Masthead

Managing & Poetry Editor

Erin Elizabeth Smith is the founder and editor-in-chief of Stirring and author of The Fear of Being Found (Three Candles Press, 2008), The Chainsaw Bears (Dancing Girl Press, 2010), and The Naming of Strays (Gold Wake Press, 2011). Her poetry has appeared in numerous literary magazines including 32 Poems, Mid-American, Blip, Palooka, Cimarron Review, North Dakota Quarterly, and Crab Orchard. Erin holds an PhD from the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi and is currently a full-time lecturer at the University of Tennessee where she teaches poetry writing and literature.

Fiction Editor

Josh Webster is a graduate of the PhD program at The University of Southern Mississippi, where he specialized in fiction. When he's not attending to his duties as the fiction editor of Stirring, he's struggling to overcome his disappointment that he is not, in fact, an orphan of the planet Krypton.

Associate Poetry Editor

John Turner is an Instructor of English at Scott Community College in Davenport, Iowa. His work has appeared in Short Stuff, Samsara Quarterly, Astronomy, Lyrical Iowa, Haiku Hut, Squashblossom, Black&White, The Poet, and Stirring, among others. He is a James Hearst Poetry Award winner and the first on-line Slammaster for Simon&Shuster and Warner Brothers. He has judged the Third Fusion Poetry Competiton as well as the 2004 Mississippi Valley Poetry Contest. John has also written and starred in 30 plays in last 20 years, won poetry slams in the Quad Cities, had poems and plays commissioned in Illinois and Iowa, and has never beaten Erin Elizabeth at Insomniac's Society Poetry Slams.

Associate Poetry Editor

In addition to serving as an Associate Poetry Editor for Stirring for so long she can't remember when she started, M is also an Administrator for an online poetry critique website called Wild Poetry Forum; Managing Editor for VoiceCatcher, a women's collective that funds writing scholarships and produces an annual anthology of Portland area women's poetry and prose; and Co-Chair of the Portland chapter of the Oregon State Poetry Association (OSPA). Her work has appeared in a variety of journals – Rattle, Harpur Palate, Ozone Park, Naugatuck River Review, Pedestal, The Dirty Napkin, Juked, Word Riot, Prick of the Spindle, Salt River Review and others.

Associate Poetry Editor

Jeffrey H. MacLachlan's work has appeared in Brooklyn Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, among others. He hails from Skaneateles, NY.

Broadside Editor

Rhonda Lott is a PhD candidate and Graduate Instructor at Texas Tech University. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in cream city review, The Los Angeles Review, Oak Bend Review, Kennesaw Review, Journal of Truth and Consequence, The Southern Quarterly, and others. She currently teaches introduction to creative writing.

Associate Poetry Editor

Kevin Matz was born in Champaign, Illinois, on May 12, 1977. He received a Bachelors degree in Rhetoric in 2000. He then worked a number of glamorous jobs, such as fork lift operator and deli grunt, to support his writing before returning to the University of Illinois to pursue graduate study. In 2004, he won the Carol Kyle Memorial Award for Poetry. He graduated with his MFA from the University of Illinois in May of 2005. He lives with his wife and daughter.

Associate Poetry Editor

Stephanie Stair is a graduate of the University of Tennessee Knoxville, majoring in Psychology and minoring in Anthropology. She is obsessed with photography, reading and writing, forensics, new shoes, law enforcement, and Lady Vols basketball. Stephanie currently resides in Knoxville with her fiancˇ, Jason.

Sundress Intern

A recent graduate of UT-Knoxville's Creative Writing Program, Kyle Gray spends his days with at least one dog at his leg. The other days he writes, reads, and thinks poetry. Within the year, he plans on applying to graduate schools or moving to Nashville, or both.