Katie Manning, Founder & Editor-in-Chief
Katie Manning is the author of Hereverent (Agape Editions, 2023), Tasty Other (Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award, 2016) and six poetry chapbooks, most recently How to Play (Louisiana Literature Press, 2022) and 28,065 Nights (River Glass Books, 2020). Her work has been featured on Poetry Unbound and Tangle News, and her writing has been published in American Journal of Nursing, The Lascaux Review, New Letters, Poet Lore, Stirring, SWWIM, Thimble, Verse Daily, and many other journals and anthologies. She is a professor of writing at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, and she enjoys beaches, board games, books, brownies, and alliteration. Find her online at her website.
Aliah Fabros, Assistant Editor
Aliah Fabros is a writer of poetry and creative nonfiction. She has been published in Arkana Magazine and Non-Binary Review and has performed her work at the San Diego Festival of Books. In 2024, she received an Honorable Mention from the AWP Intro Journals Project for her poem “The Burden of Representation.” In her spare time, she is either making black lemon tea, listening to stand up comedy, or scouring her local thrift store for vintage dresses with pockets.
Joe Barca, Peer Reviewer
Joe Barca is a poet from the Boston area. He has a partner, two children, and a wheaten terrier named Brady. He is a regular contributor to the The Poetry Space podcast. He has a poem in the Spring 2024 issue of Whale Road Review, and he will have a poem in the September 2024 issue of Rattle. Some of his favorite poets are Mai Der Vang, Kevin Young, and Li-Young Lee. He is a fast talker and a slow runner.
T. Allen Culpepper, Peer Reviewer
T. Allen Culpepper teaches poetry writing, composition, and literature at Tulsa Community College in Oklahoma and previously taught at State College of Florida Sarasota-Manatee. His poems have appeared in Red Truck Review, Florida English, Cooweescoowee, and This Land. He serves as a poetry reader for Nimrod International Journal and as a faculty editor of Tulsa Review. He also lives with cats and makes cartoon drawings of them.
Toby Franklin, Peer Reviewer (Managing Editor, 2018-2020)
Toby Franklin earned a B.A. in writing from Point Loma Nazarene University. He has a passion for reading and writing sci-fi, fantasy, and comic books. His graphic novel, Mask of the Sentinels, is available now on ComiXology.
Britton Gildersleeve, Peer Reviewer
Perhaps because she grew up in Southeast Asia, later living in the Middle East, Britton Gildersleeve is a life-long advocate for other voices. She is the author of three poetry chapbooks, and for 12 years was the director of Oklahoma State University’s OSU Writing Project, where she taught writing. Her creative nonfiction and poetry have appeared in Nimrod, New Millennium, Atlas Poetica, Soft Cartel, Passager, and many other journals. Gildersleeve blogs at Tea and Breath, and Nimrod International Journal. At one time she was the token Buddhist Unitarian blogger for a national website. She still hears the voices that made her do it.
Katie Hamblen, Peer Reviewer
Katie Hamblen is a poet, M.F.A. candidate, and writing instructor at Western Kentucky University. Her work has been published in Ghost City Review and Rockvale Review. She was an attorney in a past life, but these days, she prefers to forget about that and read poetry when she is not chasing down her boy/girl four-year-old twins. She lives in Nashville with her family and is outside whenever possible.
Ellen Huang, Peer Reviewer (Managing Editor, 2015-2018)
Ellen Huang (she/her) holds a B.A. in writing + theatre minor from Point Loma Nazarene University. Her pieces “Aromantic Jesus” (miniskirt magazine) and “Split Attraction” (warning lines mag) were both nominated for Best of the Net 2021, and “Sea Witch From the Deep” (Apparition Lit) for Rhysling Awards 2020. She was also named in “5 poets of color to watch out for in 2021” by Luna Luna Magazine. She’s published in horse egg literary, K’in, Wrongdoing Magazine, Lucent Dreaming, Not Deer Magazine, From the Farther Trees, and The Rising Phoenix Review, among others. You can read her takes on folklore, faith, and favorite movies at her website.
