Kyle Selley draws with explosive residue. Explosions and their indexical marks are naturally celestial, producing tactile residue that echoes stellar formations. Across scales, he’s found patterns of residual dust, energy radiating outward, order surfacing through chaos, and fractals emerging. Combustible material inscribes scale-invariant traces. He guides it, but this medium expands mark-making beyond what his hand can do. There’s tension between control and volatile chance, between what he intends and what the material insists on. Chaos theory and emergence theory describe principles that govern supernovae and fireworks alike. The work collapses cosmic distances to a human scale, making stellar nebulae accessible for close investigation—residue as primary content. Selley reframes the explosion as contemplative echoes rather than spectacle. What was cosmic becomes intimate. The viewer sits inches from what resembles light-years, examining the same dust and patterns that govern stellar birth.
Emma Sywyj is an award-winning artist and photographer who has been creating art for twenty years. For five of those years, she was based in London, studying photography at Camberwell College of Arts, UAL. From there, she received a BA in Photography and a Foundation Diploma in Art & Design. She has exhibited her artwork internationally in the US (New York, LA), at Art Basel Miami & San Francisco, and in Athens and Budapest. She has also exhibited nationally in the UK, including in London. She has been published in several UK art magazines and international journals, and has exhibited her video artwork in galleries & film festivals worldwide.
Fabio Sassi creates photographs and acrylics using materials considered worthless by the mainstream. He often puts a quirky twist on his subjects or employs an unusual perspective that offers a fresh angle. Fabio lives in Bologna, Italy, and his work can be viewed at www.fabiosassi.foliohd.com
Jim Ross jumped into creative pursuits in 2015 after a rewarding career in public health research. With a graduate degree from Howard University, he has, in ten years, published nonfiction, fiction, poetry, photography, hybrid works, interviews, and plays in 200+ journals on five continents. Photo publications include Barnstorm, Blue Mesa, Burningword, Invisible City, Orion, Phoebe, and Stonecoast. Photo-essays include Burningword, Kestrel, Litro, NWW, Sweet, and Typehouse. His most recent interview, published by Terrain.org, was conducted with an artist. A Best of the Net nominee in Nonfiction and Art, he also wrote/acted in a one-act play and appeared in a documentary limited series broadcast internationally. Jim’s family splits time between the city and the mountains.
Tetman Callis is a writer and artist who lives in Chicago. His stories have been published in a variety of literary venues, most recently including BULL, Tahoma Literary Review, Elm Leaves Journal, Anti-Heroin Chic, Running Wild Press: Short Story Anthology Vol. 7, and Propagule. He is the author of the memoir, High Street: Lawyers, Guns & Money in a Stoner’s New Mexico (Outpost 19, 2012), and the children’s book, Franny & Toby (Silky Oak Press, 2015). His photographs have previously appeared in Burningword Literary Journal. He can be found online at https://tetmancallis.substack.com.
DM Frech has a BFA and an MFA in dance from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and is a member of The Muse, Poetry Society of VA, The Writers Guild of Virginia, James River Writers, KPC Writers, Virginia Writers, and so on. She writes poetry, children’s books, fiction, non-fiction, screenplays, and is an avid photographer. DM is also an award-winning writer with creative work in the Writers’ Journal, WayWords Literary Journal, The Journal of Writers Guild of Virginia, The Poet’s Choice, Noble House, Burningword Journal, Streetlight Magazine, New Feathers Anthology, and The Bangalore Review, and soon in Virginia Writers’ Club Journal. Finishing Line Press published her poetry chapbooks: QUIET TREE and WORDS FROM WALLS, which can be found on the FLP website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Goodreads. By the grace of God, she walks the earth, explores humanity’s struggle to exist in a universe of unknowns, and, when in doubt, hugs trees. DM can be followed at: amazon.com/author/dmfrech
Featuring: Issue 117, published January 2026, features works of poetry, flash fiction, short nonfiction, and visual art by Amy Agape, Lizbeth Bárcena, Joan E. Bauer, Tetman Callis, June Chua, Carlos Cunha, Steven Deutsch, John Dorroh, DM Frech, Avital Gad-Cykman, Jamey Hecht, Richard Holinger, Michael Horton, Dotty LeMieux, Priscilla Long, Grace Lynn, Robert Miner, Jim Ross, Fabio Sassi, Kyle Selley, Sarah Sorensen, Kimm Brockett Stammen, Billie Jean Stratton, Michelle Strausbaugh, Emma Sywyj, Cindy Wheeler, Holly Willis, Francine Witte, Holly Redell Witte, and Alina Zollfrank.
52 Pages, 6 x 9 in / 152 x 229 mm, Premium Color, 80# White — Coated, Perfect Bound, Glossy Cover
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