WEEKLY VERSES
Weekly Verses is our digital publication that features the works of different artists and writers.
Your Angry Backhand Hit the Light Bulb, Releasing Glass Shards All Over the Carpet, You, and the Time Continuum
Piper Pugh is a writer and educator from Los Angeles, CA — though she’s spending the summer living by the lake. Her poems and flash have been featured or are forthcoming in The Citron Review, 50-Word Stories, and 10 By 10 Flash.
Crown borrowed, crown denied & Nothing to declare
David Akinola is a Nigerian artist based in the United Kingdom. His practice explores identity, restriction, migration, and the psychological impact of personal and political memory. Working across drawing, collage, and painting, he examines the tension between individual agency and imposed systems of control. His work has been shown in exhibitions in both Nigeria and the UK, and includes a mural commissioned for Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos. Rooted in lived experience, his art invites reflection on freedom, displacement, and belonging, while confronting the systems that influence how people move through the world.
Cafeteria
John Grey is an Australian poet and US resident who has been published in New World Writing, River and South, and The Alembic. His latest books, Bittersweet, Subject Matters, and Between Two Fires, are available through Amazon. He has upcoming work in Paterson Literary Review, White Wall Review, and Cantos.
Star Sailor
Tomi Amosu is a writer from Lagos, Nigeria. Although she has been writing for as long as she can remember, Star Sailor is her first formal publication. Her work is mostly shaped by social issues and an overactive imagination. When she's not writing, she explores a rotating door of craft projects: if it's art, she's trying it.
Day Ten
Ethan James is a poet and economist from Colorado. As a graduate student in economics, Ethan brings a keen analytical perspective to human vulnerability, creating poems that balance emotional depth with intellectual sharpness. When not writing or studying market structures, he can be found driving mountain roads, reflecting on heartbreak, and building new models for understanding both economies and hearts. He is to be published in the Undergraduate Economic Review for his undergraduate thesis in cultural economics.
Five Dollars Goes A Long Way
Matthew Pritt (he/him) is an Appalachian literary and speculative fiction writer. His stories and poems have appeared in Stanchion, Vast Chasm Magazine, and The Sunlight Press, among others. He has a degree in Music Composition from Marshall University, but somewhere along the way, he found that he enjoyed writing words more than music. He currently lives in West Virginia with his five cats.
doubtless from the sea
Lauren Ward (b.1992, New Mexico) is a mother, artist and rising junior at Brown University. Her paintings, sculptures and films have been exhibited at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Brown University, Harvard University and The Sojourner House, a domestic violence shelter in Providence, RI. Ward received second place at Brown’s 45th Annual Student Juried exhibition in March 2025, as well as the Marlene Malik Sculpture Award in January 2025. This summer she is an artist in residence at The Creative Reuse Center of Rhode Island, which will have a group exhibition this July 2025. Additionally, she is a Coordinator for Brown’s Sexual Assault Prevention Education Program. Ig: @laurenbward
The Happy Banter of Marital Discord
B. Craig Grafton is a retired attorney from Moline, Illinois, now living in Canyon Lake, Texas. His legal fiction westerns, old-fashioned western novels, and short story collections are published by Two Gun Publishing. The Scarlet Leaf Review published his twenty-first-century fairy tales short story collection. Unfortunately, they are no longer in existence, as are some of the magazines in which his 150 or so stories have appeared in.
Outside the Lines
Connor DiMartino is an artist and writer living in Philadelphia, PA, where he attends the Community College of Philadelphia, majoring in Art and Design, and Creative Writing. DiMartino’s poetry has been previously published in Limited Editions, and King’s River Review. He is also the first prize recipient of the 2025 Judith Stark Writing Competition in the poetry category.
Cause & Effect
Johanna Ziegler is a writer-director who enjoys forcing absurdity and sincerity to coexist. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, the Shirley Jackson Award, and Best American Short Stories—the best news to pop up in her inbox, hands down. You can find her writing in Broken Antler Magazine, The Gravity of the Thing, The Eyre, and other literary corners of the internet. Her short films and one-act plays have shown at festivals across the country. This fall, she’s cannonballing into an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of New Orleans.
Beached
Alex Schupak is a photographer, clothing designer, and multimedia artist based in Maryland. He is currently pursuing degrees in Visual Arts and Mathematical Physics at Brown University. His work spans commercial photography in fashion, sports, and events, though his focus remains on independent projects including art prints and photobooks. His first book, The New Americans, was completed in spring 2024. His work has appeared in publications such as The Optic and The Indy, and in exhibitions including Brown’s 44th Juried Student Exhibition. He is the founder of Amalin Clothing and has recently expanded into monotype printmaking. He will present his senior thesis work at the List Art Center in spring 2026.
Plasma
Phil Vas is a writer from NYC. His work has appeared and is forthcoming in such places as Engine Idling, 100subtexts, GhostWatch, Ginosko, Manic World, The Morgue, and Dumbo.
Cabbage Moths
Liz Leighton is a writer/performer based out of New York City. She can be followed on Instagram @ladyintheradiator123
C17H11N5- C17H11N5
Bethany Altschwager is an artist, licensed creative arts therapist, and educator born in Connecticut, working in New York, and living in New Jersey. While art has always been an important part of her life, it was her early experiences with darkroom photography that inspired her career in the arts. She now uses the creative process to support adults experiencing mental health challenges to express themselves and develop a greater understanding of thoughts, feelings, and layers of identity. She maintains an active studio practice focused on digital art, photography, collage, and fibers. Her artwork has been displayed in exhibitions across the United States. She has been featured in Artistonish Contemporary Art Magazine, Visual Art Journal, and Artist Closeup Contemporary Art Magazine.
The Other Side
Amy Smith is an Analogue Collage artist from the Colne Valley district of West Yorkshire (UK)—a beautiful & unique area located in the foothills of the Pennine Moors. Her University education in the field of Media & Popular Culture, began her passion for exploring various art forms, social concepts and historical/ cultural influences. Amy has created an array of collages that include many versions & interpretations of media—however this is her first published piece. Her love of surrealist imagery coupled with the joy of finding beauty within ‘strangeness,’ has played a major influence in the overall aesthetic and ideas behind her work.
© 2026 The Vagabond’s Verse