Virginia Archer is a native of Louisiana with a degree in anthropology, through which she discovered her passion for folklore and story. As a writer, Virginia is interested in the space where religious folkways, mysticism, mental illness and poverty intersect in rural America. She currently resides in Portland, Oregon with her husband and golden retriever. Her writing has appeared in Country Roads Magazine, 225 Magazine, TheyCallUs, and her poetry is forthcoming in SoulLit.

Ann Cwiklinski started writing short stories while raising four children in rural Pennsylvania. Her stories have won first prize at The Baltimore Review, CentralPA Magazine, and local arts events. She is proud to say that this is her fourth story to appear in Minerva Rising. Her stories have also appeared in pacificREVIEW, The Flexible Persona, Belletrist Magazine (Pushcart nominated), Crack the Spine, and Blackwater Press Short Story Collection 2021.

Margaret Hawkins’s stories and essays have appeared in The Missouri Review, The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, ARTnews, Brevity, The Perch (Yale), Fabrik, and many other publications. Her third novel, Lydia’s Party, was published by Penguin. Currently she writes for The Democracy Chain and teaches at Loyola University and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. When she’s not writing or teaching, she can be found walking her dog, Willem.

Sarah Espinoza Repp is a mother, wife, writer, and mixed medium artist living in the Midwest. Her academic and artistic interests favor disability studies, the history of disenfranchised women, as well as celebrations of the natural form, both human and non-human. Her inaugural publication, ‘Scraps’, is a semi-autobiographical meditation on old family stories that have been passed down by the women in her family for generations. She would like to thank her readers and dedicate this publication to her mother. 

Robin Gaines’s first novel, Invincible Summers, was a Shelf Unbound 2018 Best Indie Notable 100 Book and a 2018 runner-up in General Fiction at the Florida Book Festival. She has just finished her second novel. Recent essays have appeared in Beyond the Plots Anthology and Dorothy Parker’s Ashes. She works as an editor for Wide Open Writing and writes a book blog at www.robingaines.net.

Jennifer Sinor is the author of several books, most recently, The Yogic Writer: Uniting Breath, Body, and Page. Her essay collections include Sky Songs: Meditations on Loving a Broken World and Letters Like the Day: On Reading Georgia O’Keeffe. The recipient of the Stipend in American Modernism, her work has been anthologized in Best American Essays 2024 and The Norton Reader. Jennifer teaches creative writing at Utah State University where she is a professor of English.

Jacqueline Balderrama is the author of Now in Color (Perugia Press, 2020) and the chapbook Nectar and Small (Finishing Line Press, 2019). She recently completed a Virginia G. Piper Fellow-in-Residence position leading the Thousand Languages Project and directing CantoMundo at Arizona State University. For more, visit: jacquelinebalderrama.com

Dana Knott (she/her) has recent publications in Dust Poetry Magazine, Eunoia Review, York Literary Review, and Musing Publications. She enjoys the company of her favorite two humans, one dog, and three cats. Dana works as a library director in Ohio and is the editor of tiny wren lit, which publishes micro-poetry. Twitter: @dana_a_knott

Sarah Mayo’s poetry has been published in Here: A Poetry Journal, Poem Alone, Republic Magazine, Screech, and the anthologies Moon Water by Spell Jar Press and Cardiff 75. Her poems are also due to be published by Dreich and  Cicada Song Press. Her flash fiction appears in the Wicked Shadow Press Femme Fatale Flashes anthology. She edits Valleys Imaginings, a local literary art zine.

Kashiana Singh calls herself a work practitioner and embodies the essence of her TEDx talk – Work as Worship into her everyday. She has served as a Managing Editor for Poets Reading the News. Kashiana’s full-length collection, Woman by the Door, released in 2022 with Apprentice House Press. She lives in North Carolina and carries her various geopolitical homes within her poetry. Find more at kashianasingh.com.

Jamie Wendt is the author of the poetry collection Fruit of the Earth (Main Street Rag, 2018), which won the 2019 National Federation of Press Women Book Award in Poetry. Her second collection, Laughing in Yiddish, is forthcoming in 2025 by Broadstone Books and was a finalist for the 2022 Philip Levine Prize in Poetry. Her poems, book reviews, and essays have been published in various literary journals and anthologies, including Feminine Rising, Green Mountains Review, Lilith, Jet Fuel Review, the Forward, Mom Egg Review, Poetica Magazine, Catamaran, and others. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Nebraska Omaha. She lives in Chicago with her husband and two kids. jamie-wendt.com