Yael Aldana, Fabienne Josaphat, Valentina Mena, Jennifer Martiza McCauley

Yael Valencia Aldana is a Black-Latine poet and writer. She is the author of the poetry collection Black Mestiza (University Press of Kentucky, 2025) and the chapbook Alien(s) from (Sweetie Press 2023). She is a Pushcart Prize winner, and her work has appeared in numerous national and international publications. She is the Editor in Chief at Purple Ink Press. She teaches creative writing in South Florida, where she lives near the ocean with her family and too many pets. You can find her online at YaelAldana.com and @yaelwrites.

Fabienne Josaphat is the author of Kingdom of No Tomorrow, winner of the 2023 PEN Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction and longlisted for the 2025 Aspen Words Literary Prize. Her first novel, Dancing in the Baron’s Shadow, was published by Unnamed Press. Her publications include The Washington Post and Teen Vogue, and her essay, Summer is an Empty House, made the Notable Essays mentions in Best American Essays 2016. She is currently at work on a third novel.

Valentina Mena is a 17 year old student from Argentina who came to Miami three years ago with her family. She is an IB senior student at Miami Beach Senior High School, where she enjoys celebrating the arts and her culture in different clubs. Last year, her immigrant narrative was found by O, Miami in an English class where she wrote her first poem talking about what Miami signifies for her. From there, her words were selected to be portrayed onto two massive water tanks outside her school. “My Home, Mi hogar” now paints Miami’s landscape with vibrant colors and the unique phrase “finding my home in every voice that I hear” written in both English and Spanish. Thanks to her passion for the arts and a deep dedication to her studies, she has found her place in her community and she is now involved in projects advocating for education and creative expression.

Jennifer Maritza McCauley is the author of the hybrid collection SCAR ON/SCAR OFF (Stalking Horse Press), the short story collection When Trying to Return Home (Counterpoint), the poetry collection Kinds of Grace (Flowersong) and the forthcoming speculative fiction collection NEON STEEL (Cornerstone). She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts,, Kimbilio and CantoMundo and her work has been a New York Times Editors’ Choice, Best Fiction Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews and a Must-Read by Today, Elle, Latinx in Publishing and Ms. Magazine. She is fiction editor at Pleiades and an assistant professor of English at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

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