Amorak Huey, Peer Reviewer
Amorak Huey’s fourth book of poems is Dad Jokes from Late in the Patriarchy (Sundress, 2021). Co-author with W. Todd Kaneko of the textbook Poetry: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology (Bloomsbury, 2018) and the chapbook Slash / Slash (Diode, 2021), Huey teaches writing at Grand Valley State University in Michigan. His work has appeared in The Best American Poetry, American Poetry Review, Columbia Review, The Southern Review, the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day, and many other print and online journals.
Monica Kopenhaver, Peer Reviewer
Monica Kopenhaver earned her B.A. in literature with an English education concentration from Point Loma Nazarene University and her M.A. in English from Kansas State University. She served as co-editor-in-chief of Driftwood and associate editor of Touchstone. She is now a Ph.D. candidate in literature at the University of Kansas, where she teaches two entry-level composition courses. Her field of interest is 20th century American literature, especially that of the South.
Veronica Kornberg, Peer Reviewer
Veronica Kornberg (she/her) is a poet from Northern California. Recipient of the Morton Marcus Poetry Prize, her work has appeared in numerous journals, including Beloit Poetry Journal, Indiana Review, New Ohio Review, On the Seawall, RHINO Poetry, Salamander, Menacing Hedge, The Shore, Spillway, and Tar River Poetry. You can find her online at her website and @vkornberg on Twitter.
Eve F.W. Linn, Peer Reviewer
Eve F.W. Linn received her B.A. cum laude in fine art from Smith College and her M.F.A. in poetry from the low-residency program at Lesley University. She has attended the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Frost Place Conference on Poetry, and the Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference. She is a published poet and book reviewer. Her first chapbook, Model Home (July 2019), is available from River Glass Books. Her favorite color is blue. She collects antique baby shoes, vintage textiles, and art pottery. She lives west of Boston with her family and one demanding feline.
Alice Lowe, Peer Reviewer
Alice Lowe writes about life, language, food and family in San Diego, California. Her essays have been widely published, including this year in Bluebird Word, Bloom, South 85 Journal, Change Seven, Words & Sports, Tangled Locks, and Dorothy Parker’s Ashes. Her work has been cited twice in Best American Essays and nominated for Pushcart Prizes and Best of the Net. Alice has written extensively on Virginia Woolf’s life and work and is a regular contributor at Blogging Woolf. Read and reach her at her website.
Emma McCoy, Peer Reviewer (Assistant Editor, 2021-2023)
Emma McCoy is a poet and writer with love for the old stories. She’s a co-editor of Driftwood. Her work can be found in places like Flat Ink, Jupiter Review, and Paddler Press, and her chapbook In Case I Live Forever was published by Alien Buddha Press in 2022. She continues to write poetry, try her best, and search for the best banana bread recipe. Catch her on Twitter @poetrybyemma.
David Mihalyov, Peer Reviewer
David Mihalyov lives in Webster, NY, with his wife, two daughters, and beagle. His poems and short fiction have appeared in several journals, including Concho River Review, Dunes, Free State Review, New Plains Review, and San Pedro River Review. His first poetry collection, A Safe Distance, is being published by Main Street Rag Press in 2022.
Jennifer Poteet, Peer Reviewer
Jennifer Poteet lives in Montclair, NJ. Her poems have appeared in The Cortland Review, Pedestal Magazine, Paterson Literary Review, Naugatuck River Review, Journal of New Jersey Poets, and several others. Her chapbook, Sleepwalking Home, was published by Dancing Girl Press. Her passions beyond poetry include collecting Mexican folk art. Find more at Jennifer’s website.
Kyle Potvin, Peer Reviewer
Kyle Potvin’s debut full-length poetry collection, Loosen, is available from Hobblebush Books (January 2021). Her chapbook, Sound Travels on Water, won the Jean Pedrick Chapbook Award. She is a two-time finalist for the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award. Her poems have appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, Whale Road Review, Tar River Poetry, Ecotone, The New York Times, and others. Kyle lives in New Hampshire.
