AJ Bermudez, Editor
AJ (she/her) is the author of Stories No One Hopes Are About Them, winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Award and current Lambda Award Finalist. Her work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, McSweeney’s, Electric Literature, Boulevard
Doug Scibeck, Associate Editor
Doug Scibeck (he/him) holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, and two other masters-level degrees from the University of London and Boston University. He is currently working on a novel. His focus is on Science Fiction and stories that also capture fantasy and literary elements. He is neurodivergent and advocates for a more accurate representation of autism in media. He can be reached at doug@mainereview.com
Chelsea Jackson, Managing Editor
Chelsea Jackson (they/she) is a writer, editor, consultant, and the author of the forthcoming collection All Things Holy and Heathen (April Gloaming, April 2024). Their work asks hard questions, interrogates inherited social narratives, and explores what it means to be human. Chelsea has an MFA in Poetry from Drew University and is published in Passengers Journal, Fatal Flaw Literary Magazine, Hearth and Coffin Literary Journal, and Beyond Queer Words, among other publications. After moving around for more than a decade, they recently returned to their home state of Virginia and now live in Richmond with their partner and cuddly pitbull. You can connect with them at chelsea-jackson.com, via social media @sea_c_j, or via email at chelsea@mainereview.com.
Adam Grabowski, Associate Managing Editor
Adam Grabowski (he/his) is the author of the chapbook Go on Bewilderment (Attack Bear Press, 2020) and his poems have appeared in such journals as New Ohio Review, Ninth Letter, Sixth Finch, and elsewhere. A multiple Pushcart nominee, Adam holds an MFA in Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and is the recipient of a Parent-Writer Fellowship from the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. He lives in Western Massachusetts. www.adamgrabowskipoetry.com You can reach him at adam@mainereview.com.
Molly Hanna, Social Media Editor
Molly Hanna (she/her) is a writer, gardener, and freelancer. She was born and raised in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina and still lives there today, though travels around at every opportunity to do so. Molly enjoys storytelling across many platforms and through a variety of media. Her passion for storytelling lies with nonprofits who do work around social equity issues, specifically environmental sustainability issues, conservation efforts, and food injustice. She is a creative writer whose current work focuses on the human experience of emotions and mental health as experienced by queer and neurodivergent people, told through the observed personification of one’s environment. Her published poems can be found in The Susquehanna Review, Tar Heel Verses, Wingless Dreamer Erotica of Eternity Anthology, and Carolina Woman Magazine. You can reach her at molly@mainereview.com.
Avanti Nambiar, Designer
Avanti is a media and publications manager based in Boston, Massachusetts. She is currently working on investigative and multimedia projects, in both visual and literary mediums. Her body of work focuses around uncovering hidden stories; she enjoys searching for secrets, puzzles, and mysteries. You can reach her at media@mainereview.com.
Basmah Sakrani, Radicle Interviewer – Fiction
Basmah Sakrani is a Pakistani-Canadian writer living in Memphis TN, with her husband and two dogs. Her work has appeared in The Baltimore Review, High Shelf Press, Woven Tale Press, and other journals. In addition to contributing to The Maine Review, she works at Wunderman Thompson and holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Shanta Lee Gander, Radicle Interviewer – Poetry
Shanta Lee Gander is an artist and public intellectual whose work has been featured in many publications. She is the author of GHETTOCLAUSTROPHOBIA: Dreamin of Mama While Trying to Speak in Woke Tongues (Diode Editions) and author of a forthcoming collection, Black Metamorphoses (Etruscan Press). In addition to teaching media studies at The Putney School, she is a regular contributor to Vermont Public Radio, Art New England, and is a Ms. Magazine blog writer. To learn more about her visual art and written work, visit: www.shantalee.com/
Megan Vered, Radicle Interviewer – Nonfiction
Megan Vered is an essayist and literary hostess. Her recent essays and interviews have been published in Shondaland, Kveller, The Rumpus, Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Writer’s Chronicle. Her essay “Requiem for a Lost Organ” was long-listed for the DISQUIET 2022 Literary Prize and she was a finalist for the Bellingham Review’s 2021 Annie Dillard Award for Creative Nonfiction. She holds an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Megan lives in Marin County, where she leads local and international writing workshops, participates in literary readings, and heads the governance committee on the board of Heyday Books. Her memoir, A Dance to Remember, Confessions of a Medical Maid of Honor, is currently being considered for publication.
