Come enjoy a reading from graduate students and UMD faculty members!

Harley Nguyen (he/him) is a Vietnamese American poet based in Maryland. His poetry is interested in how creative writing can serve as a steward of memory, and is primarily focused on interpersonal relationships, nostalgia, and observations on human nature. He has degrees in English Literature from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and the University of Maryland, College Park.

Elizabeth Bryant is a writer from St. Peter, Minnesota. Her writing explores black interiorities in rural and small town spaces in the midwest. She has studied history and Black studies, and worked as a barista, literary nonprofit manager, nanny, publicist, events programmer, butcher and farmer-trainee. Elizabeth is a founding member of the Minneapolis-based artist collective Burn Something and a current MFA student in fiction at the University of Maryland.

Arielle Cole writes historical fiction with speculative elements, and occasionally speculative fiction with historical elements. She is the recipient of a Vermont Studio Center Fellowship and her fiction has appeared in Corvid Queen and Fusion Fragment. She is currently based in Washington, DC, where she is working towards her MFA in creative writing at the University of Maryland.

January Santoso is a writer from Fresno, CA. She has been published in DISCOUNT GUILLOTINE, Meadow, SHIFT, The Champagne Room, The Chestnut Review and The Texas Review.

Timmy R. Bridgeman received his BA in English in 2022 from the historic Tougaloo College and is currently a Ph.D Candidate in English at the University of Maryland. His areas of interest include African American Literature, Queer Literature, and Personal Narrative. Outside of academia, Timmy enjoys photography, video games, and the hit tv show Survivor. 

You can find his poem “A Black Boy’s Bouquet” in Black Visions: A Jeffrey “Boosie” Bolden Anthology.

Edward Daschle (he/him) is a queer writer living in Maryland. He has attended Clarion Workshop and Disquiet Workshop, and earned his MFA in creative writing from the University of Maryland, where he now teaches. His stories appear in Apex Magazine’s Robotic Ambitions anthology, After Dinner Conversation – “Best of 2023” anthology, and Washington Writers’ Publishing House among other venues.

Sara Lieto is an MFA candidate at University of Maryland. Most recently, their poetry has appeared in Wax Nine Journal and Struggle Magazine.

Declan Apuzzo Langton is a fiction writer from New England and a literature PhD Student at the University of Maryland. Their writing—fictitious or not—focuses on humidity, weird friendships, and small spaces. Their work has been published in The Mount Holyoke Review and on their collaborative Substack, BumperThumper.

Anney Bolgiano lives in Maryland, where she teaches writing at University of Maryland, College Park and studies at the University of Maryland, School of Social Work. She received her MFA from George Mason University, and her BA from Guilford College. Her work has appeared in The Iowa Review, Gulf Coast, TriQuarterly, Nashville Review, DIAGRAM, Aquifer: The Florida Review Online, Salamander, CTRL+V, A Velvet Giant, The Figure One, District Lines Anthology, Poetry Daily, and elsewhere. Her debut chapbook, FLAT-PACK, won the DIAGRAM/New Michigan Press 2021 Chapbook Contest. Her short story, “Junior Steaks,” was selected by Kristen Arnett for the 2024 Best of the Net anthology. She is a Pushcart Prize Nominee, and a past resident of Art Farm Nebraska.

Brooklyn born, Jersey raised, and Baltimore based, Taína is a proud Higuayagua Taíno writer from the Puerto Rican Diaspora on a mission to write her people back into history. Her writing explores ancestral language, memory, reimagined Taíno mythologies, and the delightful peculiarities of big family life. Her short story “As I am Yours: A Love Story” was a semi-finalist for the 2025 Chatanqua Janus Prize. Her writing can be found in the Yellow Arrow Journal, and the Forward to Hiwatahia: Hekexi Taíno Language Reconstruction dictionary.