Tania Pryputniewicz, Peer Reviewer
Tania Pryputniewicz is the author of the poetry collection, November Butterfly (Saddle Road Press, 2014) and Heart’s Compass Tarot (forthcoming from Two Fine Crows Books in 2021). Recent poems appeared in America, We Call Your Name: Poems of Resistance and Resilience, Bilingual / Borderless, NILVX: A Book of Magic (Tarot Series), The Rockvale Review, and SWWIM. She teaches poetry and tarot journaling at San Diego Writers, Ink and Antioch University’s Continuing Education program, and she battles her cat Luna for desk space when not hiking the San Diego trails with her husband and three children.
Ki Russell, Peer Reviewer
Ki Russell teaches writing, literature, and creative writing at Blue Mountain Community College in Pendleton, Oregon. She is the author of Antler Woman Responds (Paladin), The Wolf at the Door (Ars Omnia), and How to Become Baba Yaga (Medulla). Ki researches fairy tales then butchers them for her own purposes. She steals time from grading to wrestle with words, converse with cats, dance with the dog, and paint.
Lisa Seidenberg, Peer Reviewer
Lisa Seidenberg is a writer and filmmaker living in coastal Connecticut who brings a cinematic sensibility to her written work. Recent writing is published in The New Verse News, Atticus Review, Asymptote Journal (forthcoming), ONE ART: a journal of poetry, and Acropolis Journal. Her documentaries and poetry films were screened at the Sundance Film Festival, Berlin International Film Festival, Doc.London, and Zebra Poetry Film Festival, among others. She enjoys reading at open mics and on the Rattlecast weekly program.
Jen Stewart, Peer Reviewer
Jen Stewart is the author of Madonna, Complex (Cascade Books, 2020), Latch (River Glass Books, 2019) and Visitations (Finishing Line Press, 2015). Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in AGNI, Western Humanities Review, Thrush, Beloit Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. A native of Colorado, she has taught writing at the University of Colorado, Boulder, as well as internationally in Hungary, Turkey, and Lithuania. You can find her online at her website.
Jacob Stratman, Peer Reviewer
Jacob Stratman’s first book of poems, What I Have I Offer With Two Hands, is a part of the Poiema Poetry Series (Cascade, 2019). His most recent poems appear (or will appear) in The Christian Century, Salt Hill, Spoon River Poetry Review, Ekstasis, and Amethyst Review, among others. He teaches in the English department at John Brown University in Siloam Springs, AR.
Elizabeth Johnson Taylor, Peer Reviewer
Elizabeth Johnson Taylor recently graduated from the University of Central Oklahoma with an M.A. in literature. She lives in Oklahoma with her daughter and teaches literature, composition, and poetry at a local high school. A Best of the Net nominee, Elizabeth’s work can be found in Petrichor and Whale Road Review.
Heidi Williamson, Peer Reviewer
Heidi Williamson is an Advisory Fellow for the Royal Literary Fund. She was Royal Literary Fund Fellow at University of East Anglia, UK, from 2018-2020 and again in 2021. As a Poetry Surgeon for The Poetry Society, she mentors poets by Skype worldwide. She also teaches for The Poetry School, National Centre for Writing, and The Writing Coach. Her first collection, Electric Shadow (Bloodaxe, 2011), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize. The Print Museum won the 2016 East Anglian Book Award for Poetry. Her third collection, Return by Minor Road (Bloodaxe, 2020), revisits her time living in Dunblane at the time of the primary school shooting and its aftermath. Find more at her website and follow @heidiwilliamson.
Past Staff
Michael Akuchie
Jared Beloff
Riley Breitbarth
Jesseca Cornelson
Taylor Crawford
Margot DeSalvo
Delight Ejiaka
Lyle Enright
Rashad L. Givhan
Shemaiah Gonzalez
Jesse Miksic
Jennifer Moore
Emmanuel Ojeikhodion
Allison M. Pattison
Dove Rebmann
Kathryn H. Ross
Logan Watson
