Founder and Executive Director at Sundress Publications and the Sundress Academy for the Arts; Founding Editor & Consulting Editor of the Best of the Net Anthology and Stirring: A Literary Collection; President of the Board of Directors

Erin Elizabeth Smith is the Executive Director of Sundress Publications and the Sundress Academy for the Arts. She is the author of three full-length collections, most recently DOWN, which was released by Stephen F. Austin State University Press in 2020. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Guernica, Ecotone, Mid-American, Crab Orchard Review, Waxwing, and Willow Springs, among others. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi and teaches in the English Department at the University of Tennessee. She currently serves as the inaugural Poet Laureate of Oak Ridge, TN.

Managing Editor at Sundress Publications; Managing Editor of Best of the Net; Member of the Board of Directors

Tennison Black received her MFA at Arizona State University, and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Collagist, The Seattle Times, Hotel Amerika, 45th Parallel, Bacopa Review, Wordgathering, SWWIM, The American Journal of Poetry, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and New Mobility among others. She has taught composition, creative writing, and/or publishing at Arizona State University, Western Washington University, Perryville Women’s Prison (as a guest lecturer), and the National University of Singapore.

Staff Director at Sundress Publications

Kanika Lawton is a Cambodian-Chinese Canadian writer, editor, and film scholar from Vancouver, British Columbia who lives and works in Toronto, Ontario. They are a PhD student at the University of Toronto’s Cinema Studies Institute and the Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies. A multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, they have received fellowships from Pink Door and BOAAT Writer’s Retreat and have been published in Vagabond City Literary Journal, Longleaf Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Cosmonauts Avenue, and Parentheses Journal, among others. They are the author of four micro-chapbooks, most recently Theories on Wreckage (Ghost City Press, 2020).

Chapbook Series Editor at Sundress Publications

Kathleen Gullion is a writer whose work has appeared in The Boiler, X-R-A-Y Magazine, and Coachella Review, and onstage at various theaters in Chicago. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is based in Houston, where she works in medical simulation.

Acquisitions Editor & Associate Poetry Editor at Sundress Publications

Tierney Bailey is a loudmouth, a Libra, a lover of science fiction and poetry, and a dice-collecting gremlin. Currently, Tierney is the Acquisitions Editor and an Associate Poetry Editor with Sundress Publications, a copyeditor at Strange Horizons,, slush reader for PodCastle, Publishing Assistant with Escape Artists Inc., and a freelancer. She has earned a Masters Degree in Writing, Literature, and Publishing from Emerson College. Tierney is most easily found screaming into the void on Twitter as @ergotierney.

Associate Prose Editor at Sundress Publications

Saba Syed Razvi is the author of the collections In the Crocodile Gardens and heliophobia, as well as the chapbooks Limerence & Lux, Of the Divining and the Dead, and Beside the Muezzin’s Call & Beyond the Harem’s Veil. Her poems have appeared in journals such as The Offending Adam, Diner, TheTHE Poetry Blog’s Infoxicated Corner, The Homestead Review, NonBinary Review, 10×3 plus, 13th Warrior Review, The Arbor Vitae Review, and Arsenic Lobster, and others, as well as in anthologies such as Carrying the Branch: Poets in Search of Peace (forthcoming), Voices of Resistance: Muslim Women on War Faith and Sexuality, The Loudest Voice Anthology, The Liddell Book of Poetry, Political Punch: Contemporary Poems on the Politics of Identity, The Rhysling Anthology, and Dreamspinning. Her works have been nominated for the 2017 Elgin Award, the Bettering American Poetry Awards, The Best of the Net Award, and the Rhysling Award, have appeared on the 2018 Stoker Award’s preliminary ballot and have received a 2015 Independent Best American Poetry Award. She earned her PhD in Literature & Creative Writing from the University of Southern California in 2012. She is currently working as an Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Houston in Victoria, TX, where in addition to working on scholarly research on interfaces between science and contemporary poetry, she is researching Sufi poetry in translation, writing new poems and fiction, and developing community based-programs to highlight poetry and contemporary literature in the Crossroads region of Texas.