Chanel Dubofsky, Reviews Editor
Chanel lives in Brooklyn, New York. Her writing on gender, reproductive health and justice, as well as popular culture and religion, can be found in New York Magazine, Lilith, Rewire, Cosmopolitan, and others. She has an MFA in Fiction from Vermont College of Fine Arts and is at work on a novel about American Jews in Israel and Palestine in the aftermath of the 1967 war. She appears in the new documentary, My So-Called Selfish Life, about the choice to be childfree. Follow her on Instagram at cdubofsky.
Rebecca Irene, Poetry Editor
Rebecca’s poems can be found in RHINO, Spillway, Carve, and elsewhere. Named the 2020 Monson Arts: MWPA Poetry Fellow, she has received residencies from Norton Island, SAFTA, and Hewnoaks. Rebecca holds an MFA from VCFA, and lives in Portland, Maine. Her website is rebeccairene.com. She tweets @cicadacomplex.
Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson, Poetry Co-Editor
Shavahn received an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her poetry has appeared in Cimarron Review, Carve Magazine, Salamander, The Baltimore Review, and Sugar House Review, among others. She was nominated for a 2018 Pushcart Prize and awarded a Crossfield Fellowship by Cuttyhunk Island Writers Residency. You can reach her at shavahn@mainereview.com
Lauren Myers-Hinkle, Poetry Co-Editor
Lauren Myers-Hinkle is currently completing an MFA in Poetry and Translation at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She has a background in Cinema and Media Studies from The University of Chicago and studied English and American Literature at Brown University. Her work has appeared in such publications as RHINO and Carve. She lives in Evanston, Illinois with her family. You can reach her at lauren@mainereview.com.
Brett Willis, Fiction Editor
Brett Willis is a former resident of Hewnoaks Artist Colony. His writing is forthcoming in an anthology of short fiction published by Littoral Books and has appeared in Intrinsick Mag and The Maine Review. He lives with his wife, daughter, and large dog in Portland, Maine. You can reach him at brett@mainereview.com.
Rashmi Vaish, Fiction Editor
Rashmi holds an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her poetry and nonfiction have appeared in The Literary Nest, Numéro Cinq, and elsewhere. Born and raised in India, she now lives and writes in New York State’s North Country. She is working on her first novel. Rashmivaish.com. You can reach her at rashmi@mainereview.com.
David Grubb, Associate Fiction Editor
David Grubb, a retired US Coast Guard Warrant Officer, has been a creative writer his entire life, yet never focused on it because of career and family. In 2013 he flipped the script and everything is going quite well. Debut novel, A Trip From God Book 1, releases on Dec 6, 2022. https://www.agrubbylife.com/ You can read David at david@mainereview.com
Emily W. Blacker, Nonfiction Editor
Emily’s writing has appeared in Under the Sun, Pithead Chapel, Fourth Genre, The Maine Review, Under the Gum Tree, and Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies. She was a contest finalist in Fourth Genre and Creative Nonfiction Magazine, nominated for the AWP Intro Journals Project, and given honorable mention in Glimmer Train. She holds a BA in English with a concentration in creative writing from Middlebury College, an MA in English education from Columbia University Teachers College, and an MFA in writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She lives with her wife and pup in New York City where she works as an English tutor/learning specialist and runs the Figure Eight Writer’s Workshop. She is currently working on a collection of linked creative essays. You can reach her at emily@mainereview.com.
Tyler Orion, Associate Nonfiction Editor
Tyler Orion (they/he) is a trans/non-binary writer and photographer living in northern Vermont. Orion works at a small, independent bookstore, and is in the process of starting their own pop-up bookstore called Lucky Cloud Books that focuses on work by queer/trans and BIPOC writers and books in translation. Orion is also Assistant Flash Editor for Split Lip, and they have work published recently in Orion, The Hopper, GASHER, The Offing, Brevity, an anthology from Damaged Goods Press, and elsewhere. Orion holds an MFA in Writing & Publishing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. IG: @luckycloudbooks.
Ian Reid, Development Editor
Ian (he/him) is a grant writer, a professional cook and gardener, and a broad reader based in Maine. A graduate of Bennington College, his literary interests include questions of genre, literary work as a commons, agrarian and environmental fiction, and Wittgenstein. He may be found at the edges of mixed hardwood forests and under stands of old hemlock. You can contact Ian at development@mainereview.com
Peter Welch, Editorial Intern
Peter Welch is an MFA candidate in creative nonfiction at Bay Path University. He’s currently working on his memoir about his life growing up in 1970’s Maine. Peter lives in Kittery Point with his partner Michael and their rescue pup, Dasher.
