Sherine Elbanhawy holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. She is the founder of Rowayat, a literary magazine showcasing SWANA writers and their diasporas. She is pursuing an MA in Islamic Studies with a specialisation in Women and Gender Studies at McGill University. Her writing has been published in The Malahat Review, Room Magazine, Arablit and others.

Mohsen Mohamed is an Egyptian poet born in 1994. His poetry collection, entitled د يب رقم ش مف (No One Is on the Line), was published in 2020 by Dar El Meraya for Cultural Production. It won first prize for vernacular poetry at the Cairo International Book Fair, as well as the Sawiris Cultural Award. In 2014, in the aftermath of a student demonstration (in which he did not participate), while coming to the aid of a young woman, Mohamed was caught up in a sweep of arrests on his campus. His life as a poet began during the five years he spent in prisons.