A nonfiction candidate in Fresno State’s MFA program, Rosie Bates serves as the Managing Editor of The Normal School magazine and works as a teaching associate in the English Department. If she isn’t writing or hanging with her cat, Steve, you’ll most likely find her exploring and climbing on the abundance of granite that surrounds Fresno. She has been published in Alpinist Magazine and anxiously awaits what is to come post graduation.

Mialise Carney is an MFA candidate in fiction, with an emphasis in publishing and editing. She is the senior fiction editor at The Normal School magazine, and her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in swamp pink, Booth, and Barren Magazine. Her stories center women characters responding to the surreal pressures of late capitalism.

Amber L. Carpenter is a lifelong Central Valley girl who has historically been horrible at keeping a diary, but has always been really good at oversharing. An MFA nonfiction candidate, her work seeks to uncover truths about growing up fat, navigating love and grief after sexual assault, and the use of humor to acquiesce what it means to have lived in a fat body. Her essays have appeared in Flies, Cockroaches and Poets, the San Joaquin Review, and Entropy magazine.

Dylon Romo is an MFA candidate in fiction, currently working as a barista to serve both his caffeine and financial needs. When he’s not watching mixed martial arts fights, Dylon can be found playing chess for obscene amounts of time. His writing veers toward the satirical and aims to find humor in the absurd. His essays and stories have been published in Symmetry.