Staff Readers
Fiction: Kathleen Siddell, Nan Byrne, Jeanette Le Quick, Sara Marzana, Darren A. Deth, Jennifer George, Emmy Ritchie, D.E. Hardy, R.S. Saha, Linda Yoon, Jieen Zheng, Elizabeth Lemieux, Richard Stimac, Gina Thayer, Kaitlyn Martin, MK Manoylov, Lauren Davis, Marc Allen, Shannon Meehan, Melissa Loftus, Sarah Lawrence, Omi Anish, DC Restaino, Meredith Davidson, Diana Kurniawan, Veronica Marshall, Ripley Nolan, David Lee, Rachael Workman, Emma Cecil, Tom Storch, Tucker Struyk
Nonfiction: Jocelyn Winn, Tamzin Mitchell, EJ Bowman, Brooke Middlebrook, Kris Haines-Sharp, Susanna Childress, Elizabeth Royer Johnson, Kate Macolini, A.E. Ryan, Shelley Gaske, Amy Schenier, Wendy BooydeGraff, Oakley Ayden
Poetry: Japman Aneja, Katherine Hagopian Berry, John Browning, Jenny Doughty, Michelle Lewis, Eric Morris-Pusey, Kate Morgan, Bill Frayer, Sara Backer, Preeti Parikh, Jonah Meyer, Tanya Young, Briggs Helton, Caryn Dreibelbis, Elizabeth Galoozis, Daisy Bassen, and Rachel Ouellette,
Meet Our Staff Readers
John Browning is a poet from New Jersey who is trying to become a philosopher in his spare time.
John Browning
Poetry Reader
Kathleen Siddell is a writer and editor. She loves stories with complicated characters who dance on the line of right and wrong. You can read her nonfiction essays in places like The Washington Post, Al Jazeera English, and Motherwell Magazine. She hopes you can read more of her fiction soon.
Kathleen Siddell
Fiction Reader
Jocelyn Winn, founder of The Eleventh Letter editorial services, earned her BS in Speech from Emerson College and an MFA in Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her work can be found in past-ten, Eratio, Waterwheel Review, and Fourth Genre as a Steinberg Memorial Essay Prize finalist.
Jocelyn Winn
Nonfiction Reader
Michelle Lewis is the recipient of the 2018 Marystina Santiestevan First Book Prize and the author of Animul/Flame (Conduit Books & Ephemera). Her poetry has appeared in Bennington Review, Indiana Review, WSQ, The Feminist Wire, and Denver Quarterly, among others. You can find out more about her at whitechicken.com.
Michelle Lewis
Poetry Reader
Katherine Hagopian Berry’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Café Review, Enough!: Poems of Resistance and Protest, A Dangerous New World, Balancing Act II, Glass: Poet’s Resist and Strange Fire: Jewish Voices on the Pandemic. Mast Year, her first full collection of poetry, is available from Littoral Books.
Katherine Hagopian Berry
Poetry Reader
Jenny Doughty is originally British but has lived in Maine since 2002. Her poems have appeared in, among others, The Aurorean, Sin Fronteras, Naugatuck River Review, Four Way Review, and various anthologies. Her first poetry collection, Sending Bette Davis to the Plumber, was published by Moon Pie Press in 2017.
Jenny Doughty
Poetry Reader
A former world wanderer, Sara Backer has returned to her native New England. Her poetry books are Such Luck (Flowstone Press) and two chapbooks: Scavenger Hunt (dancing girl press) and Bicycle Lotus (Turtle Island chapbook prize). Her publications include Tar River Poetry, Slant, CutBank, Poetry Northwest, and Kenyon Review.
Sara Backer
Poetry Reader
Kate Morgan is a poet living and writing in Los Angeles. She is currently enrolled in the Vermont College of Fine Arts Low Residency Program. When not reading or writing, Kate can be found exploring a beach somewhere, taking and editing photographs or wearing big headphones, listening to Bonnie Raitt.
Kate Morgan
Poetry Reader
Bill Frayer has published four volumes of poetry and his work has appeared in a number of anthologies and journals. Having earned his BA in English from Brown and an MS in Adult Education from USM, he taught in the Humanities Department at Central Maine Community College for 31 years.
Bill Frayer
Poetry Reader
Eric Morris-Pusey writes poems. Some of his poems have appeared in The Missouri Review, Noble/Gas Qtrly, and a few others. He reads submissions for journals, including The Maine Review, as well as writing for Nimrod International Journal: Blog and Artists’ Book Reviews. He lives in Columbia, Missouri with his partner Grae Gardiner and their dog.
