Medmic

Spotify Playlist: “Spin Cycle”

Dr. Vanessa Vélez is a resident physician in Psychiatry at Hackensack Meridian Health Ocean Medical Center in New Jersey.

Her website is https://www.vanessavelezmd.com/.

Two Poems by Melissa Mckinstry MFA: “5.5 Shiley Long” and “Showering My Son”

Melissa McKinstry holds an MFA in poetry from Pacific University. Her poems have been nominated for Best of the Net, a Pushcart Prize, and Orison’s Best Spiritual Literature, and appear in Rattle, Alaska Quarterly Review, Rust & Moth, December, Tahoma Literary Review, SWWIM, Nimrod International, and Beloit Poetry Journal.

The Bind

Cate Lycurgus’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Best American Poetry, American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. She has also received scholarships from Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers’ Conferences and 2nd place in Narrative’s Annual Poetry Contest for 2022. Cate lives in San Jose, California, where she interviews for 32 Poems and teaches professional writing.

Mastectomy, Simple

Bonnie S. Kaplan is a poet and educator who has worked with the justice-involved for over 25 years. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies and journals, most recently in Sinister Wisdom, Room, and The Bellevue Literary Review (Issue #40) where her poem, “Mastectomy, Simple,” was a finalist for the 2021 Marica and Jan Vilcek Poetry Prize. See more at bonnieskaplan.com