Hillary Jo Foreman

Hillary Jo Foreman grew up in and around Anderson, Indiana but considers Athens, Ohio her second home. She earned her MA in Creative Writing with a concentration in fiction from Ohio University and her MFA in creative nonfiction at the University of Montana. She is a current PhD candidate in Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Montana. Hillary is the recipient of a 2024 Ridge Scholarship for her project “Divine Child: a Quilt.” Her stories and essays have been published in Relief and Barren Magazine. When she’s not writing, she spends her time running and cuddling with her two best friends, dalmatians named Louisa and Edna Pop.

Kat Kothen-Hill

Kat Kothen-Hill is an essayist and adjunct instructor of composition at the University of Montana. She earned her MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Montana in 2026. Her essay “F45.8—r/IllnessFakers” won a 2026 AWP Intro Journals Award and is forthcoming from The Florida Review. Kat grew up in the suburban sprawl of Portland, OR, and lived in Brooklyn and San Francisco before moving to Missoula, Montana. She considers herself a professional dilettante.

Sam Scott

Sam Scott is pursuing his MFA in fiction at the University of Montana. Originally from Virginia, he earned an undergraduate degree from Colby College and then taught for several years in and around Washington, D.C. He is the recipient of the 2026 Big Snowy prize from Montana Quarterly, and his work can be found there, Gone Lawn, and forthcoming from Passages North. He has also appeared as a visiting writer for the Montana Writers Live! reading series.  

Joshua Sneddon

Joshua Sneddon is a current MFA candidate at the University of Montana, studying under the Truman Capote Scholarship. Before that, he studied English Literature and Language at the University of Oxford.

Micah Ackerman Hirsch

Micah Ackerman Hirsch is a queer writer from the Southwest, and a current MFA candidate in poetry at the University of Montana. Their poetry and fiction appears or is forthcoming in La Piccioletta Barca, If The Storm Clears, Voices of Tacoma, and elsewhere. In addition to their work with CutBank, they also serve as editor of Camas magazine and are the recipient of the Richard Hugo Scholarship in poetry. When they’re not writing weird poems with deer and shooting stars, you can find them wandering by the banks of the Clark Fork or dancing at the Union Club Bar and Grill.

Evan Elsass

Evan Elsass is an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of Montana. Originally from Columbus, Ohio, Evan has also spent a significant period of his life in Long Beach, California. Presently, he lives in Missoula, Montana, where he can likely be found either in a booth at the Union Club Bar, beside the Clark Fork River, stuffing his pockets with lovely stones, or at home with his rather wide cat named Geo. His work has appeared in Anacapa Review, Poets.org, and elsewhere. 

Chloë Moore

Chloë Moore is a poet & novice letterpress printer from central New York. Her work appears in or is forthcoming from Outskirts Magazine, The Shore, Shō Poetry, and elsewhere. She is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of Montana, where she teaches writing, makes broth, and is befriending the local deer. 

Despina Norway

Despina Norway a poetry MFA candidate at the University of Montana. Her writing revolves around her maternal history, relationships, and the environments she finds herself in. She has previously had the unique opportunity to work as Poetry Editor for Greyrock Review in 2023-2024. Her most recent publication was with Orange Peel Literary Magazine. When not working on writing, she is with her cat Maverick who loves black hair ties.

Grace Schwenk

Grace Schwenk is a writer from Missoula, Montana. Most of her writing is done from a fire lookout in the Salmon River Mountain Range of Idaho. When not writing or looking for smokes, she can be found getting lost in the trees with her fluffy white dog, Selway. Her debut memoir, The Greenhorn, won the 2026 Sowell Emerging Writers Prize and will be published by Texas Tech University Press in the spring of 2027.

Nathan St Onge

Nathan St Onge, a cat person writ large, is an MFA candidate in nonfiction at the University of Montana, in Missoula, where they teach writing. Their work has been published in The Oval, a literary journal at the same university, as well as Hobart.

Sam Lepore

Sam Lepore is an MFA candidate in fiction at the University of Montana. She grew up in Dana Point, California, graduated from UC Santa Barbara, and moved to Montana five years ago in search of adventure and the smell of fresh monoterpenes. She's a professional graphic designer, a (former) cult member, and a halfway decent home cook who enjoys tinkering away on recipes when she has upcoming writing deadlines.

Mallory Rice

Mallory Rice was raised in Tampa, Florida, came of age in New York City, and is now an MFA candidate in fiction at the University of Montana. Her interests are wide-ranging: She’s published a story about the impossibility of writing a perfect condolence letter in the New Yorker and an essay about the literary tradition of bear attack stories in the French fashion magazine CR. Her work has also appeared in New York, Elle, and Cosmopolitan. She has interviewed Ann Beattie about Richard Nixon’s wife, Lydia Davis about the cows across the street from her house, and Sheila Heti about how a person should be. She looks forward to talking to many more culture-shaping authors for CutBank.

Grant Frazier

Grant Frazier is an essayist and MFA candidate in nonfiction at the University of Montana. Before the MFA, he was performing improv comedy in Chicago and New York while working in the software industry. He's always happy to talk about how search bars work. Originally from Utah, Grant writes about religion, the mountain west, rail history, and his love of Amtrak. 

Heather Wilson

Heather Wilson (they/she) is a writer, runner, doodler, research communicator, website fiddler, aspirational podcastist, and dog mom. Long time Carolina piedmont resident, she now lives in Missoula, Montana in pursuit of an MFA in creative-nonfiction and a superior VO2max. They write about dysfunctional family, legacies of health and mental health, making sense (and art) of chronic illness, the related problems of consciousness and the mindbody, and also, occasionally, biohacking.