Eric Morris-Pusey
Poetry Reader
Frank DiPalermo got his MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. In 2020 two of his poems were finalists in the Steve Kowit Poetry Prize, a hybrid piece appeared in Ruminate, a short story appeared in Beyond Words, and two of his essays appeared in The Whole Alphabet.
Frank DiPalermo
Fiction Reader
Japman Kaur Aneja is a sophomore with a zeal and passion for literature. She has served as an editor for BreakBread Magazine and Inlandia: A Literary Journal. An avid reader by nature, she loves to spend her day with a book and a cup of coffee.
Japman Kaur Aneja
Poetry Reader
Jonah Meyer is a poet, writer, and editor living in North Carolina. His poetry and creative nonfiction has been published widely. Jonah plays guitar and piano, shoots photography, and studies neuroscience and Buddhist philosophy. He serves as Poetry Editor of Mud Season Review and Assistant Poetry Editor with Random Sample Review.
Jonah Meyer
Poetry Reader
Nan Byrne is a poet and television writer living in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Her stories and poems have appeared in such journals as Michigan Quarterly Review, Seattle Review, Cherry Tree, Fiction Southeast, The Mighty Line, Canadian Woman Studies, and elsewhere. She has a newly released chapbook, Wonder City, from Plan B Press.
Nan Byrne
Fiction Reader
Sara Marzana is a writer, English teacher, and trapeze artist living in Turin, Italy. She has a thing for stories that highlight the absurdity of everything. Her work has appeared in Fauxmoir, In Parentheses, Scribble, Storgy Magazine, the Durham University Postgraduate English Journal, and elsewhere. https://absurdlymeaningful.squarespace.com/.
Sara Marzana
Fiction Reader
Jeanette Quick lives in San Francisco and is working on a novel about fertility, aging, and technology. She has been awarded residencies at Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, SAFTA, and Art Farm, among others. Jeanette received her Certificate in Creative Writing from City College of San Francisco.
Jeanette Quick
Fiction Reader
Preeti Parikh is an Indian American poet and essayist. With a past educational background in medicine and a recent MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop, she is currently working on a book-length poetry collection. Learn more about her at preetiparikh.com.
Preeti Parikh
Poetry Reader
Darren A. Deth is a graduate of Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Writing program and his work has appeared in Literally Stories, Adelaide Magazine, and elsewhere. Darren is currently working on a short story collection. His day gig is serving the homeless youth in his community. He resides in Lewiston, Maine with Christine, his wife.
Darren A. Deth
Fiction Reader
Tamzin Mitchell holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of New Hampshire. She works as a proofreader and editor, and her writing has appeared in Waxwing, cahoodaloodaling, Crannóg, and elsewhere. Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. She lives in Berlin.
Tamzin Mitchell
Nonfiction Reader
EJ Bowman is a teacher and writer from California. She was a finalist for the DeBiase Poetry Prize and The Florida Review Editor’s Choice Award; she was also longlisted for the Exeter Short Story Award. Her other publications have included Literatus, The Comstock Review, Anthrow Circus, and Humans of the World. EJ is pursuing her MFA in Nonfiction at Columbia University.
EJ Bowman
Nonfiction Reader
Emmy Ritchey is a writer from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her work has appeared in Identity Theory, Dead Skunk, and HASH. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Hollins University.
Emmy Ritchey
Fiction Reader
Briggs Helton is a poet from Washington. His work has been published in several literary journals, including Colorado Review and RHINO.
Briggs Helton
Poetry Reader
Tanya L. Young is a BIPOC writer and artist. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Western Washington University. Her work has been featured in such publications as Salt Hill, Santa Clara Review, New York Quarterly, and others. Tanya was the 2022-23 Poetry Editor for Bellingham Review.
Tanya L. Young
Poetry Reader
Susanna Childress is the author of two volumes of poetry and a forthcoming book of lyric essays entitled Extremely Yours from Awst Press. Her creative nonfiction can be found at Cincinnati Review, Indiana Review, Idaho Review, The Rumpus, and listed as Notable in Best American Essays. She lives in Michigan.
Susanna Childress
Nonfiction Reader
Daisy Bassen is a poet, novelist, and community child psychiatrist who graduated from Princeton University’s Creative Writing Program. Her work has been published in Salamander, McSweeney’s, Smartish Pace, Crab Creek Review, Little Patuxent Review, and [PANK], among other journals. She lives in Rhode Island with her family.
Daisy Bassen
Poetry Reader
Brooke Middlebrook grew up in the hills of Western Massachusetts and now lives in Birmingham, Alabama. She’s currently an MFA student in nonfiction at Bennington College. Recent work appears in X-R-A-Y, Waterwheel Review, and Tiny Molecules.
