In the Current with Jill Mceldowney Issue 20
Dear Reader,
Nostalgic as we are, it is always a joy to look back on our previous issues and check in with our contributors. With the true arrival of Winter, we revisit Issue 20. The poems in this issue offer a reprieve, a hymn and hope against the season’s grayscale.
Since Winter 2023, our contributors have continued to flourish and publish:
Sarah Barber published poems in Poetry Magazine and the Sonora Review.
J P Dancing Bear published poems in Diode and Plume.
Tara Westmor published poems in Tar River Poetry and The Summerset Review.
Sarah Mills published poems in Pithead Chapel and Asterales.
Jane Zwart published poems in The Ocean State Review and was featured on Verse Daily. Her debut collection, Oddest & Oldest & Saddest & Best is forthcoming from Orison Press in February 2026.
Justin Howerton published poems in The West Trade Review and Foglifter.
Doug Ramspeck published poems in Terrain and Rattle.
Zea Pippi Lotte van der Elsken published poems in Zone 3.
David Dodd Lee published poems in The Southeast Review and his full-length collection titled The Bay (Broadstone Books, 2025).
Erinola E Daranijo published poems in Isele Magazine and Okay Donkey.
Allison Field Bell has published work in the Baltimore Review and two chapbooks, Edge of the Sea (Cutbank Books 2025) and Without Woman or Body (Finishing Line Press 2025). Her full-length poetry collection, All That Blue, is forthcoming (Finishing Line Press 2026).
Mickie Kennedy won the 2024 Button Poetry Chapbook Prize for Glandscapes (Button Poetry, 2025). His debut full-length collection, Worth Burning, is forthcoming from Black Lawrence Press in 2026.
Romana Iorga published poems in the Potomac Review and the full-length collection Temporary Skin (Glass Lyre Press, 2024).
Melanie H Manuel published her debut chapbook, in storyboard (Bottlecap Press).
Abbie Kiefer published her full-length collection Certain Shelter (June Road Press, 2024). She was recently published in the Atlantic.
Anna Pele published poems in The Sunlight Press, X-Ray and The Perch (print).
Kelle Groom published poetry in Another Chicago Magazine and her memoir How to Live (Tupelo Press, 2023).
Drew Buxton won the Sergio Troncoso Award for his first book of fiction, So Much Heart (With an X, 2023).
Philip Jason published the full-length collection I Don't Understand Why It's Crazy to Hear the Beautiful Songs of Nonexistent Birds (Unsolicited Press, 2024).
James King published poems in One Art and The Boiler.
Grace Marie Liu was a 2024 Young Arts National Winner with Distinction in Poetry and has published poetry in Up the Staircase Quarterly, Jet Fuel Review and Okay Donkey.
Osieka Osinimu Alao was longlisted for the Akachi Chukwuemeka Prize for Literature 2024 and the Toyin Falola Prize 2024.
Jane Satterfield recently published poems in Terrain.
Rachel Becker published poems in RHINO and Ghost City Press and was awarded a 2025 Jack McCarthy Prize Finalist from Write Bloody Publishing.
Caitlyn Curran published her debut collection, With Midnight Down Your Throat, Winner of the Inaugural Emma Howell Rising Poet Prize (Willow Springs, 2023).
Agnieszka Tworek recently published poems in One Art.
Austin Allen James recently published poems in the Delta Poetry Review.
Dorothy Lune published poems in IceFloe Press and was a 2024 Best of Net Nominee.
Milla van der Have published poems in Feral Poetry. She also published her chapbook Ox and Mandarin: Wayfaring Strangers (dancing girl press, 2024).
Kasey Jueds published poems in Psaltery & Lyre.
Josh Luckenbach published poems in The North American Review (print), Poetry Online and The EcoTheo Review (print).
Amanda Maret Scharf & Hannah Smith published a chapbook, House of Metal Cards (Finishing Line Press, 2024). Their chapbook, Astral Gaze is forthcoming from dancing girl press.
Kathleen Winter published poems in Radar Poetry, Verse Daily and The Adroit Journal.
Alastair Morrison published poems in Reservoir Road Literary Review and was recently interviewed for Pinhole Poetry.
Taylor Franson-Thiel published poems in Palette Poetry and EPOCH.
Seth Copeland published the chapbook The Plug in the Mountain (Yavanika Press, 2023).
Ned Balbo published poems in New Verse Review and Notre Dame Review (print).
Constance Hansen published poems in Poetry Northwest and was an Honorable Mention in RHINO’s 2023 Ralph Hamilton Editors' Prize (for “Annunciation”).
Susana Alcaraz has continued to publish visual art, and her work can be found across her social media platforms.
Congratulations to all of our contributors on their accomplishments!
All Best,
Jill Mceldowney