Read: Four excerpts from There Is News Along the Ohio River at Heavy Feather Review

Purchase: There Is News Along the Ohio River(River River Books, 2026)

Beth Gilstrap (she/her) is a multi-genre author, copywriter, editor, and educator. Her debut hybrid/flash CNF collection, There Is News Along the Ohio River, was released February 2026 from River River Books. She is also the author of two story collections including: Deadheading & Other Stories (2021), winner of the Red Hen Press Women’s Prose Prize, shortlisted for the Stanford Libraries William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, and finalist for the Foreword 2021 Foreword Reviews Awards in Short Fiction; I Am Barbarella: Stories from Twelve Winters Press (2015), and the chapbook No Man’s Wild Laura (2016) from Hyacinth Girl Press. A true southern goth/punk gal at heart, she is the Publisher & Editor-in-chief of the goth/punk zine, Black Lily (find them on Instagram @blacklilyzine). Her essays, stories, and hybrids have appeared in Poets & Writers, Wigleaf, Craft, Bending Genres, and The Cincinnati Review, among others. She lives with her husband and a bunch of cuddly fur muppets in Charlotte, North Carolina. As a neurodivergent human who lives with c-PTSD, she is open about her struggles and fearlessly vocal about ending the stigma surrounding mental illness.

Recommended Reading

Kathy Fish

Ross Gay

Maggie Nelson

Lydia Davis

Terese Marie Mailhot, Heart Berries

Terrance Hayes, American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin

Stephanie Foo, What My Bones Know

Pete Walker - Complex PTSD: from Surviving to Thriving

Tara Westover, Educated

Jen Soriano, Nervous

Rebecca Olander, Singing From the Deep End

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart, author of Larks (Ohio UP, 2025).
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Read: "Listen to Yourself" (Sixth Finch)

Purchase: The Visible Field (River River Books, 2026)

Zoë Ryder White’s first full-length collection, The Visible Field, was published by River River Books in February, 2026. A chapbook, Via Post, was a finalist for Tupelo Press’ Snowbound Chapbook award and won the Sixth Finch chapbook contest in 2022. HYPERSPACE was the editors’ choice pick for the Verse Tomaž Šalamun Prize in 2020 and is available from Factory Hollow Press. She co-authored A Study in Spring (Rabbit Catastrophe Press, 2015) and Elsewhere (Sixth Finch Press, 2020) with Nicole Callihan. Her poems have appeared in Tupelo Quarterly, Iterant, Plume, and Threepenny Review, among others. A former elementary school teacher, she edits books for educators about the craft of teaching. She lives in New York’s Hudson Valley with her family.

Reading Recommendations

Vijay Seshadri

Emily Dickinson

Letters of Emily Dickinson

Nicole Callihan

Imogene's Antlers (children's book)

The Poetics of Revery by Gaston Bachelard

The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard

Molly Spencer

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart, author of Larks (Ohio UP, 2025).
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Read: the title essay "Backyard Alchemy" (The Common)

Purchase: Backyard Alchemy: on life with other creatures in a time of salvage (River River Books, 2026)

J.D. Ho was born by the sea, raised on a rock, schmoozed in Hollywood, drove to Austin, Texas for an MFA, and now lives among foxes and deer on a sliver of east coast green. J.D.’s work has appeared in Georgia Review, Missouri Review, Ninth Letter, and other journals.

Reading Recommendations

Mushroom at the End of the World by Anna Tsing

The Fall of Iris Henley by Jennifer Graham

Brilliant Minds (tv show)

Alban Fischer (Designer and editor)

Pastoral, 1994 by Joe Wilkins

Scythe by Elizabeth Sylvia

Your Mother’s Bear Gun by Corrie Williamson

EcoTheo Review