Associate Prose Editor at Sundress Publications

Samantha Edmonds is the author of the chapbooks Pretty to Think So (Selcouth Station Press, 2019) and The Space Poet (forthcoming from Split Lip Press). Her fiction and nonfiction appears or is forthcoming in such journals as The Rumpus, Ninth Letter, Mississippi Review, Black Warrior Review, Indiana Review, and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, among others. She has formerly served as the Fiction Editor for Grist: A Journal of the Literary Arts and as the Community Outreach Director for Sundress Academy for the Arts; currently, she works as the Assitant Fiction Editor for Sundress Publications and the Fiction Editor for Doubleback Review. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Cincinnati and an MFA from the University of Tennessee. Originally from Ohio, she now lives in Columbia, MO, where she’s a PhD candidate in Fiction at the University of Missouri.

Associate Poetry Editor at Sundress Publications

Jeremy Michael Reed‘s poems and essays are published or forthcoming in Oxidant|Engine, Still: The Journal, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and elsewhere, including the anthology Mountains Piled upon Mountains: Appalachian Nature Writing in the Anthropocene. He holds a Ph.D. in English and Creative Writing from the University of Tennessee, where he was the editor-in-chief of Grist: A Journal of the Literary Arts and assistant to Joy Harjo. He is now an Assistant Professor of English at Westminster College in Fulton, MO.

Associate Poetry Editor at Sundress Publications

Sherrel McLafferty is a first-year doctoral student with Rhetoric and Writing Studies at Bowling Green State University, where she also received her BFA and MFA in Poetry. Her poems have been featured in Requited Journal, Merrimack Review, ArLiJo, and Notre Dame Review. She is currently a poetry editor for Pidgeonholes, Linden Avenue Literary Journal, and Split Lip Magazine.

Assistant Editor at Sundress Publications

Lee Anderson is a trans author with roots in the Pacific North-, Mid-, and Southwest, though they currently live and write in Chicago. They have an MFA from Northern Arizona University, are an alum of the Mountain Words Writers-in-Residence program and the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, and have been nominated for a Best of the Net award. You can find their work in places such as The Rumpus, Salt Hill Journal, and Torrey House Press, as well as @bxfrizzle on Twitter.

Vice President of Board of Directors; Poetry Editor of Craft Chaps

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, a first-generation Chicana, is the author of Posada: Offerings of Witness and Refuge (Sundress Publications 2016). A former Steinbeck Fellow, Poets & Writers California Writers Exchange winner and Barbara Deming Memorial Fund grantee, she’s received residencies from Hedgebrook, Ragdale, National Parks Arts Foundation and Poetry Foundation. Her work is published in Acentos Review, CALYX, crazyhorse, and American Poetry Review among others. A dramatization of her poem “Our Lady of the Water Gallons,” directed by Jesús Salvador Treviño, can be viewed at latinopia.com. She is a cofounder of Women Who Submit and a member of Macondo Writers’ Workshop.

Member of the Board of Directors; Poetry Coordinator for the Best of the Net Anthology

Sarah A. Chavez, a mestiza born and raised in the California Central Valley, is the author of the poetry collections, Hands That Break & Scar (Sundress Publications, 2017) and All Day, Talking (dancing girl press, 2014). Her most recent work can be found or is forthcoming in Xicanx: Mexican American Writers of the 21st Century, IDK Magazine, and Five:2:One #thesideshow. Her new poetry project, Halfbreed Helene Navigates the Whole received a 2019-2020 Tacoma Artists Initiative Award. She recently joined the faculty at the University of Washington Tacoma where she teaches creative writing and Latinx/Chicanx-focused courses. A proud member of the Macondo Writers Workshop, Chavez serves as the poetry coordinator for Best of the Net Anthology and is currently in the market for her first multispeed bicycle.

