Friday Five Writers – Page 4

Friday Five: Z.H. Gill, editor of Burial Magazine

‘I want the fancies and the unclean to coexist at Burial because I like a lot of different kinds of writing.’

Content warning: strong language that some readers may find offensive.

On this, the day after Z.H. Gill‘s least favorite holiday (as he himself acknowledges), I am filled with gratitude to introduce you to Z.H., the founder and editor of a relatively new online literary journal, Burial Magazine.

Z.H. Gill

It’s been fewer than six months since Burial arrived on the literary scene like a thunderbolt hurled from Mount Olympus, erupting in a strange purple glow marked with white text of startling, brash, and often stunning, often unconventional prose and poetry. With its text-heavy, minimalist design and powerful writing, Burial is a distinctive niche in the world of online literary magazines.

When Z.H. isn’t working on Burial, Z.H. is working on his own writing and filmmaking. Based in East Hollywood, California, where he lives with Hans the Cat, Z.H.’s writing appears in X-R-A-Y, Minor Literature[s], Pithead Chapel, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and elsewhere.

Friday Five: ‘Bad Mexican, Bad American’ author and poet Jose Hernandez Diaz

‘I think I always wanted to be a rockstar or musician growing up. Poetry was a way for me to be like a one-man band.’

My American friends think I’m too Mexican.
My Mexican friends think I’m too American.
My Mexican American friends are my road dogs.

– Jose Hernandez Diaz, “Ballad of the West Coast Mexican American/Chicanx”

These opening lines to the first poem in Jose Hernandez Diaz‘s 2024 collection, Bad Mexican, Bad American capture the essence of Mexican American identity, the feeling of being caught between two cultures and never fully at home in either.

It’s a recurring theme in this writer’s prose poems and free verse, which explore first-generation identity, surrealism, cultural hybridity, among other themes. But his writings encompass broader, universal themes and issues. As one review describes it, Bad Mexican, Bad American “effectively and thankfully eludes simple categorization, refusing both assimilation and accommodation.”

A native of southern California, Jose studied English and creative writing at Cerritos Community College, the University of California Berkeley, and Antioch University Los Angeles. His poetry has appeared in several literary journals, including Yale Review, Southern Review, and Poetry. He also is the author of The Fire Eater (Texas Review Press, 2020) and two new collections, The Parachutist (Sundress Publications, 2025) and Portrait of the Artist as a Brown Man (Red Hen Press, 2025). In 2017, he was named a National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellow. As a writer in residence at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and a frequent presenter, he shares his writing expertise with other aspiring writers.

Friday Five: writer, educator, and Short Story Substack winner Kate Kinney

‘Although they are fiction, I want the stories to seem real, so I am very specific in describing actual places, and I hew closely to what I know.’

In her short story “A Fait Accompli,” which recently won the Short Story Substack award for a story about family, Kate Kinney deftly weaves a poignant and powerful tale of an elderly widow who escapes her assisted-living residence for a holiday shopping spree but cannot escape the control of her power-of-attorney-wielding son nor certain elements of her past. Written in a first-person voice and steeped in realism, “A Fait Accompli” combines detail and seemingly mundane events with a view into the main character’s interior life and memories. The result is a whimsical story that holds the reader’s attention to the very end.

Photo of writer and educator Kate Kinney, from her website, kate-kinney.com — Author and educator Kate Kinney

An educator as well as a writer, Kate chairs the Department of English at Suffolk County Community College in New York, where she also teaches writing and literature. She earned her PhD from the CUNY Graduate Center, where she is a 2025-2026 Writers Institute Fellow, and attended the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in Meat for Tea: The Valley Review, The Toronto Journal, Superpresent Magazine, The New York Times, and NomadArtX. As a literary scholar, she has studied the influence of another writer named Kate: Kate Chopin. She co-edited the book Kate Chopin in Contexts: From Theory to Practice and is the author of the articles “Kate Chopin: A Woman of and Beyond Her Time” and “Teaching Chopin Through Multimedia.”

Read on to learn how Kate Kinney gleans story magic from the everyday, how her work as a teacher influences her writing, and how binge-watching The Walking Dead informed her favorite essay.

Friday Five: Latiné writer Melissa Flores Anderson

‘Take chances in where you submit your writing and don’t count yourself out.’

To celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 through October 15), I’m featuring some rising writers of Hispanic heritage in these Friday Five interviews. This week’s spotlight is on Melissa Flores Anderson, a Latiné writer and native Californian whose debut full-length short story collection, All and Then None of You, came out earlier this month from Cowboy Jamboree Press. This collection of 21 stories and a novella is praised for its portrayal of the “universal yearns, hopes, and griefs of everyday working people.” I’m about two-thirds of the way through the collection, and at every turn of the page I’m encountering surprising and intriguing prose, much as one might find unexpected sights on a drive along California’s back roads. Sights that make you want to pull over and have a look around.

Melissa’s flash and long-form fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in over 50 literary magazines, anthologies, and reading series, including swamp pink, Chapter House, Roi Fainéant, and HAD. A reader and editor for Roi Fainéant Press, she also co-authored the 2025 novelette Roadkill (ELJ Editions) and the chapbook A Body in Motion (JAKE). Read on to learn more about Melissa’s new short story collection, how road trips and country music play a role in the book’s formation, her literary influences, how her Mexican American heritage informs her writing, and a fun, buggy Easter egg contained in the book.

Friday Five: Frazzled Lit short story winner Gary Finnegan

‘I am trying to get over a bad habit of submitting every piece of fiction I write.’

Gary Finnegan‘s short story “Limbo Nights,” which won first place in the Frazzled Lit 2025 short story competition, has been described as “a word-perfect gallop through the highs and lows of a post-Leaving Cert trip, and the swift transition from irresponsible child to semi-responsible adult-in-training.” The story is also praised for its “Great imagery and dialogue,” and I agree wholeheartedly.

An accomplished journalist as well as a writer of fiction, Gary is based in Kildare, Ireland. His writing has appeared in The Hooghly Review, The London Magazine, Litro, Flash Fiction Magazine, Roi Fainéant, and elsewhere. Read on to learn more about the inspiration for “Limbo Nights,” Gary’s upcoming projects, his advice to other writers, and more.