The New Frontier

L. Shapley Bassen is a prize-winning author, poet, dramatist, and current fiction editor at Craft Literary. Her writing career began in 1984 with The Kenyon Review and spans decades of publication across acclaimed journals and presses. Her second novel, Blue Monkeys, will be published in print by Shy City House (Chicago) in September 2025. The haunting backstory of a central character in Blue Monkeys led to the creation of her newest work, How She Came to Know.She is the author of several books, including Summer of the Long Knives (Typhoon Media-Signal 8 Press, 2014), Lives of Crime & Other Stories (Texture Press, 2014), Showfolk & Stories (Inkception Books, 2017), and the poetry collection What Suits a Nudist? (Clare Songbirds Publishing House, 2019). Her play The Month Before the Moon was published by Samuel French (now Concord Theatricals) in 1996.In 2016, Bassen won First Place in The Austin Chronicle Short Story Contest for "Portrait of a Giant Squid." She has been widely published in literary venues such as The Kenyon Review, Per Contra, Lunch Ticket, and The Writing Disorder.A native New Yorker now living in Rhode Island, Bassen credits her grandmother-a Wall Street telegrapher from over a century ago-for teaching her to read and tapping secret messages to her in Morse code, a formative experience that ignited her lifelong love of language.

Ashley Campbell is a photographer, writer, and lifelong adventure seeker. She is the founder of SnapShop Online, a photography school that has taught the basics of photography to thousands of children and adults. She has explored 31 countries, most with her favorite travel partners: her husband, Chris, and their five kids. Ashley actively chases opportunities to explore the unknown and learn from the world's diversity, encouraging others to see beauty in the seemingly mundane. She resides with her family in Oklahoma, three miles from her childhood home.