Member of the Board of Directors; Assistant Editor at Sundress Publications; Editor-in-Chief of beestung

Sarah Clark is a disabled non-binary Native (Nanticoke) editor, writer, and cultural consultant. They are Editor-in-Chief of beestung, Editor-in-Chief and Features & Reviews Editor at ANMLY, Co-Editor at Bettering American Poetry, a reader at Atlas Review, and a Co-Editor of The Queer Movement Anthology. She curated ANMLY‘s GLITTERBRAIN folio on mental health by trans and queer writers of color, a folio on Indigenous & Decolonial Futures & Futurisms, and edited Drunken Boat‘s folios on Sound Art, “Desire & Interaction,” and a collection of global indigenous art and literature, “First Peoples, Plural.” They were co-editor of Apogee Journal‘s #NoDAPL #Still Here folio, and co-edited Apogee Journal‘s series “WE OUTLAST EMPIRE,” of work against imperialism, and “Place[meant],” on place and meaning, and has guest edited for Glass Poetry‘s Poets Respond series. Sarah has previously read for Sundress Publications’ Best of the Net and Curious Specimens anthologies and is a former Co-Curator at Poets in Pajamas. Formerly, they served as a VIDA Board Member.

Treasurer of the Board of Directors; Managing Editor of Doubleback Review and The Wardrobe

In 2021, Krista Cox retired from her paralegal career to follow her dream of making poems, art, and lots and lots of coffee. She’s the Managing Editor of both Doubleback Review and The Wardrobe, and an Associate Poetry Editor at Stirring: A Literary Collection. In 2016, she founded Lit Literary Collective, a 501(c)(3) which serves her local literary community, and she currently serves on the Board of Directors of the LGBTQ Center of South Bend, Indiana. Keep up with her current hair color at www.kristacox.com.

Member of the Board of Directors

jason b. Crawford (They/Them) is a writer born in Washington DC, raised in Lansing, MI. Their debut chapbook collection, Summertime Fine, is out through Variant Lit. Their second chapbook, Twerkable Moments, is out from Paper Nautilus Press. Their third chapbook, Good Boi, is forthcoming from Neon Hemlock press in fall 2021. Their debut full-length collection, Year of the Unicorn Kidz, will be out in 2022 from Sundress Publications. crawford holds a Bachelor of Science in Creative Writing from Eastern Michigan University and is the co-founder of The Knight’s Library Magazine. crawford is the winner of the Courtney Valentine Prize for Outstanding Work by a Millennial Artist, Vella Chapbook Contest, and Variant Lit Chapbook Contest.  They are the 2021 OutWrite chapbook contest winner in poetry. Their work can be found in Split Lip Magazine, Glass Poetry, Four Way Review, Voicemail poems, FreezeRay Poetry, HAD, among others. They are a current poetry MFA candidate at The New School.

Member of the Board of Directors; Editor of Rogue Agent

Jill Khoury is a multiply disabled poet. She is a Western Pennsylvania Writing Project fellow and has taught poetry in high school, university, and enrichment settings. She holds an MFA from The Ohio State University and edits Rogue Agent, a journal of embodied poetry and art. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Copper Nickel, Bone Bouquet, Lunch Ticket, and diode. She has written two chapbooks—Borrowed Bodies (Pudding House) and Chance Operations (Paper Nautilus). Her debut full-length collection, Suites for the Modern Dancer, was released from Sundress Publications. Connect with her at jillkhoury.com.

Assistant Editor at Sundress Publications; Editor-in-Chief of Best of the Net; Member of the Board of Directors

Darren C. Demaree is the author of thirteen poetry collections, most recently So Clearly Beautiful (November 2019, Adelaide Books). He is the recipient of a 2018 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, the Louis Bogan Award from Trio House Press, and the Nancy Dew Taylor Award from Emrys Journal. He is the Managing Editor of the Best of the Net Anthology and Ovenbird Poetry. He is currently living in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.

Assistant Editor at Sundress Publications

Ashley Elizabeth is a 20-something black poet and memoirist from Baltimore who draws inspiration from her city, her people, her space, and her body. She has been featured in journals such as Rose Water, Rat’s Ass Review, and For the Sonorous, among others.

