Editors and Readers
Jarrett Moseley
Editor in Chief
Jarrett Moseley is a bisexual poet whose work has been published or is upcoming in Homology Lit and Ghost City Review. He was born and raised in Charlotte, NC, and is currently an MFA candidate at The University of Miami. In his spare time, he enjoys walking dogs, reading weird poetry, and contemplating the breakdown of society.
X Medianoche
Creative Director
X Medianoche (they/she) is an illustrator, designer, printmaker, and writer from South Florida who lives in Berkeley, California. They are the Director of Communications at 2727 California Street, an art & education initiative and residency program. Their work explores liberation, contradiction, transformation, connectedness, spirituality, play, and experimentation. She’s also into magical things like food, farms, sustainability, and mycology. In the fall, they will be working on their MFA in Book Art at Mills College.
Edison Angelbello
Poetry Editor
Edison Angelbello is a poet and filmmaker from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. His work has been published in Sanskrit Literary-Arts Magazine and Atlantis. He lives in New York City where he studies in the MFA program at Columbia University, but for now he studies online from self-isolation in South Florida. His work explores, among other things, mortality, memory, and community.
Marisa Vito
Poetry Editor
Marisa Vito is a California-based poet who has pieces published in Crab Fat Magazine and the Los Angeles Magazine. She is currently graduating from the University of California, San Diego with a degree in English Literature/Writing. When not reading or writing, she enjoys cooking/baking, learning more about gender theory, and interpreting people’s natal charts.
Thokozani Mbwana
Poetry Editor
Thokozani is a queer African Studies scholar by day and an Ancestor-summoning poet and writer by night. They have written a number of essays for both online and print zines such as Shades of Noir UK and the African Gender Institute, South Africa and self-publish their work at writtenbyflora.com. Their work explores issues of race, sexuality, displacement and Ancestral connections. When they are not writing, reading or attempting to finish their thesis, you can find them baking, hula-hooping, swinging on silks or eating copious amounts of pizza.
Brittany Nguyen
Poetry Editor / Head Translation Editor
Brittany Nguyen is a poet and translator from Walnut, California. She translates from the Korean and the Vietnamese but sometimes ventures into the Chinese and the Japanese, often incorporating them into her own work. She is the 2018 recipient of the Academy of American Poets: The Piri Thomas Poetry Prize and has a piece in the upcoming issue of the Notre Dame Review! She currently lives in New York City working on her MFA at Columbia University.
Emiliegh Tena
Lead Poetry Reader
Emiliegh Tena (she/her) is a pansexual writrix that self publishes her work on her blog (etemaginary.com) Born in New Mexico, raised in Colorado and now hailing from the Hawaiian Islands, you can find Em slinging coffee @ a local cafe, working as a Licensed Massage Therapist or playing in the ocean. When she's not pouring over poetry and books, or spilling her heart out on paper, she is furthering her knowledge on the effects and healing of trauma, bending her body into shapes, practicing witchcraft, and searching for the truth through creating.
Yukta Deshmukh
Poetry Reader
Sanjyokta ‘Yukta’ Deshmukh (she/her) is a Welsh Indian writer currently in the midst of her B.A. in English Literature and Creative Writing. She has been published in Eclectica Magazine, The Skinny Poetry Journal (and more) and is also upcoming in Street Cake Magazine. When she is not reading or writing she is singing (badly), watching Parks and Recreations (for the hundredth time) and impressing (read: annoying) her friends with obscure SpongeBob references.
Onyedikachi Chinedu
Poetry Reader
Onyedikachi Chinedu is a queer Nigerian poet. He’s a recipient of the 2018 Kreative Diadem Annual Creative Writing Contest (poetry category). His works are published in Kreative Diadem, Artslounge, and Mementos: An Anthology of Contemporary Nigerian Poetry and forthcoming in Rising Phoenix Review and Stone of Madness Press. He tweets at @Onyedikachined.
Samantha Symonds
Poetry Reader
Samantha Symonds (she/her) is a location-independent writer, ocean educator and marketer. British-Chinese, she writes on travel to trauma; her short stories, poetry & non-fiction features in print and online publications including Financial Times, The Australian Multilingual Writing Project & won prizes at Sentinel. She has lived on four islands, studied English & Creative Writing under three of her idols (Bernadine Evaristo, Will Self & Benjamin Zephaniah), speaks 2.5 languages and once gave herself a shark bite whilst climbing rocks. She tweets at @samxsymonds and writes at samanthasymonds.com
Cherise Benton
Poetry Reader
Cherise Benton is an aspiring farmer living in Northeastern Ohio, where she cooks a lot, writes sometimes, and tries to cooperate with her therapist.
Anaïs Peterson
Poetry Reader
anaïs peterson (name // they/them) is a mixed blessing, abolitionist, organizer, and lover of the sky. an aries who majored in poetry their work is now a mix of lyric essays and prose poems writing around the topic of freedom in its many forms and often returning to dwell on sunflowers. anaïs writes in black pen and garamond size 11. they tweet about a world beyond capitalism from @anais_pgh.
Alison Zheng
Poetry Reader
Alison Zheng (she/her) is a writer from San Francisco, CA. Her work is published in or is forthcoming from Francis House, Rising Phoenix Review, giallo lit, The Westchester Review, Rabbit: A Journal For Non-Fiction Poetry, and more. She likes karaoke, anime, and looking at pictures of cute animals. She's a Scorpio Sun/Pisces Moon.
Roshni Riar
Poetry Reader
Roshni Riar is an emerging writer and Creative Writing BFA student at UBC Vancouver. Working primarily in poetry and memoir, she explores the relationships between culture, language, trauma, and identity. As a winner of the 2019 Short Forms Contest, her words have appeared in Room Magazine 43.2. She also has poetry appearing in forthcoming issues of The Antigonish Review and CV2, respectively. Find her on twitter @arekayare.
Gabriella Buckner
Poetry Reader
Gabriella Buckner is a California-born poet, fiction writer, and artist pursuing a career in publishing in the UK. She has a BA in English with a Professional Writing minor from University of California, Davis and is finishing an MA in Creative Writing and Publishing at Kingston University London. She has published a poetry pamphlet with Sampson Low and performed at several events with the Writers' Centre Kingston. She loves to write (and read!) poetry that focuses on family tensions, female experiences, and mixed-race identity.
Oluwafunmilayo Obasa
Poetry Reader
Oluwafunmilayo Obasa, a non-fiction writer, poet, and photographer is passionate about documenting muffled stories with her art. Her words paint the spontaneity of her imagination, humanity & equality [for all], desires, and emotions, in abstract ways, forging a relationship between society and existence. Some of her works are published in African Writer, Cephalopress, Brittlepaper, Kalahari Review, etc. When she is not writing poems or essays, she enjoys binging on cartoons and playing games.
Lilia Marie Ellis
Translation Reader / Poetry Reader
Lilia Marie Ellis is a trans woman writer from Houston. Her work has appeared in publications including The Nashville Review, trampset, and Stone of Madness Press. She is an MA student in Greek and Latin Literature at the University of Maryland. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter @LiliaMarieEllis!
