The next bestseller could be hidden in your journal or floating around somewhere in your hardrive. Set it free by submitting. The list below is your proof of the possibilities. Not sure where to submit? Make an appointment with The Publishing Lab!
Nikki Macahon lives in an apartment in suburban Chicago that her cat is gracious enough to share with her. Her pastimes include staying up past her bedtime reading memoirs written by popular comedians or thinking about what she’s going to eat in the morning. If it interests anyone, she also does a thing on Youtube and a thing on Blogspot. She’s the one wearing flannel. Nikki is the author of "Mr. Pascal's Funeral Parlor", which is featured on Literally Stories.
Kate Wisel is originally from Boston. Her fiction has appeared in Midwestern Gothic, The Drum, Bartleby Snopes, Corium Magazine, SmokeLong Quarterly, Fiction Southeast, Compose Journal, Mad Hatters’ Review, and her poetry in DecomP, The Altar, The Blotter, Philadelphia Stories, Neon Magazine where she was nominated for The Forward Prize, and on Boston’s subway as winner of the “Poetry on the T” contest. She was awarded the Keach Prize at The University of Massachusetts Boston and earned a scholarship to the Wesleyan Writers Conference. She is a fiction MFA candidate at Columbia College Chicago where she teaches undergraduate writing and rhetoric. Read "The Driver", which is featured on Literary Orphans.
Sung Yim is a South Korean immigrant and queer essayist from Illinois. They are currently completing their BA in Creative Writing and planning for a severe post-graduation existential crisis at Columbia College Chicago. Their work can be read at Bird's Thumb, The Heartbroke Daily, and their newest work,"Mess of Color" can be read at The James Franco Review. Sung is also a blogger for Hooligan Magazine, where they have published "Tangerine: Challenging Respectability Politics Through Media" and "On White Guilt in the Classroom".
Chelsea M. Harris received the Follet Graduate Merit Award to attend Columbia College Chicago and pursue an M.F.A. from the Department of Creative Writing. Chelsea was named to Glimmer Train’s top 25 list for their Very Short Fiction Award and has had work published in Cigale Literary Magazine, Wonderlust Literary Zine, The Antarctican Zine, and on Thought Catalog. She currently resides in Chicago with her cat, Winston. Read her story, "Cream Flavored & Cherry Scented" in Cleaver Magazine.
Sara King had her brief but poignant story, "O.C.D", published in November 2015 by 101Word Stories.
Ashlyn Wheeler is a senior BFA candidate at Columbia College Chicago, where she works as a tutor for the Department of Creative Writing and as an editor for award-winning anthology Hair Trigger. Her previous work can be found as one of the Featured Stories at 101Words and in Hair Trigger 38. Read her story, "Dummy", in Hypertext Magazine.
Molly Franklin is a fiction writing student at Columbia College Chicago where her passions include fuzzy animals and murder - enjoyed separately of course. She has been previously published in I AM FEMINISM magazine and Lit Literature where her voice has been described as “beautifully disturbing.” Feel free to follow her on Facebook where she posts regularly about singing, acting, painting, and, of course, writing. Read her piece, "Wind Flowers" at Ampersand Literary.
Karen McKinley holds a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing from Columbia College and lives in Chicago, where she is currently working on her first YA novel. Previously, she has been published in Remarkable Doorways, Hair Trigger #37, and Goreyesque, and was a featured writer for the steampunk mag The Aether Chronicle. She is a lover of fashion and costuming and cannot resist a good cup of dark roast - especially after midnight. Read "There She Goes" published on The Write Place At The Write Time.
Josh Corson is a poet and performer who is currently pursuing his BA in Poetry from Columbia College Chicago. His poems and short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Aviator, december magazine, Fallero, and Slactivism. In addition to writing, he has a degree in Recording Engineering and has worked in recording studios, broadcast media, and corporate AV. His Hip Hop music has been featured on college radio stations around Florida. He likes kittens and funk music.
Kenny Kelly is a native North Californian and received his bachelor's from California State University - Chico. He is currently a second-year fiction student at Columbia College Chicago and a tutor at 826 Chicago. His stories have appeared in Watershed Review, Toad Suck Review, and his work is forthcoming in Berkeley Fiction Review. He's a graduate of iO Chicago's improv program and performs with the One Group Mind team, Socrates Soccer Tees.
RS Deeren is the 2016 Union League Club of Chicago Library’s Writer in Residence and a 2015 Luminarts Foundation Creative Writing Fellow. His fiction, nonfiction, and poetry appears in Midwestern Gothic, The Legendary, BartlebySnopes, The Chicago Center for Literature and Photography’s anthology The View from Here, Cardinal Sins, and elsewhere. He is a second year MFA Fiction candidate and also a Graduate Teaching Assistant for Columbia College Chicago and The College of Lake County. He’s a founding member of the Chicago writers group, Submittable Sundays, which focuses on sustaining a writing community outside of academia. Before moving to Chicago, RS lived in the rural Thumb Region of Michigan where he worked odd jobs as a line cook, a landscaper, a banker, and a lumberjack. Home is still the woods for him but he’s glad to be living and working on his craft in the blue-collar-arts world of Chicago. Find out more or drop a line at rsdeeren.com and on Twitter @RSDeeren.
Melaina K de la Cruz is a Chicago-based writer who has moved around so much that she doesn’t really consider herself to be from anywhere. She’s decided to wander around the planet with a pen and notebook until she finds a suitable hometown. Currently, she is finishing her degree at Columbia College Chicago, where she studies creative nonfiction writing and radio production. You can read her work in Hypertext Magazine, Thought Catalog, and The Inner Condition.