New CNF
Red by Andrea Rehani
Andrea Rehani is an Assyrian-Iraqi-American prose and poet writer. Her work has been published in MAKE: A Literary Magazine. Currently, she is an ESL professor for international students. In addition, she is working toward her PhD in Curriculum Studies at DePaul University. Andrea is a captain and member of Poems While You Wait. She holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction Prose from The New School and an MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from Northeastern Illinois University. Andrea lives in Chicago.
Evaporated by Magda Montiel Davis
Magda Montiel Davis is a graduate of the University of Iowa’s Nonfiction Writing Program, where she was awarded an Iowa Arts Fellowship. Kissing Fidel: a Memoir of Cuban-American Terrorism in the United States won the 2020 Iowa Prize for Literary Nonfiction and will be published in the fall. “Ashes Over Havana” won the 2019 Earl Weaver Baseball Prize and was selected for inclusion in Best Women’s Travel Writing. Magda is a former Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress, an immigration lawyer, and was the first recipient of the American Immigration Lawyers Association’s national Pro Bono Award. She divides her time between Key Biscayne, Florida, and Iowa City, a UNESCO City of Literature.
Grass by Nicole Walker
Nicole Walker is the author of Sustainability: A Love Story (2018). She has previously published the books Where the Tiny Things Are (2017), Egg (2017), Micrograms (2016), Quench Your Thirst with Salt (2013), and This Noisy Egg (2010). She edited for Bloomsbury the essay collections Science of Story with Sean Prentiss and Bending Genre: Essays on Creative Nonfiction, with Margot Singer. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts award and is a noted author in Best American Essays.
Grief by David Carlin
David Carlin is a writer and creative artist based in Melbourne, Australia. David’s books include 100 Atmospheres: Studies in Scale and Wonder, Our Father Who Wasn’t There, The Abyssinian Contortionist, and the edited anthology of new Asian and Australian writing, The Near and the Far. His award-winning work includes essays, plays, radio features, exhibitions, documentary and short films; recent projects include the Circus Oz Living Archive and WrICE. He is a Professor of Creative Writing at RMIT University where he co-directs the non/fictionLab.
When Birds Devour the Breadcrumb Trail by Tessa Mellas
Tessa Mellas received the 2013 Iowa Short Fiction Award for her collection Lungs Full of Noise. She holds an MFA from Bowling Green State University and a PhD from the University of Cincinnati. She teaches writing at the University of Maine at Machias, a college so far east it is the first in the nation each morning to see the sun. Figure skater, vermicomposter, vegan and tender of a fierce feline twosome, she relates to soil and snow.
Biography of Orange (An Excerpt) After Maggie Nelson by Chloe Firetto-Toomey
Chloe Firetto-Toomey has an MFA degree from Florida International University, where she currently teaches creative writing. She also teaches nonfiction at Everglades Correctional Institution. She is a two-time finalist in Tupelo Quarterly’s Prose Open Contest and a finalist in Diagram’s chapbook contest. She won the 2017 Christopher F. Kelly Award for Poetry and 2020 Scotti Merrill Award for poetry. Her chapbook of poems, Little Cauliflower, was published in 2019 by Dancing Girl Press.
GRIST CNF
Big Break: A Multiple-Choice Test
Sandra Beasley is the author of Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life, a disability memoir. Her nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Virginia Quarterly Review, Creative Nonfiction, LitHub, and A Harp in the Stars: An Anthology of Lyric Essays. She is the author of four poetry collections, most recently Made to Explode, which won the Housatonic Book Award, and she edited Vinegar and Char: Verse from the Southern Foodways Alliance.
Photo credit: Andrew Lightman
How To Fix Everything
J Lazar is a writer and co-founder of the Field Academiy, a school that seeks to make learning and life indistinguishable. She is currently working on a family memoir exploring whiteness and erasure through stories of alchemy and migration. Jen is grateful for the best mammals she knows: her partner, Daniel, her daughter, Artemis Grace, and their provocative housecat, Radio. Keep up with J’s work at jenlazar.com.
Bones
J. Kasper Kramer is the author of the critically acclaimed middle-grade novel The Story That Cannot Be Told (2019) and The List of Unspeakable Fears (2021), and an adjunct professor in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Her nonfiction can be found in The Rumpus, Writer’s Digest, and The Coachella Review. Visit her at jkasperkramer.com.
Susie Revisited
Peter Galligan is a communications manager from Denver, Colorado. He is currently pursuing an interdisciplinary master’s degree in writing and business administration at Western New Mexico University. His work has appeared in journals such as Mud Season Review, From Whispers to Roars, Red Savina Review, and Metrosphere. He also produces electronic dance music under the name “Medias Res,” and his music has been featured on numerous EDM compilations.
Subscribe to Grist.
Grist is publishes a print publication annually featuring work of high literary quality from both emerging and established writers. Welcoming all styles and aesthetic approaches, Grist is committed to diversity, inclusivity, cultural interchange, and respect for all individuals who are part of the literary community.