Simon Hillyer-Carter is a wayward Hoosier with a love of the occult and romance, forever stuck with a fearful fascination of death. They’re a creator of monsters, a writer of poems, and insane in a charming way.

Evvy Fanning is the co-founder of Rochester Spoken Word and the proprietor of Solera and Cheshire. She finds talking about herself unbecoming of a lady and prefers to let her characters speak for her. That said, she would hasten to tell you that she has on one occasion drunk bourbon with Salman Rushdie, and that he is every bit as enchanting as you think. Furthermore, her floors are immaculate and her children are well mannered, if not soft spoken. So there’s that.

When not busy wearing many, many hats for Rochester Spoken Word, Scott Seifritz, writes plays and short fiction, His play, “Denny Killington, Master Detective!,” was selected for the 2016 Regional Writers Showcase, and he’s had plays performed as part of the Rochester Fringe. His play, “Treading Water,” will be produced by Green Buffalo Productions in July 2022 and he was part of the cast of Listen To Your Mother on May 7.

Brandie Shaw is a sales professional in the medical technology field. She is also the mother of a now 24-year-old daughter. Much like her humor idol, Irma Bombeck, she strives to tease the humor out of every situation. She has had pieces published in a few Long Island local magazines and maintains a humor blog as The Family Diva in her spare time.

D.E. Spikes once wrote to run from the world, but now writes to help build a better one. They hope to leave a legacy of revolutionary love in their work, and with their children. Connect with their work on Instagram @energy.spikes and on Spotify @ Burn to Emerge: the Poetic Alchemy Pod. Buy their book, Burn to Emerge: A Collection of Self-Compassionate Poetry on Amazon.

Taylor Terrance is an activities instructor for seniors and freelance writer. She writes humorous essays about her annoying family on Facebook. Taylor is a 2013 graduate of Second City Chicago’s Comedy Writing Program. She’s written short plays for Fringe Fest and The Place Projectors Project through Writers & Books. She performed in 2019’s Listen To Your Mother, where she’s now a producer.

G. Murray Thomas was a regular on the Southern California poetry scene for thirty years. Then he moved to upstate New York and has been pretty quiet for the past four years.

Trinton (*2000) was born in Georgia and grew up in Alabama (2000-2011), and Georgia (2011-2019). They are a technologist, performer, poet, and composer of acoustic and electroacoustic concert music. Their concerns as an artist include experiences of non-semantic knowledge, the power and agency of symbols, and the effects of accumulated understanding on human perception.

Isabella Zappala works a mediocre service job and regrets it every day. She has yet to do a reading, publish anything, or really get anything done at all. She enjoys writing poems or unfinished stories, obsessively overthinking, and rewatching the same shows over and over again!

Allison Zukoski is one of the partners of Laughing Gull Chocolates. She is driven by her desire to spend quality time with her daughter while continuing to grow professionally and make a difference in her community. She has been writing since she can remember and is now at a stage in her life where she wants to share it with others. She lives in Rochester with her family and dogs.