aureleo sans is a flamingo. She is a Colombian-American, non-binary, queer, formerly unhoused writer/poet with a disability who resides in San Antonio, Texas. This year, she is a Tin House Scholar, a Sewanee Writers Conference fellow, a Roots Wounds Words Writers Retreat fellow, and a Periplus fellow. She was named the second-place winner of Fractured Lit’s 2021 Micro Fiction Contest and has received nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best Microfiction. Her work has been published in The Offing, Shenandoah, Salamander, and Electric Literature and is forthcoming in Passages North, No Tokens, and elsewhere. Follow her at @aureleos or www.aureleos.com.
Apoorva Mittal (they/she) is a queer author from northern India. They are pursuing a PhD in Creative Writing at University of Southern Mississippi. They hold a B.Tech. in Software Engineering from Delhi Technological University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College. They want to tell stories that break the monolith of the desi diaspora and present desi queerness in all its twisted beauty. Their short stories and essays have appeared and are forthcoming in Catapult and Electric Literature. They home in Mississippi with their married partner and a river dog named Jake Barnes. They can be found on Instagram and Twitter @MittalWrites.
Alejandro Heredia is a queer Afro Dominican writer and community organizer from The Bronx. He has received fellowships from Lambda Literary, VONA, the Dreamyard Rad(ical) Poetry Consortium, and the Dominican Studies Institute. In 2019, he was selected by Myriam Gurba as the winner of the Gold Line Press Fiction Chapbook Contest. His book of short stories, You’re the Only Friend I Need (2021), explores themes of queer transnationalism, friendship, and (un)belonging in the African Diaspora. Alejandro’s work has been featured in Teen Vogue, Lambda Literary Review, Tasteful Rude Magazine, and elsewhere. Twitter: @heredia_alej Instagram: @aleherex
Amanda Paige Inman works in book marketing, but spent the bulk of her career working with children as a nanny and teacher. Her poetry and prose has been published or is forthcoming in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Catapult, and Entropy. She attended the Tin House Summer Workshop and the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference. You can learn more about her at amandapaigeinman.com and follow on Twitter (@mandapaigeinman) and Instagram (@_mandapaige_).
Aqueela C. Britt published her first novel, London Reign, under the pseudonym, A.C. Britt in 2007. She writes raw, matter-of-fact stories about LGBTQ identified black and brown kids trying to live their best lives. She obtained her MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University (2018) and has penned several works of short and long fiction, poetry and essays. She also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Social Work from Columbia College, South Carolina and a Master of Social Work from Simmons University (formerly Simmons College).
Aqueela C. Britt is the Director of Field Education and Associate Professor of Practice for the Simmons University Bachelor of Social Work program.
Andy Winter (@themythofwinter) is a non-binary trans-femme ice goddess living in the warm tropics of Singapore. They are interested in queer acts and ephemera, and the intersections of poetry, performance and drag. If they are not consulting their tarot cards, they can often be found petting their community cats or strutting down in thigh high boots to the beat of a K-Pop girl group track. They dream of queer kampungs and celestial realms. Their works have appeared in Stellium, Strange Horizons, EnbyLife and beestung amongst others. They were a finalist for the Transpoetics Broadside Prize. Find them chilling at https://whispersinwinter.wordpress.com/
Bex Ehrmann is a Chicago-based writer, theatremaker, and teaching artist. Through their creative work, they aim to investigate meaningful questions and engage their audience’s imagination. A recipient of fellowships from Luminarts Cultural Foundation and the Highlights Foundation, Bex is now an MFA candidate at Hamline University, where they study Writing for Children and Young Adults. As a teaching artist, they have worked with many organizations that nurture the growth of young people, including About Face Theatre, Ag47 Arts Collective, Youth Guidance, and Imagination Stage. Find Bex on Twitter (@BexEhrmann) and Instagram (@deusbexmachina).
Bobuq Sayed is a queer Afghan writer with an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Miami, where they were a James A. Michener Fellow, and winner of the Dean’s Award and the Irene Pines Award.
Their writing has been supported by Tin House, Kundiman, and VONA/Voices, and has appeared or is forthcoming in New Australian Fiction 2022, Gulf Coast, Collisions: Fictions of the Future, Meanjin, and The Rumpus.
They are the co-editor of an anthology called Nothing to Hide: Voices from Trans and Gender Diverse Australia (Allen and Unwin), and they are a 2022-23 Steinbeck Fellow at San Jose State University. They tweet @bobuqsayed.
Caoimhe Harlock (she/her) is a southern trans woman writer and artist. Her stories and comics about sad women and the things that haunt them have appeared in Evergreen Review, Tribes, Honey Lit, and others. Her new comic, Garbage Time in Dyke Town, is forthcoming from Diskette Press, and she self-publishes the bi-monthly queer comix anthology, Charybdis. She comes from the land of Florida Men, holds a PhD in English and Gender Stuff from Duke, and is currently working on an MFA in fiction at UT Knoxville. Find her on Twitter at @keevacomix, on Instagram as @blackleaf199x, or at any three-way crossroads doing the work of the goddess.
Lanchi Le is a first generation Vietnamese American, butch lesbian, and weeb who loves to feed people home-cooked meals. Born in Southern California but raised in Oklahoma, the cultural clash of being Vietnamese Buddhist in a Southern Baptist environment still greatly influences the diaspora stories they write about today. They are thrilled to be a part of the 2022 Lambda Lit Writers’ Retreat and hope that it will teach them to cry less about how hard revising is.
You can find them at @lanchiwrites on twitter and @lanchitranle on IG.
