Khadijah AbdulHaqq is a fiction writer and an essayist. She lives in Memphis, Tennessee by way of Philadelphia, Pa. She holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, where she received the 2022 Lynda Hull Scholarship for BIPOC writers. She is also a 2023 VONA fellow, a 2023 Bread Loaf, Katherine Bakerless-Nason Contributor, and a 2022 Roots. Wounds. Words fellow. Her work has been published and/or is forthcoming in HerStry, Torch Literary Art, Haute Hijab, Ponder Review, and elsewhere.

Khadijah’s work revolves around the identities of being a Black, Muslim, women as she has seen and/or experienced them. When Khadijah isn’t writing, she enjoys traveling, cooking, and finding new ways to explore the world. This has lead her to discovering her new favorite food, Pho.

Danielle Bainbridge is an Assistant Professor of Theatre, Black Studies, and Performance Studies at Northwestern University. Her first academic book, Currencies of Cruelty: Slavery, Freak Shows, and the Performance Archive, is forthcoming in 2025 from NYU Press. Her first memoir, Dandelion: A Memoir in Essays, is forthcoming from Jaded Ibis Press in 2025, where it was the winner of the inaugural Uplift Voices Nonfiction Prize. Dandelion was a semi-finalist for the 2016 Kore Press Memoir Award, the 2023 St. Lawrence Prize from Black Lawrence Press, and the 2024 Creative Nonfiction Award from Autumn House Press and has received scholarships/residencies from Tin House, the Adirondack Center for Writing, and the Banff Centre in Canada. Her web series and media work have been nominated for 3 Daytime Emmy Awards and 1 NAACP Image Award. She lives and loves in Chicago with her partner and 2 naughty cats.

Agnes Chew is the author of Eternal Summer of My Homeland and The Desire for Elsewhere. Her fiction won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize (Asia), and appears in Granta, Necessary Fiction, and Wildness. She has received scholarships from Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Tin House, and Granta Writers’ Workshop. Originally from Singapore, she now lives in Germany.

Faithna Geffrard is a Haitian American writer from South Florida. She uses words to examine the horrifying and humorous. She is an alumna of Roots.Wounds.Words, the Wild Seeds Retreat, VONA, and Tin House. Her writing has been featured in Panorama Journal, The Missing Slate, Little Old Lady, Raising Mother’s, and more. Her short story “No Ponyboy” was nominated by Susurrus Magazine for a Best Small Fictions Award. This will be her second time attending VONA.

Gimbiya Kettering’s multi-genre writing on the intersection of race, religion and politics has been published in literary magazines, faith-based publications, and she is a contributing editor to Reparations and the Theological Disciplines: Prophetic Voices for Remembrance, Reckoning, and Repair. Her writing has been supported by DC Arts and Humanities Commission, Elizabeth George Foundation, Maryland State Arts Council, Sustainable Arts Foundation, James Merrill House, Yaddo, and Callaloo. In 2023, Associated Church Press awarded her the James Solheim Award of Excellence for Editorial Courage. A returning VONA alumna, Gimbiya is excited to share her novel-in-progress, Indivisible, an alternate history of the January 6th Insurrection and its too real impacts on multicultural communities. She lives with her family on the unceded ancestral land of the Anacostan-Piscataway. More about her work can be found at www.gimbiyakettering.com

Aiya Madarang (she/her) lives in San Francisco, a short dog walk away from the beach. Born in Cebu City, Philippines, she was raised in the Central Valley of California and holds a bachelor’s in linguistics from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her poetry has appeared in Quiet Lightning, Forum, Rise Up Review and the art gallery Southern Exposure. She is a member of the nonprofit arts collective Syzygy. A fugitive from corporate America, she’s currently drafting her first novel and spends her days endeavouring to free human relationships from the clutches of capital. She believes the only way out is through art.

Gina Magsombol, a Filipina American writer from Chicago creates stories rooted in her 150-year ancestral legacy from the Philippines. Her work honors BIPOC resilience, exploring identity, belonging, mental health, and cultural intersections, amplifying marginalized voices with authenticity and depth.

Emily del Carmen Ramirez is a queer Dominican American writer born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Her work explores themes of identity, familial tension, and cultural folklore. She is currently working on a collection of short stories.