ROUGH CUT PRESS – mj corey is a Brooklyn-based psychotherapist and writer.
She earned graduate degrees in Creative Nonfiction and Counseling Psychology from Columbia University in 2014 and 2016, respectively. She is best known for authoring Kardashian Kolloquium on TikTok and Instagram, where she applies media theory and postmodern frameworks to the Kardashian family.
ROUGH CUT PRESS – Myriam Gurba is a writer and artist. She is the author of the true crime memoir Mean, a New York Times Editors’ Choice. O, The Oprah Magazine, ranked Mean as one of the best LGBTQ books of all time. Publishers Weekly describes Gurba as having a voice like no other. Her essays and criticism have appeared in The Paris Review, Time, and 4Columns.
WHERE DID YOU COME FROM, WHERE ARE YOU GOING? Billy Lezra joins Alex Schecter on this podcast episode for a heart-to-heart about addiction, radical honesty, and battling inner demons.
ROUGH CUT PRESS – Born and raised in Los Angeles, Raquel Gutiérrez is a critic, essayist, poet, performer, and educator. Gutiérrez’s first book Brown Neon (Coffee House Press) was named as one of the best books of 2022 by The New Yorker and listed in The Best Art Books of 2022 by Hyperallergic. Brown Neon was a Finalist for the Lambda Literary Prize for Best Lesbian Biography/Memoir, a Finalist for the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses’ Firework Award in Creative Nonfiction and Recipient of The Publishing Triangle Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction. A 2021 recipient of the Rabkin Prize in Arts Journalism, as well as a 2017 recipient of The Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant, Gutiérrez teaches in the Oregon State University-Cascades Low Residency Creative Writing MFA Program, as well as for The Institute of American Indian Arts’s (IAIA) Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing program. Gutiérrez gets to call Tucson, Arizona home.
ROUGH CUT PRESS – Silas House is the New York Times bestselling author of seven novels, one book of creative nonfiction, and three plays. His writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Time, the New York Times, the Advocate, Garden & Gun, and other publications. A former commentator for NPR’s All Things Considered, House is the winner of two Nautilus Awards, the Storylines Prize from the NAV/New York Public Library, an E. B. White Award, and the Southern Book Prize. He has been appointed as the poet laureate of Kentucky for the years 2023-2025.
ROUGH CUT PRESS – Jeffrey Marsh is a bestselling author, viral TikTok and Instagram star, nonbinary activist, and LGBTQ keynote speaker. Jeffrey is the first nonbinary author to sign a book deal with any “Big 5” publisher worldwide, for Penguin Random House. Jeffrey’s #1 bestseller, How to Be You, topped Oprah’s Gratitude Meter and was named Excellent Book of the Year by TED-Ed. Jeffrey’s second book, Take Your Own Advice, was a #1 Amazon Best Seller, outselling all Self-Esteem books upon its release. Jeffrey has spoken at the U.N. and for global brands like Target and BNP, and has reported on LGBTQ topics for Good Morning America, The New York Times, Variety, TIME, and the BBC. In addition, Jeffrey was an LGBTQ consultant for Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign and has consulted for New York University, GLAAD, MTV, Condé Nast’s Them, and Teen Vogue.
ROUGH CUT PRESS – Alok Vaid-Menon (they/them/theirs) is an internationally acclaimed writer, performer, and public speaker. As a mixed-media artist their work explores themes of trauma, belonging, and the human condition. They are the author of Femme in Public (2017), Beyond the Gender Binary (2020), and Your Wound/My Garden (2021). They are the creator of #DeGenderFashion: a movement to degender fashion and beauty industries and have been honored as one of HuffPo’s Culture Shifters, NBC’s Pride 50, and Business Insider’s Doers. Over the past decade they have presented at more than 600 venues in 40 countries.
ROUGH CUT PRESS – Andrea Gibson (they/them/theirs) is a queer author of five full-length collections of poetry, including Lord of the Butterflies (Button Poetry 2018) which sold over 20,000 copies worldwide. Winner of The Independent Publishers Award in 2019, Andrea is also a three-time Goodreads Choice Awards Finalist. In 2017, Penguin Books published Take Me With You, an illustrated collection of Gibson’s most beloved quotes, and in 2019, Chronicle Books published their first non-fiction endeavor, How Poetry Can Change Your Heart. The winner of the first Women’s World Poetry Slam, Gibson has gone on to be featured on BBC, Air America, CSpan, and regularly sells out large capacity venues all over the world. Gibson has also released seven full-length albums of spoken word. Their most recent book, You Better Be Lightning, is now available.
ROUGH CUT PRESS – Krys Malcolm Belc is the author of the flash nonfiction chapbook In Transit (The Cupboard Pamphlet) and the memoir The Natural Mother of the Child (Counterpoint). His work has appeared in Granta, Black Warrior Review, The Rumpus, and elsewhere and has been anthologized in Best of the Net 2018 and Wigleaf Top 50. Krys has won contests at Redivider and Pigeon Pages and his work has been supported by the Sustainable Arts Foundation. He received his BA from Swarthmore College, his M.Ed in Special Education from Arcadia University, and his MFA in Creative Writing at Northern Michigan University. Krys lives in Philadelphia with his partner and their three young children.
ROUGH CUT PRESS – Nnadi Samuel (he/him/his) holds a B.A. in English & literature from the University of Benin. His works have been previously published in Suburban Review, Seventh Wave Magazine, North Dakota Quarterly, Quarterly West, Blood Orange Review, Uncanny Magazine, PORT Magazine, The Cordite Poetry Review, Gordon Square Review, Trampset, Beestung Magazine, Rigorous Magazine, Blue Nib journal, Kaleidoscope Magazine, Stonecrop Review, The Elephant Magazine, Birmingham Arts Journal, Lunaris Review, Inverse Journal, Canyon Voices, Journal Nine, Liquid Imagination, Silver Blade Journal, Star*Line Science Fiction & Poetry, Zoetic Press, Subterranean blue poetry, The Quills, Eunoia Review & elsewhere. Winner of the Miracle Monocle Award for Ambitious Student Writers 2021, and Canadian Open Drawer contest 2020. He won the Splendor of Dawn Poetry Contest April 2020, won the Bkpw Poetry Workshop Contest 2021, got shortlisted in the annual Poet’s Choice award & was the second-prize winner of the EOPP 2019 contest. A finalist of the Lumiere Contest 2021, Quarterly West’s Inaugural Contest 2020, NSPP 2020 prize, Hollins University Literary Festival Awards, Zocalo Poetry Competition 2021 & Pushcart Nominee. He is the author of “Reopening of Wounds” & “Subject Lessons” (forthcoming). He reads for U-Right Magazine. He tweets @Samuelsamba10.