Chapman University

Lashai Dowl

Lashai Dowl, an aspiring author from New Orleans, writes poetry, short stories, and novels. She has been obsessed with writing since elementary school, often writing poems alongside her schoolwork. After receiving her B.A. in English from Dillard University in 2017, Lashai continued her academic journey at Chapman University in 2023. Currently working on her M.A. in English and M.F.A. in Creative Writing, she is also a GSI (Graduate Student Instructor) and GRA (Graduate Research Assistant).

California State University, Long Beach

Emma Gonzalez

Aspiring novelist and writer Emma Gonzalez is an M.F.A. Creative Writing student at California State University, Long Beach. She is of Salvadoran and Mexican descent and is especially interested in Central American literary production and surveying feminine bodies through the scopes of race and class. A recipient of the 2026-2027 Graduate Fellowship for her thesis work, she is currently working on a novel set during the Salvadoran Civil War that focuses on female civilians. Emma has previously been published under the name Emma Melara in Wild Tongues Art & Literary Journal and will be featured in the forthcoming issue of Watermark Journal.

California State University, Long Beach

Katherine Monjaras-Gutierrez

Short story writer K. V. Monjaras-Gutierrez is currently pursuing an M.F.A. in Creative Writing at CSU Long Beach. With her BA in Psychology from CSU Northridge, Monjaras-Gutierrez combines themes of loneliness, passivity, identity, and surrealism into her short pieces that range from autofiction to magical realism. Besides her contributions as a prose and poetry reader for RipRap Literary Journal (2025-2026), her work is expected to be published in the next issue of Northridge Review.

Long Beach City College

Daniela Ortiz-Isales

Mexican writer and poet Daniela Grisel Ortiz Ramirez was born in Mexico City and has been based in Southern California for the past decade. She is a chronic observer who turns homesickness, family lore, and everyday chaos into verse where she explores identity, immigration, womanhood, and the complicated meaning of home when it exists in more than one place. Daniela earned an A.A. in English from Cypress College and continues honing her craft through creative writing courses at Long Beach City College. Writing under the pen name Gris Amori, she has published poetry in Puente MID. She writes in both English and Spanish and is currently working on her debut novel, a poetry collection, and a collection of short stories centered on immigration.

PEN America Los Angeles

Abrigul Safar

An indigenous Pamiri writer from Tajikistan, Abrigul Safar is an immigrant and mother whose nonfiction and stories draw on personal history and the lives of people from a part of the world rarely represented in literature. Her work begins with individual stories and looks at how family, society, history, and political forces shape people’s lives, sometimes in ways beyond their control. Abrigul began writing in Russian as a child, growing up in a culture where Pamiri languages were passed down primarily through oral tradition and had little presence in written literature. Having lived and worked in several countries, she draws on her experiences of migration and cultural displacement to explore stories that are complex, uncomfortable, and rarely told. In 2025, she was selected for PEN America's Emerging Voices Workshop Los Angeles.

Chapman University

Selah Sanchez

Selah Sanchez, a woman of few spoken words and far too many written ones, is a senior in Chapman University’s Creative Writing B.F.A. program, and an Orange County native from Fullerton. She’s been published in the Rooted In: Rite anthology, and Chapman’s own publications Calliope, The Underground, and Ouroboros (of which she is the Editor-in-Chief). Her poetry and prose blur the line between the natural and fantastical, uncovering beauty and humanity where one least expects to find them. Her current white whale is a children’s fantasy novel. When Selah is not writing, she is baking, contemplating rats, or spending time with her dog, Luna. She is grateful for this opportunity and would like to thank everyone who has supported this little passion of hers.

PEN America Los Angeles

Patricia Kelly Yeo

Patricia Kelly Yeo is a Los Angeles-based writer and journalist. She is currently seeking representation for her first novel, Desire Paths, a dual-perspective Asian American coming-of-age story that touches on race, class, religion, politics, and the tech industry. Yeo is a 2025 fiction alumna of PEN America’s Emerging Voices Workshop Los Angeles. Her creative nonfiction essays have appeared in Joyland, the Sunday Long Read, Synonym Magazine, Catapult, Sine Theta and Man Repeller.