Meet The Editors
Evan Wang
Editor-in-Chief
王潇/Evan Wang (he/him) is a writer, performance artist, and was the first Youth Poet Laureate of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in POETRY, The Kenyon Review, The Journal, RHINO, Poet Lore, The Margins, The Harvard Advocate, and elsewhere. He is a 2024 National YoungArts Winner in poetry, a 2024 Scholastic National Gold Medalist, the 2023 Jacklyn Potter Young Poet, and winner of the 2022 Button Poetry Short Form Poetry Contest and the 2024 Fugue Poetry Prize, selected by Divya Victor. Evan has performed his work at various venues such as the U.S. Department of Education, Oval XP, Love Park, the Miami Book Fair, Kelly Writers House, and The Rotunda at the University of Pennsylvania. His work has been featured at and recognized by the White House, TEDx, NPR, WXPN, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Governor Josh Shapiro, and more.
Prosper C. Ìféányí
Poetry Editor
Prosper C. Ìféányí writes from Lagos, Nigeria. A two-time Pushcart and Best of the Net Nominee, and a finalist for Phoebe Journal's 2024 Greg Grummer Poetry Prize; his works are featured or forthcoming in Black Warrior Review, Denver Quarterly, The Offing, Magma Poetry, Salt Hill Journal, The South Carolina Review, South Dakota Review, Uncanny Magazine, Lolwe and elsewhere.
Annalisa Hansford
Poetry Editor
Annalisa Hansford (they/them) is a junior at Emerson College studying Creative Writing. Their poetry appears or is forthcoming in The West Review, The Lumiere Review, Ghost City Review, and Heavy Feather Review. They are the head poetry editor of The Emerson Review and the co-editor-in-chief of hand picked poetry. They are probably listening to Gracie Abrams or boygenius and drinking an iced vanilla matcha latte.
Heath Joseph Wooten
Poetry Editor
Heath Joseph Wooten (he/him) is an object in northern Michigan who writes poems but spends most of his time pretending he is a kinder person than he is and recycling glass. He holds an MFA in poetry from Northern Michigan University, a BA in English from the University of Mississippi, and was selected for the Bucknell Seminar for Undergraduate Poets in 2020. You can find his work if you look hard enough.
Claire Daylo
Prose Editor
Claire Daylo is a Filipina-American writer from Washington state. Her work appears in Maudlin House and has been recognized by GASHER, the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, and DePaul University. She’s a big fan of the absurd, Kafka, and David Lynch films.
Valerie Hughes
Prose Editor
Valerie Hughes (she/her) lives in New York City. She is a fiction writer and is currently working on a novel about re-exposure to trauma and the desire to gain control over the past through the present. She works as a daycare teacher and freelance proofreader. Find her on twitter and instagram @_valeriehughes.
Ancci
Poetry Editor
Ancci (b. Arasi Kamolideen Oluwapelumi) is an English Language and Literature undergraduate at the University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. His critical writing has been featured in The Republic, The Shallow Tales Review, and Afapinen, a magazine of Nigerian criticism. In 2020, he was shortlisted for the Alpine Fellowship Academic Writing Prize. He is the winner of the 2023 E. E. SULE/SEVHAGE Prize for African Literary Criticism.
Mateo Perez Lara
Executive Poetry Editor
Mateo Perez Lara (they/them/theirs) is a queer, non-binary, Latinx poet from California. They have a pamphlet of poems, Glitter Gods, showcased with Thirty West Publishing House. They have an MFA in Poetry from Randolph College. Their work has been published in EOAGH, The Maine Review, The Acentos Review, and elsewhere.
Bella Rotker
Poetry Editor
Bella Rotker studies at Interlochen Arts Academy. Their work appears in JAKE, Full Mood Mag, Fifth Wheel Press, The Lumiere Review, Neologism, and Best American High School Writing, among others. When she's not writing or fighting the patriarchy, Bella's hanging out with friends, watching the lakes, and looking for birds.
Isaac Salazar
Poetry Editor
Isaac Salazar (he/him) is an Austin-born and Houston-based poet. His work is published or forthcoming in AGNI, Honey Literary, orangepeel, The Acentos Review, Where Meadows, among others. He is a graduate student at Rice University.
Roark Petermann
Poetry Editor
Roark Petermann is a writer from the Hudson Valley. He is a Davidson Fellow in Literature for the historical project Centripetal Agonies.
Othuke Umukoro
Poetry Editor
Othuke Umukoro, poet, playwright, and educator, was born in a small fishing village in south-south Nigeria. He is the winner of the 2021 Brunel International African Poetry Prize. An Iowa Writers' Workshop graduate, his poems appear in Ploughshares, The Hudson Review, Poets.org, Poetry Review, Poetry Ireland, and elsewhere. He currently teaches at the University of Iowa.