Marketing Director at Sundress Publications; Assistant Editor at Sundress Publications; Managing Editor of Doubleback Books

Danielle Hanson is a poet who strives to create and facilitate wonder. She is the author of the poetry collections Fraying Edge of Sky, winner of the Codhill Press Poetry Prize, and Ambushing Water, Finalist for the Georgia Author of the Year Award. Her poetry has been the basis for Haunting the Wrong House, a puppet show at the Center for Puppetry Arts. She curated a poet/artist collaboration show Alloy at Arts Beacon in Atlanta, where she’s Poet-in-Residence. Danielle is a Writer-in-Residence at Georgia Writers and Managing Editor for Doubleback Books. She teaches poetry at the University of California at Irvine.

Assistant Editor at Sundress Publications; Host of Shitty First Drafts

Brynn Martin is a Kansas native living in Knoxville, where she received her MFA in poetry from the University of Tennessee. She co-hosts Shitty First Drafts, a podcast made for and by writers. Her poetry has appeared in Contrary Magazine, Yes, Poetry, Rogue Agent, and Crab Orchard Review.

Assistant Editor at Sundress Publications; Nonfiction Editor of Craft Chaps

Rita Mookerjee is an Assistant Professor in Interdisciplinary Studies at Worcester State University. She is a co-founder of Honey Literary, Inc. and a Poetry Editor at Split Lip Magazine. In 2020, she was a Fulbright Fellow in Kingston, Jamaica. She is the author of False Offering coming Fall 2023 from JackLeg Press. Her work can be found in the Baltimore Review, Hobart Pulp, New Orleans Review, Lantern Review, and the Offing.

Assistant Editor at Sundress Publications

Elisha Mykelti (she/her/hers) is dedicated to musical, dialectical, and innovative poetry that honors time and place, especially the South. Elisha is a 2nd-grade associate teacher and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English, with a concentration in Creative Writing from the University of Tennessee. She has been published in Berkeley Poetry Review (Issue 51), and she has hosted “Writin’ Rhythm – A Writers Workshop” for Sundress Publications. She has also been a guest speaker for two poetry writing courses at the University of Tennessee.

Assistant Editor at Sundress Publications

FEYXUAN Nguyen is a disabled fey orchestral music composer, writer-poet, and illustrator-designer. They are also one half of swallow::tale press, a publishing house for Mad books. Their recent projects have involved the solo development of aesthetic interactive fiction games exploring the nuances not exclusive to the following: power, trauma, madness, nonbinariness, divinity, and monstrosity. Their 2021-22 game project is OCHITSUBAKI (demo on Steam now), and other current releases on itch include LYCHEE SEED (poetry novella / audio drama), HEAVEN’S YOLK (poem / illustration webgame), and HEAVEN’S EGG (poem / papertexture visual novel). LIAR, LIONESS 2 is currently releasing as a visual novel on itch. They can be found online at feyxuan.com.

Member of the Board of Directors; Assistant Editor at Sundress Publications

Tate N. Oquendo is a writer and visual artist that combines these elements to craft multimodal nonfiction, poetry, and fiction, as well as translations of these forms. Their work can be found in numerous literary journals, a poetry collection, a hybrid memoir, and six chapbooks, including their other most recent works: The Antichrist and I and we, animals. They are also an Assistant Editor for Sundress Publications, and their most recently curated anthology, Manticore: Hybrid Writing from Hybrid Identities, is available for free on the Sundress Publications website.

Assistant Editor at Sundress Publications

Rebeca C. Rivera-Robayo is a writer and poet living in upstate New York. She graduated in 2008 with a B.A. in Creative Writing from Hunter College and in 2014 with an M.A. in Literature from Brooklyn College. Her first chapbook, City Doodles, was published in 2011. She was lead editor and contributing writer at New York Minute Magazine, and a freelance journalist for The Bronx Times and the Sullivan County Democrat. She is currently a full-time faculty member at SUNY Orange and is completing her doctoral degree at Drew University.

