Within the pages of the 2025 Emerge Anthology, we present work from 83 of the most talented queer and trans emerging and emerged writers. This collection was edited by Holly Zhou, a 2025 Writers Retreat playwriting fellow, with an introduction from Kay Ulanday Barrett, the 2025 Writers Retreat poetry faculty with cover art by Ali El-Chaer. 
Holly Zhou is a writer and mixed-media artist from the California desert, the unceded territory of the Cahuilla and Mojave peoples. Holly’s poetry has appeared in Black Warrior Review, Foglifter, The Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. Their collaborative poetry and art zines have been showcased at the Bluestockings Comic Fest and at the San Francisco Zine Fest. When not writing, they can be found exploring rocks by the ocean or in the mountains.

An excerpt from De Los Santos’ YA Filipino Fantasy Diyosa Mata appears in Emerge!