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Meet the Collective
All art provided by Christina Ortiz <3
Stephen Furlong is a writer currently living in Saint Louis, Missouri. He is the author of the chapbook, What Loss Taught Me (Nostrovia! Press, 2018). His work can be found in Jarfly, Delta Poetry Review, and Pine Hills Review. He currently serves as a founding Chapbook Editor for Garden Party Collective which allows him the opportunity to work with some of the coolest people he knows.
Christopher Morgan is a Lebanese American poet and editor who grew up in Detroit, the Bible Belt of Georgia, and the San Francisco Bay Area, where he currently lives with his wife and baby. The Founding Editor of the Garden Party Collective, his prose poems have been performed as short plays, illustrated as posters, and can be found most recently at Gargoyle and Bennington Review. He loves the woods, designing games, and happy hour margaritas.
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Laura Villareal is the author of Girl’s Guide to Leaving (University of Wisconsin Press, 2022) and The Cartography of Sleep (Nostrovia! Press, 2018). Her writing has been supported by fellowships from the Stadler Center for Poetry & Literary Arts, Bread Loaf Writers Conference, National Book Critics Circle, and the Dobie Paisano Fellowship Program. Her writing has appeared in Guernica, AGNI, American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. To read some of her work visit https://www.lauravillareal.com/.
In Memory: Christa Vander Wyst was a poet and essayist hailing from Wisconsin. She is the author of Meditations from My Childhood Bedroom (Garden Party Collective 2023). She can be found online at https://vanderwystportfolio.godaddysites.com/.
Leah Mueller's work appears in Rattle, NonBinary Review, Brilliant Flash Fiction, Citron Review, The Spectacle, New Flash Fiction Review, Atticus Review, Your Impossible Voice, etc. She is a 2022 nominee for both Pushcart and Best of the Net. Leah's flash piece, "Land of Eternal Thirst" appears in the 2022 edition of Best Small Fictions. Her two newest books are The Failure of Photography (Garden Party Press, 2023) and Widow's Fire (Alien Buddha Press, 2023).
Website: www.leahmueller.org.
Kenny Bradley is a poet and graduate student at Rockefeller University, based in New York City, where he travels the boroughs to perform spoken word poetry. He utilizes concepts in both music and biology to influence and shape his poetry to discuss topics ranging in self-love, identity, dissecting trauma, and being a black person in STEM. He was a member of the Provslam 2023 slam team, where he and his teammates won 4 northeast regional slam competitions and self-published a co-authored team chapbook, Dear Kid, Monster. His work can be found on Button Poetry, Frontier Poetry, Empty House Press, etc.
Lyd Havens is the author of Chokecherry (Game Over Books, 2021). Her poetry has previously been published in Ploughshares, Poetry Northwest, and New Delta Review, among others. Lyd lives in Boise, Idaho. They can be found online at lydhavens.com/ and @lydhavens.
Bob Sykora is the author of the chapbook I Was Talking About Love–You Are Talking About Geography (Nostrovia! 2016) and the forthcoming collection Utopians in Love (Game Over Books 2025). He lives in Kansas City where he teaches at community college, edits with Garden Party Collective, co-hosts The Line Break podcast, and curates the KC Poetry Calendar. He can be found online at bobsykora.com and @bob_sykora_.
Christina Ortiz is an artist originally from Austin, Texas, who graduated with a BM in Music Education from Texas State University and a MM in Vocal Performance from George Mason University. Christina currently resides in Northern Virginia with her fiancé and two cats, Chicken Strip and Texas Toast, where she teaches private voice and piano lessons, and enjoys making artwork in a variety of mediums in her spare time.
mónica teresa ortiz is a poet born, raised, and based in Texas. Their most recent chapbook, Have You Ever Dreamed of Flamingos? was published by the Garden Party Collective. Other publications include muted blood (Black Radish 2018), autobiography of a semiromantic anarchist, (Host Publications 2019), The Brooklyn Rail, Scalawag, and Fence.
Maya Williams (ey/they/she) is a religious Black multiracial nonbinary suicide survivor who was selected as Portland, ME's seventh poet laureate for a July 2021 to July 2024 term. Maya was one of three artists of color selected to represent Maine in The Kennedy Center's Arts Across America series in 2020, one of The Advocate's Champions of Pride in 2022, and one of Maine Humanities Council's recipients of the Constance Carlson Public Humanities Prize in 2024.
Jacob Jardel is a CHamoru writer, scholar, and educator born in Guåhan (Guam), raised in California and Oklahoma, and currently based in Kansas City. He’s currently pursuing a doctoral degree in English and Curriculum & Instruction at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. A former Editor for The Sosland Journal, his work has appeared in The 580 Mixtapes Vol. 1, Fanachu’s Voices of the Diaspora zine, and No. 1 Magazine. Jacob lives online at itsjacobj.com, on Twitter/X @itsjacobj96, and on Instagram @itsjacobj.
Ashley Elizabeth is a winner of the 2024 Garden Party Collective Chapbook Contest as well as a Pushcart-nominated writer and teacher whose work has appeared in Full Mood Mag, Free State Review, Rise Up Review, and several others. Ashley is the author of A Family Thing (Redacted Books/ELJ Editions, 2024) and 4 chapbooks, most recently CHARM(ed) and red line. When she isn't teaching, reading, or writing, Ashley works as Chapbook Editor at Sundress Publications. She lives on the original land of the Piscataway (Baltimore, MD) with her partner and their cats.
Christa Vander Wyst
We at the GPC were absolutely heartbroken to learn the news of Christa's passing (Jan. 24th 2024). She was a beautiful light in our group and to her friends and family and we're all still processing her tragic loss.
We talked about how we can best honor her–mental health was always an important subject for Christa, and she was planning to host a contest soon through our collective. ​As such, we at the GPC have started a yearly contest in tribute to Christa and her legacy. We extend our deepest condolences to the Vander Wyst family and everyone that Christa touched.
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