Julia Liu
Poetry Editor
Julia Liu is a writer based in New England. An American Voices medalist and Pushcart Prize nominee, she has received recognition from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, Pulitzer Center, and Connecticut Poetry Society. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Gone Lawn, Eunoia Review, CUTBOW Quarterly, among others. When not creating, she enjoys cafe hopping, doing crossword puzzles, and collecting too many Smiskis. Find her on Twitter/Instagram @byjulialiu.
Nwanne Agwu
Prose Editor
Nwanne Agwu is from Ọkpọsị, Nigeria. He has twice been longlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. He was also shortlisted for The Isele Nonfiction Prize. Nwanne has been or will be published in Bending Genres, The Revolution, Rigorous, Southword Magazine, The Isele Magazine, The Mukana Anthology of African Writing and elsewhere. On X (Twitter), he is @NwanneAgw.
Ella Baker
Prose Editor
Ella Baker (she/they) is a writer from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Currently, they study English and Theology at Susquehanna University. On the best of days, you’ll find them reading Shakespeare by a river, dancing with their sister, playing half-lousy tunes on the violin, or psychologically analyzing The Beatles. She’s entranced by crabs—although, she’s allergic to them—and finds beauty in the inexplicable aspects of human nature. Somehow, always, they are writing about the interaction between the ocean and the moon.
Sarkis Antonyan
Art Director
Sarkis Antonyan (he/him) is a poet, fine artist, and designer from Los Angeles, California who enjoys knitting and collecting frog sculptures. His work is published in Peach Magazine, Revolute, Olit, The Augment Review, Pollux Journal, and others. An alumnus of the 2022 Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program, he is currently a dual degree student at Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design.
V Clark
Poetry Editor
V Clark is a researcher and writer based in mandaluyong, philippines. Their works have appeared in Sine Liwanag, Novice Magazine, Sinuman Magazine, Kino Punch, and in Paraluman: A Sapphic Zine.
Oluebube Ogoke
Prose Editor
Oluebube Ogoke is a writer, editor, and history nerd with a passion for the literary arts and their influence on cultural norms and societal values. With her background in law, Oluebube has developed a knack for ardent research on societal issues which are considered taboos. She is currently working on her first novel, which is themed around the treatment of divorced women in African societies. Find her on Instagram @oluebube and Twitter @OChinazor.
Olabisi Bello
Blog Contributor
Olabisi is a writer, editor, and lifelong learner with a passion for all things literary. She is a huge fan of crime fiction, coffee, and can almost always be found with her head buried in a book. When she's not writing, she's reading or listening to highlife music.
Nicole Yurcaba
Blog Contributor
Nicole Yurcaba (Нікола Юрцаба) is a Ukrainian American of Hutsul/Lemko origin. A poet and essayist, her poems and reviews have appeared in Appalachian Heritage, Atlanta Review, Seneca Review, and Ukraine’s Euromaidan Press. Nicole holds an MFA in Writing from Lindenwood University, teaches poetry workshops for Southern New Hampshire University, and is the Humanities Coordinator at Blue Ridge Community and Technical College. She also serves as a guest book reviewer for Sage Cigarettes, Tupelo Quarterly, Colorado Review, and Southern Review of Books.
Cid Galicia
Blog Contributor
Cid Galicia is a Mexican American poet who has been teaching in New Orleans for over the past decade. He graduated with his MFA summer 2023 through The University of Nebraska Omaha. He is a poetry editor for The Good Life Review, reader for The Kitchen Table Quarterly, and this year's FIRECRACKER Poetry Manuscript Awards. His work has appeared in The Indianapolis Review, The Watershed Review, The Elevation Review, Trestle Ties, South Broadway Press, Roi Faineant Press, The Letter Review, The Peauxdunque Review, and other journals. He was excited to attend the 2023 Summer Writing Residencies of Sundress Publications & The Kenyon Review Summer Writing Workshop.
Izzy Astuto
Blog Contributor
Izzy Astuto (he/they) is a writer majoring in Creative Writing at Emerson College, with a specific interest in screenwriting. When not in Boston for college, they live in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. His work has previously been published by Hearth and Coffin, Sage Cigarettes, and Renesme Literary, amongst others. He currently works as an intern for Sundress Publications, and a reader for journals such as hand picked poetry, PRISM international, and Alien Magazine. You can find more of their work on their website, at https://izzyastuto.weebly.com/. Their Instagram is izzyastuto2.0 and Twitter is adivine_tragedy.
Editors Emeritus
Jonathon Truong, Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief
Katherine Wong, Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief
Jess Smith, Prose Editor
Marie Bong, Prose Editor
Melanie Huq, Prose Editor
Christopher Schwarting, Poetry Editor
Caitlin Villacrusis, Poetry Editor
Lael Watson, Prose Editor
Jessica Kim, Poetry Editor
Divyasri Krishnan, Poetry Editor
Bianca Layog, Prose Editor
Gaby Mikhail, Prose Editor
Christina Miles, Poetry Editor
May Hathaway, Prose Editor
Annie Cao, Poetry Editor
Ben Wales, Prose Editor
Trenyce Tong, Art Director