Assistant Editor at Sundress Publications

Claire Shang is a student at Columbia University, where she is an editor with The Columbia Review and The Blue and White Magazine. Her work has appeared in or been recognized by Peach Mag, No, Dear Magazine, and Smith College.

Assistant Editor at Sundress Publications; Development Director at the Sundress Academy for the Arts

Ada Wofford holds an MA in English and an MA Library & Information Studies. Their first chapbook, I Remember Learning How to Dive, was published in 2021 and earned them a Pushcart Prize nomination. Their writing has appeared in The Blue Nib, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Autostraddle, Capable Magazine, Sundress Reads, and more. They are also the non-fiction editor at Stirring: A Literary Collection.

Creative Director at the Sundress Academy for the Arts

Victoria Mullins is a writer, bookseller, and avid reader from Knoxville, TN and has worked with SAFTA for two years. In her spare time, she enjoys rock climbing, pasta cooking, and vegetable gardening. She is currently at work on her first poetry collection.

Staff Director at the Sundress Academy for the Arts

Literary Arts Director at the Sundress Academy for the Arts

Denise R. Ervin is a creative writer hewn from the streets, classrooms, and boardrooms of the city of Detroit. Formally educated in both literature and business, she has served in corporate America by day and as an adjunct college professor by night. Her work focuses on the experiences of those who look, live, and love like her. She has spent nearly two decades participating in open mics around the country, publishing her poems in online and print journals, and crafting full-length novel projects. Most recently, Denise has performed for Michigan State University, Lear Corporation and the DSO in addition to winning a United States of Writing Grant from Poets & Writers. Her poetry chapbook (A Glimpse of My Soul) and novella (Prelude to Praise: A Word of Testimony) are both available online.

Events Coordinator at the Sundress Academy for the Arts

JoAnna Brooker is a graduate from the University of Tennessee, where she studied Journalism & English. They were the 2021-2022 Sundress Academy for the Arts Writer in Residence, & their work has been featured in Lunch Ticket, Figure 1, Jet Fuel Review, & on stage as a standup comic. She can be found on all social media platforms @cupofjoanna.

Community Outreach Director at the Sundress Academy for the Arts

Sydney Peay is a queer disabled creator living in Knoxville, Tennessee, where they recently completed their bachelor’s degree in sociology and English literature. They are interested in the relationship between art, history, and power, as well as innovative methods of communicating information. In their free time, they like playing Stardew Valley and overanalyzing Taylor Swift lyrics.

Director of Prospect Research at the Sundress Academy for the Arts

Anna Rider is a North Carolinian now living in Philadelphia with her dog. She graduated from Guilford College and the CUNY Graduate Center with degrees in English. She spends her time wandering around the city and being amazed by her friends’ art.

Raised in Oak Ridge, TN, Joseph Minarick received his Bachelor of Science in Political Science from Excelsior College in Albany, New York. He enlisted in the Army in 1999 and commissioned as an Armor Officer in 2004. He is currently the Plans Officer for the 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment, headquartered in Knoxville. Minarick’s interests in Appalachian history and sustainable development led him to co-found Firefly Farms with Dr. Erin Elizabeth Smith in 2012.

Gregory Warren received his BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Tennessee in 2012, around the same time he began supporting improvement projects, maintenance, and daily operations at Firefly Farms. When he is not performing duties at the Oak Ridge National Lab, with the Army National Guard, or at Firefly Farms, he can be found riding motorcycles or tinkering in his home workshop.

Nonfiction Coordinator for the Best of the Net Anthology

Ellen Orner was born and raised in Gary, Indiana, and holds a B.A. in creative writing from Valparaiso University. She has worked in higher ed communications and marketing since 2011, including the University of Montana, University of Tennessee, and Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri. She has served as the nonfiction editor for Grist: A Journal of the Literary Arts and currently volunteers as the nonfiction coordinator for the Best of the Net anthology.

