Jacky Grey is a writer, artist and architect interested in place and belonging. Jacky received The Sewanee Review prize in nonfiction. Jacky earned their MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Pacific University. They were a participant of the Anaphora Arts Emerging Critics Program in 2023. They write memoir, personal essay, poetry and criticism. Their work has been published in The Sewanee Review and Oregon East. Grey is based in Western Oregon with their partner, daughter and dog. They maintain an Instagram that is a fan page for said dog and chaotically curated meme stream.

Atina Hartunian, a first-generation Armenian-American writer, earned her MFA from Pacific University in 2023. She received a Teaching Fellowship from Anaphora Arts (2024), a Pacific University MFA Merit Scholarship (2021), and residencies from Cambridge Writers’ Workshop. She has led generative workshops using sensory-driven prompts and craft constraints and has given craft talks on aspects of the horror genre. Currently, she’s developing a four-part Horror Lecture Series. She has also written two chapbooks, with her third, Love at First Sip, set to release in Spring 2025. Atina Hartunian writes literary cartoons—not the kind you’d find in The New Yorker. Her stories are more like animated cartoons, which makes sense when you grow up watching She-Ra and The Simpsons. Just read her work, and you’ll see. She is a native Los Angel-ian.

Mike Itaya is the editor-in-chief of DIRTBAG and writes about dirtbags, always.

Matthew Kasper lives in Baltimore. He has an MFA in Fiction from Pacific University where he was a Washburn-Hayes Scholar. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Newsweek, Halfway Down the Stairs, Phano, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, and elsewhere. When he squints hard enough, he can see the forest for the trees.

Michele Knapp is a writer, reader, lawyer, and librarian. A former criminal defense attorney, she now roams the stacks of the University of San Diego law library by day and plugs away at her novel by night. In 2023, she earned her MFA in Writing from Pacific University. Michele leads writing workshops for youth and librarians, has taught legal research and writing skills to law students, and is a founding member of Pacific Alumni Craft Talks (PACT). Currently, she is writing a novel focused on criminal justice, set in Chicago.

Julie Levine started her career on the business side of book publishing and later moved to the creative side. She holds both a BA and MA in American Literature from New York University and completed an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Pacific University last June. Julie is also the editor-at-large for sneaker wave magazine. She writes personal essays about her childhood, her family, about losing things and about finding herself. She is currently working on a memoir.

Beatriz Brenes Mora is an award winning Costa Rican actress, video editor and writer. Her work has been published by Barrelhouse, Michigan Quarterly Review and is forthcoming in Iron Horse Review. Her short story "How to Make Tamales After Lucía" was a semi-finalist for the 2023 Sewanee Review Fiction Contest. She's been to the Tin House Workshop, Anaphora Arts, Macondo Writers Workshop and was a semi-finalist for the Key West Literary Seminar Emerging Writer Award. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Pacific University and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Cincinnati, where she lives with Matilda, a way-too-smart mini husky with special powers (like her namesake).

Allison Macy-Steines writes both prose and poetry, and she is passionate about bending the boundaries between genres. She earned her MFA in Writing from Pacific University and holds a BA in Journalism and Media Studies from UW-Milwaukee. Her work is published or forthcoming with The Missouri Review, River Teeth, Under the Gum Tree, Mom Egg Review, and elsewhere.

Aaron Pope is a fiction writer based in Oregon. He received his MFA in Fiction from Pacific University in 2023. He’s interested in empowering the traditionally disempowered and challenging norms with vibrant characters and imaginative stories. His work has been previously published in Tree and Stone Magazine.

Philippa Ribbink is a Portland based gynecologist with an MFA in Writing from Pacific University. She is a participant and trained facilitator with the NW Narrative Medicine Collaborative and is involved in Pacific University’s Body Chronicles program. Philippa is published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology and has been a peer reviewer for the journal. She provides editorial advice on creative nonfiction submissions for Teaching and Learning in Medicine. Philippa is currently working on a collection of memoir pieces exploring how her queerness, the repair of a congenital heart defect, and her family’s frequent international moves shaped and defined her as a physician and as a writer. Philippa believes that storytelling empowers patients and providers in a fractured healthcare system and that craft is the magic that allows writers to question stories and allow readers to find themselves on the page.

McKenzie is an inveterate schemer and loiterer. She made up this conference as a way to get her cool writing friends in one place and then realized that she actually deeply believes in its convening principles and she’s totally qualified to pull it off. She writes personal essays, local journalism, and criticism, and is currently querying a memoir about disentangling herself from American evangelicalism. She serves as the inaugural critic-in-residence for Mayday magazine, the executive editor for sneaker wave, and the primary designer for feminist art brand, MWatsonMade.