About the Artists featured in Issue 43
Nora Ampova
Artist bio: Nora Ampova is a visual artist based in Sofia, Bulgaria. She holds Master’s degree in Painting (2014) from the National Academy of Arts Sofia, Bulgaria. In 2011, she specialized in Fine Arts at the University of Hertfordshire,UK, as part of the Erasmus exchange program. Her artistic practice is deeply rooted in personal experience, her work explores themes of isolation, solitude, self-sufficiency, travel, and the complex relationship between humans and nature. Nora’s process is intuitive and introspective, often seeking to capture the emotional and existential dimensions of contemporary life.
Reena Choudhary
Reena is an artist from India she believes that art has no limits and is a powerful way to express emotions, imagination, and the beauty of the world. Biggest inspiration is nature, she enjoys capturing its colors, landscapes, and quiet moments, which often influence her creative process.
Her artwork has been published in numerous print and online publications, including The PERCH Journal, The Climate Art Collection, Aunt Lute, Judy Magazine, Farm Girl Magazine, Art Axis Project, January House Literary Journal (T-Art Press), Wildscape Literary Journal, A Journal of Literary Oddities (Ringling College of Art and Design), Hiraya Literary, The MacGuffin, and Club Plum.
She was awarded the Silver Medal in the Khula Aasmaan India Art Contest (2025) and received a medal and certificate at The Indian Art Fest (2026).
Abbie Doll
Abbie Doll is an artist based in Columbus, OH with an MFA from Lindenwood University. Her photography has been featured in places such as 3:AM Magazine, PRISM international, and Gone Lawn. Connect on socials @AbbieDollWrites.
Michelle Disler
Michelle Disler has been making photographic image transfers for the last decade, but has only started publishing them in the last few years. What began as an experiment using eucalyptus oil and premium card stock has turned into gallery representation and continued publication of these images in literary magazines. Disler lives and works in southwest Michigan just two miles from Lake Michigan.
Trevor Cunnington
Trevor Cunnington, a multifaceted creator residing in Toronto, seamlessly intertwines his roles as a writer, artist, and educator. His literary journey has been marked by contributions to esteemed publications, including “Vita Poetica”, “Poetry Lighthouse, BlazeVox”, and “God’s Cruel Joke“ where his evocative poems have found a home. Trevor’s artistic vision extends beyond the written word, with his art gracing the pages of “Word For/Word, Marrow“ “Inlandia, “and “Cerasus.“
Stephen Ground
Stephen Ground is a writer, filmmaker, and picture-taker based in Treaty Six Territory [Edmonton, Canada].
Kale Hensley
Kale Hensley is a poet and visual artist from West Virginia. Their writing has appeared in Gulf Coast, Booth, Evergreen Review, Image, and Sonora Review. They were selected by Adele Elise Williams as the recipient of the 2026 Elmer Kelton Prize for Poetry and selected by Jaia Hamid Bashir for the Clarion Poetry Prize. Find more of their writing at www.kalehens.com.
Beth Kephart
National Book Award finalist Beth Kephart is the award-winning author of some 40 books in multiple genres. Her art appears or will soon appear in a range of journals and magazines including Women Who Create, Print (online), Black Warrior Review, The Pinch, Calyx, The Core, and Lunch Ticket. She is the creator of the bestselling words + image Substack, The Hush and the Howl. More at bethkephartbooks.com.
Soha Kabiri
Soha Kabiri is an Iranian artist, originally from Tehran. Intrigued from an early age by the creative force, she obtained a Master of Art degree from Tehran University in 2013. Passionate about art, her interest is particularly focused on painting in relation to themes involving sexual identity. Sexual identity is a major controversial topic in her works. It is exacerbated and takes on its full meaning under the impact of her life history as a woman evolving in a patriarchal society. It is through extensive research on gender studies as a vital concept and an aesthetic but also experimental artistic trajectory that Soha Kabiri’s work is built and deeply rooted. In her recent works, she attempts to demonstrate the essence of her vision. Through a distortion of lines and forms that demonstrate 1 O years of work and evolution, she expresses her meaning of sexual identity through her paintings, drawings and installations.
Jakob Schöning
Jakob Schöning is a Leipzig-based painter. Working through the human figure, he constructs images that feel at once intimate and synthetic, familiar and estranged. His work lingers in the tension between adaptation and alienation.
Suzana Stojanović
Suzana Stojanović, an artist and writer, studied literature at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Niš in Serbia. She is the author of the book “The structure and meaning of the border stories of Ilija Vukićević” and many literary, artistic, and philosophical texts, short stories, satires, essays, and poems. She is the recipient of the 7th September award of the city of Vranje, public recognition for exceptional achievements in the category of education, and for the numerous prizes won in the field of art, musical, and literary creativity. Many of her artworks are to be found in private and public collections in the USA, Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, Croatia, Montenegro, Slovenia, and North Macedonia. Her work has appeared in “Cardinal Sins”, “Your Impossible Voice”, “Fiction International”, “Mount Hope”, “Barnstorm Journal”, and elsewhere, and has been nominated for the “Best Small Fictions 2023” anthology.
Gregory Stump
Gregory Stump, an emeritus professor of linguistics, is a visual artist who currently works in digital media. His drawings juxtapose the familiar with the unfamiliar in enigmatic ways, often involving asemic representations of written language in a variety of contexts. He has provided cover art for books issued by Cambridge University Press, State Street Press, Finishing Line Press, Main Street Rag Publishers, and Pine Row Press; his art has also appeared in the journals Kansas City Voices, Glacial Hills Review, The MacGuffin, and Folio Literary Journal as well as in various juried exhibitions. He resides in Lenexa, Kansas. (See www.stumpdrawings.com for a partial portfolio of his digital work.)
Virgil Suárez
Virgil Suárez was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1962. At the age of twelve he arrived in the United States. He received an MFA from Louisiana State University in 1987. He is the author of eight collections of poetry, most recently 90 MILES: SELECTED AND NEW, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. His work has appeared in a multitude of magazines and journals internationally. He has been taking photographs on the road for the last three decades. When he is not writing, he is out riding his motorcycle up and down the Blue Highways of the Southeast, photographing disappearing urban and rural landscapes. His 10th volume of poetry, THE PAINTED BUNTING’S LAST MOLT, was be published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in the Spring of 2020. He is also the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Grant and an Individual Artist Grant from the State of Florida and a Latino Book Prize.
Andrew Velazquez
Andrew Velazquez is a photographer and lawyer/civil rights investigator from the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. For more than 25 years, he has explored the world through a camera, finding inspiration in wildlife, natural landscapes, urban environments, and travel. He enjoys hiking in search of wildlife and exploring new places with his wife, using photography as a way to slow down and reconnect with the natural world. Through his images, Andrew hopes to inspire others to pause, look a little closer, and appreciate the beauty that often goes unnoticed. His work can be found at akvphoto.com and on Instagram at @akv_photo.
Jean Wolff
Jean Wolff has had group and solo exhibits in various galleries in New York City and internationally. In addition, she has published 174 works in 119 issues of 62 magazines. Born in Detroit, Michigan, she studied fine arts at the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit and at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, receiving a BFA in studio arts. She then attended Hunter College, CUNY in New York, graduating with an MFA in painting and printmaking. She is now part of the artistic community of Westbeth in Manhattan.