Fiction Coordinator for the Best of the Net Anthology

Tasha Coryell teaches English at the University of Alabama where she received her MFA. Her first collection of short stories, Hungry People, is coming out July 2018 from Split Lip Press. She’s had work featured in Word Riot, Whiskeypaper, DIAGRAM, Pank, and other journals.

Assistant Editor for the Best of the Net Anthology

Ashley Somwaru is an Indo-Caribbean woman who was born and raised in Queens, New York. As a storyteller and poet, her work is immersed in her mixed tongue, religious upbringings, superstitions, and cultural traditions that have made her into the red hibiscus she is. Her work has been published in Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Peach Velvet Magazine, A Gathering Together, No, Dear, and more. She is currently an MFA candidate at Queens College, City University of New York.

Assistant Editor for the Best of the Net Anthology

Crysta Montielis a Toronto-based freelance editor. She graduated from the University of Toronto with a B.A. in English and Philosophy. She is currently a poetry and fiction editor for Class Collective Magazine, and a book reviewer for Quill & Quire. When she’s not digging through treasure troves of queries, she’s completing her Criterion Collection bucket list and playing with her cat.

Managing Editor of Craft Chaps

Hannah Olsson holds a double BA in Cinema and Creative Writing English from the University of Iowa. During her time in Iowa, Hannah was the president of The Translate Iowa Project, an organization devoted to publishing translated poetry, drama, and prose. Her work, both in English and Swedish, has been featured in boundless, earthwords magazine, InkLit Mag, and the University of Iowa’s Ten-Minute Play Festival, among others. Hannah enjoys works that tell stories of ordinary, distorted wonders.

Fiction Editor of Craft Chaps

Meg Cass is a queer fiction writer and teacher who lives in St. Louis, MO. ActivAmerica, their first book, was selected by Claire Vaye Watkins for the Katherine Anne Porter Prize and was published in 2017. Their stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Ecotone, Foglifter, Mississippi Review, DIAGRAM, Puerto del Sol, Passages North, Joyland and others. Their flash fiction has appeared in the Wigleaf Top 50 and the SmokeLong Quarterly Best of the First 10 Years Anthology. They teach creative writing and publishing at the University of Illinois Springfield.

Prose Editor at Doubleback Books

Rebecca Youé is a professional editor from Worcestershire, England. She has a degree in English and American Literature from Keele University and has worked in the publishing industry since graduating in 2012. In 2020 she was a reader for the Highland Book Prize. She is working on her first novel in her spare time.

Poetry Editor at Doubleback Books

Bethany Milholland resides in Southern Indiana and is a research analyst assistant at global law firm. She has a BFA in Creative Writing from the University of Evansville and loves thrift shopping and petting cats.

Assistant Prose Editor at Doubleback Books

Bayleigh Kasper recently graduated from the University of Evansville with a creative writing degree, where she was the co-Editor-in-Chief of The Evansville Review. She dreams of owning a tiny home in her native Colorado where she can adopt cats, make music, write, and eat very judge-worth amounts of chocolate without actually being judged.

Assistant Editor-at-Large at Doubleback Books

Robin Gow is a trans queer poet and Young Adult author from rural Pennsylvania. Gow earned their MFA from Adelphi University where they also teach. Gow runs the trans & queer reading series Gender Reveal Party and serves as a Managing Editor at MAYDAY magazine and The Nasiona. They served for four years as the production editor of the Lantern literary magazine. Also working to produce several zines, Gow loves DIY publishing. Gow is also the author of the chapbook Honeysuckle by Finishing Line Press and the collection Our Lady of Perpetual Degeneracy by Tolsun Books. Their first collection of essays, Blue Blood, is forthcoming spring 2021 with Nasiona Publishing House, and their first Young Adult novel, A Million Quiet Revolutions, is forthcoming Winter 2022 with FSG Books for Young Readers. Their chapbooks have been finalists for competitions hosted by New Delta Review, Glass Poetry, Black Lawerence Press, Digging Press, and Thirty-West Publishing House. Their poetry has recently been recognized by Best New Poets, Brooklyn Poets, Brain Mill Press, and Fearsome Creatures.