Brooke Middlebrook
Nonfiction Reader
Elizabeth Galoozis’ poems have appeared in Air/Light, Sundog Lit, RHINO Poetry, Call Me [Brackets], Sinister Wisdom, and elsewhere. She works as a librarian and lives in Southern California. Elizabeth can be found on Twitter and Instagram at @thisamericanliz.
Elizabeth Galoozis
Poetry Reader
Kris Haines-Sharp (she/her) is an educator and writer living with her wife in the Finger Lakes region of New York. Her work has appeared in Entropy Magazine, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Academy of the Heart and Mind, Roi Faineant Press, among others. You can find her work at krishainessharp.com.
Kris Haines-Sharp
Poetry Reader
R.S. Saha (they/them) is a Tamil American writer, translator, and editor for the Vishnupuram Literary Circle. When R.S. isn’t translating Tamil novels and short stories, they write speculative fiction. They have been published by Baffling Magazine and are currently working on two novellas and a collection of horror short stories.
R.S. Saha
Fiction Reader
Rachel Ouellette is about to graduate from the University of Maine with her B.A. in English. Her poems have appeared in Balancing Act 2: An Anthology of Poems By Fifty Maine Women and the Sigma Tau Delta Rectangle
Rachel Ouellette
Poetry Reader
Editorial Alumnx
Rosanna Gargiulo, Founding Editor Online & Publisher
Rosanna (she/her) lives in Maine with her family and the perfect number of dogs (six, in case you were wondering). Her award-winning work has appeared or is forthcoming in New South, Sweet: A Literary Confection, Bacopa Literary Review, Tahoma Literary Review, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts and is currently pursuing a PhD in environmental remediation at Antioch University.
Dewaine Farria, Embody Co-Editor
Dewaine is the author of the novel Revolutions of All Colors (Syracuse University Press, October 2020). His stories and essays have appeared in the Southern Humanities Review, the New York Times, CRAFT, Literary Hub, the Rumpus, and War on the Rocks, among others. You can find more of Dewaine’s writing at dewainefarria.com.
Elizabeth Bedell, Embody Co-Editor
Elizabeth’s recently completed novel, The Space Between, was shortlisted in the 2019 William Faulkner William Wisdom Competition, Novel-in-Progress category. She holds an MFA Fiction and Translation from Vermont College of Fine Arts, an MA in English from Middlebury College, and an A.B. from Harvard University. She writes and teaches in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts.
Megan Baxter, Associate Nonfiction Editor
Megan holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from Vermont College of Fine Arts and a BFA in poetry from Goddard College. Her essays have won numerous national awards including a Pushcart Prize. She has been published in such journals as The Threepenny Review, The Florida Review, Hotel Amerika and Creative Nonfiction Magazine’s True Story. She currently lives in Syracuse, NY, with her fiancé and their three beloved dogs.
Meghan Sterling, Associate Poetry Editor
Meghan Sterling’s work has been nominated for four Pushcart Prizes in 2021 and has been published or is forthcoming in Rattle, Colorado Review, Idaho Review, and others. Her collection These Few Seeds is out from Terrapin Books. Read her work at meghansterling.com.
Staff Reader Alumnx
Fiction: Erica Kent, Bree Leslie, Matthew Schwager, Rhonda Zimlich, Kathrine A. Boyer, Katherine Cart, Reed Patterson, Cassie Powers, Robert Atwood, Terri Bruce, Jonathan Calloway, Frank DiPalmero, Siarra Riehl, Laci Mosier, Sruthi Narayanan, MK Sturdevant,
Nonfiction: Aaron Hand, Anne McGrath, Deanne Battle, Grace Gilbert, E. Isabel Park, Teo Garza Linda Presto, Andrea Vassallo
Poetry: Santino DallaVecchia, Zackary Lavoie, Madeline Miele, Elizabeth Austin, Anna Turner,
Robert Wilson, Carolyn Ogburn, Janine Horber
Embody: Kimberly Ann Priest, BellaBianca Lynn, Brittany Capozzi, Alex Andy Phuong
Lisa Folkmire, Social Media Editor
Lisa Folkmire is a writer from Warren, Michigan. She holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts where she studied poetry. Her poems have appeared in many journals, including Up the Staircase Quarterly, The Mantle, Glass, Barren Magazine, Alegrarse, and Okay Donkey. She is also a reader for The Masters Review. You can read more about her at lisafolkmire.com.