Kristen Simental is a Mexican-American writer and the founder and editor-in-chief of Five South, a literary journal dedicated to nurturing new voices in the literary community. Her work has appeared in The Los Angeles Press, Sheriff Nottingham, and The Los Angeles Review of Books PubLab, and her novella “Why, Arizona” was a finalist for the prestigious 2019/20 deGroot Prize at the Miami Book Fair. A two-time fellow of the Kenyon Writer’s Workshop and an alumna of the Los Angeles Review of Books Publishing Workshop, Kristen is currently pursuing her BLA from Harvard Extension while managing Five South, writing a SubStack, and living in Pasadena, California with her husband, dog, and cat, where her passion for storytelling and commitment to fostering a vibrant literary community continues to drive her work as both writer and editor.