Coordinator for Poets in Pajamas

Sarah Jordan Stout has published poems in Connotation Press, Rust+Moth, Sleet, Stirring, and others, and is serving as an associate poetry editor with Stirring: A Literary Collection. She has a masters degree in literature from West Virginia University and currently works with an environmental nonprofit fighting pollution and fossil fuel buildout across the state of Texas.

Coordinator for Poets in Pajamas

Shannon Wolf is a British writer and teacher, living in Louisiana. She is currently a joint MA-MFA candidate in Poetry at McNeese State University. She is the Non-Fiction Editor of The McNeese Review, and she also holds an MA in Creative Writing from Lancaster University. Her poetry, short fiction, and non-fiction (which can also be found under the name Shannon Bushby) have appeared in The Forge and Great Weather for Media, among others.

Host of Shitty First Drafts

Stephanie Lee Phillips is a writer and photographer from Tennessee currently working at her alma mater and hanging out with mostly poets. She has a BFA in English from the University of Tennessee and an MA in fiction from the University of Southern Mississippi’s Center for Writers program. Currently living in Knoxville, TN, she works closely with the local literary non-profit Sundress Academy for the Arts and serves as art editor for the online literary journal, Stirring. Her fiction appears in Entropy Magazine.

Managing & Poetry Editor of Stirring: A Literary Collection

Luci Brown is an Appalachian highlander currently pursuing nonprofit work in the bourbon barrel hills of Louisville, Kentucky. Her chapbook, Home Brew, was published in 2015, and her work has appeared in Moon City Review, Rogue Agent, Menacing Hedge, and others. She is the managing and poetry editor for Stirring as well as a reader for Best of the Net. She lives with her tall partner, particular child, and strange dogs.

Editor of cahoodaloodaling

Raquel Thorne is the Managing Editor of cahoodaloodaling. Additionally, she is an Editor-at-Large for Up the Staircase Quarterly and has served as the Editorial Assistant for The Southern Review, co-director for the Delta Mouth Literary Festival 2018, and Reviews/Interviews Editor for The New Delta Review. A BinderCon Scholarship recipient, her poetry has appeared in Black Warrior Review, Manchester Review, and Midwest Quarterly, among others. She earned her MFA from Louisiana State University where her hybrid thesis, “The Wooden Boy,” was selected by Sawako Nakayasu for the Robert Penn Warren Thesis Award for Poetry and has been awarded a three-year University Doctoral Fellowship to study English at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, where she plans to continue her work on the scholarship behind her creative thesis in Southern Studies and Disability Studies to interrogate internalized dominance in American white culture. A genderqueer poet from the North Bay, her body resides in Louisiana, save the heart she left behind in Wisconsin.

Blog Contributor for Lyric Essentials

Ryleigh Wann is a poet and writer living in North Carolina by way of Michigan. She recently earned her MFA from UNC Wilmington where she taught poetry and served as the comics editor for Ecotone. She is the music editor for Flypaper Lit and the founder of The Swampera Room Reading Series, a project in Wilmington, NC, that supports local writers in sharing their work with an engaged audience. Her writing has appeared in Longleaf Review, Rejection Letters, Kissing Dynamite Poetry, and elsewhere. Ryleigh has worked with the Parks and Recreation Department, as a bartender at a zoo, and as a librarian. It is safe to say she thrives off of social interactions and adores her pet rat, Comrade. Keep up with her on Twitter @wannderfullll or her website ryleighwann.com

Blog Contributor for We Call Upon the Author to Explain

Alex DiFrancesco is the author of TRANSMUTATION, ALL CITY, and PSYCHOPOMPS. They are a 2022 recipient of the Ohio Arts Council’s Individual Excellence Award, as well as the first transgender author to be a book award finalists in over 80 years of the Ohioana Book Awards. They are a commissioning editor for Jessica Kingsley Publishers’ gender and sexuality lines.

