categories, tropes, and identities we as a society pigeonhole women into: the precocious little girl, the teenage whore, the muse, the woman who sleeps with her boss to get ahead, the mistress, the femme fatale, the enigma, the soft woman, the badass woman, the mother-to-be. In physics, there is this concept called superposition which very basically states that one thing can be in several states at the same time, depending on the perspective. This book will lead the reader to question their reality and biases, understanding alongside the author–as she seeks to understand herself–that she can be all of these stereotypes and also none of them, depending on the perspective. Can a woman reach an equilibrium where tapping into a more vulnerable place feels natural–and not a fatal move because she’s not playing the capitalism game, or a backwards step towards becoming a docile possession to a powerful man? In this desired equilibrium, with knowledge of the world and awareness of herself, perhaps she can free herself from the guilt or shame, and not spend so much time becoming rigid and unfeeling and unfeminine. Maybe her freedom can be the way to take back her power. Now that she understands the tides and has the energy to swim back to shore, she can relax a bit into the pull of the ocean’s inevitable currents. This is a nonlinear story about growing up from girl to woman. It’s also a story about that woman remembering herself as a little girl. It’s about accepting and breaking free of the identities thrust onto many young women who are coming of age, regardless of what they look like.
Contact - Zeynep Sen
MICHAEL STRODE
Michael Strode is an award-winning writer and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. Despite a BA in Medieval History and Philosophy from Brown, Michael has come to terms with his love for genre fiction. He received an MFA in Film Production from USC and has written scripts for a variety of producers. His short films have been distributed by IFC and iTunes, and have taken top honors at numerous worldwide festivals. When not writing, Michael enjoys cooking, playing tennis to combat the results of said cooking, reading, and exploring the wilds of Skyrim.
SPIT AND TOUCH IRON (Crime/Urban Fantasy) - A grounded supernatural mystery in which a supposed child abduction in post-WWII Ireland leads a visiting Scotland Yard detective to battle superstition, secretive locals, and creatures out of Celtic legend.
Contact - Sydney Queen DeTellis