Lead Designer at Sundress Publications

Kristen Camille Ton is an artist and graphic designer with five years of experience as a professional designer in the world of small business. She holds a double BA in Literature and Creative Writing with minors in Graphic Design and Anthropology. In 2021, Kristen uprooted from Chattanooga, Tennessee and moved to Japan. She lives on the lush southern island of Kyushu, where she enjoys cycling through fields of rice paddies and painting her surroundings.

Graphic Designer at Sundress Publications

Lori Tennant is a poet pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at Georgia College and State University. Her undergraduate degree is in graphic design and that merges with her poetry to become Crankies. She is prone to chasing butterflies, storytelling, and pretending to be a mermaid. Nature and myth play a large role in her work.

Editorial Intern at Sundress Publications

Finnegan Angelos is a self-proclaimed east-coast-love-struck-queer-awakening poet and essayist originally from Northern Baltimore County, Maryland. His work has been published in the Beyond Queer Words Anthology, Thistle Magazine, and FRANCES. He loves his dog, hibiscus tea, and the banjo.

Editorial Intern at Sundress Publications

Laurel Elizabeth is a writing tutor and success coach for Kennebec Valley Community College’s TRIO program, where she recently earned an associate degree in liberal arts. Additionally, she is a graduate of Vassar College’s Exploring Transfer summer program, and aims to begin a BA in English this fall. An emerging writer and aspiring English teacher, she has a special interest in the role of creative empowerment in education.

Editorial Intern at the Sundress Academy for the Arts; Blog Contributor for We Call Upon the Author to Explain

Marah Hoffman is a senior double major in English and creative writing at Lebanon Valley College in rural Pennsylvania. Within her campus’s lively literary community, she is a writing tutor, mentor for prospective and new students, co-poetry editor for their literary magazine, and president of her college’s International English Honors Society chapter. Marah enjoys reading classic and contemporary literature. She has written poetry since she was twelve but has lately found herself wandering the realm of creative nonfiction, particularly personal essays. Besides being a bookworm, Marah is an avid runner. She is a member of LVC’s cross country and track teams. When Marah graduates, she hopes to find a position that allows her to continue pursuing her passion for books.

Social Media Intern at Sundress Publications

Anna Mirzayan is an arts writer, poet, researcher and doctoral candidate in Theory and Criticism. She is currently based in Pittsburgh, where she is the editor-in-chief of The Bunker Review at Bunker Projects. Her poetry chapbook, Donkey-girl and Other Hybrids, was published in 2021 by Really Serious Literature. You can find some of her work at art-agenda, Square Cylinder, and Hyperallergic.

Editorial Intern at Sundress Publications

Crysta Montiel is an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto in Canada, where she studies English Literature and Philosophy. She previously worked as an editorial intern at Ayesha Pande Literary Agency. When Crysta’s not digging through treasure troves of queries, she’s completing her Criterion Collection bucket list and playing with her cat.

Editorial Intern at Sundress Publications

Neha Peri holds a BA in English from Rutgers University. In her senior year, she was appointed Editor-in-Chief of the university’s oldest literary magazine, The Anthologist. While at Rutgers, she also tutored for the Rutgers Writing Program, completed internships with the Rutgers English Department and the University of Mississippi Press, and wrote an honors thesis. Her work has been featured in The Anthologist. Currently, she works as an intern at the Princeton University Press.

Editorial Intern at Sundress Publications

Brooke Shannon (she/her/hers) is a third-year student at Grand Valley State University studying Writing, African/African American Studies, and Psychology. She is dedicated to story-telling the specificity of black experience through poetry and prose. Brooke’s work has been published in Display Magazine (Issue 111), In the Limelight with Clarissa (Fall 2021), and the 4th edition of Joining the Conversation. 

Editorial Intern at Sundress Publications

Hailey Small is based in Wilmore, Kentucky, where she writes lyric prose and watches gingko leaves turn soft each November. Hailey is a junior at Asbury University, working towards a BA in English and History. She enjoys working in Asbury’s writing center, partnering with remedial English students to make academia and creative writing more accessible. Most recently, Hailey was published in The Asbury Review, where she also serves as the creative non-fiction editor, and anthrowcircus.com.