Rosanna Gargiulo, Editor
Rosanna Gargiulo lives in an antique house in Maine with her family and the perfect number of dogs (six, in case you were wondering). She publishes fiction and nonfiction as R.S. Wynn and has received the Larry Brown Short Story Award and the Hummingbird Flash Fiction Prize. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Southword, Guesthouse, Bacopa Literary Review, and elsewhere. She earned an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. You can reach her at editor@mainereview.com.
John Beaudoin, Managing Editor/Fiction Reader
Since graduating from Syracuse University’s MA program many years ago, John’s fiction, essays and long-form journalism have been published in more than two dozen publications including The Salt Hill Journal, Search, Habitat and The Maine Times. As an editorial writer and editor for Maine’s largest newspapers, he was a determined advocate for environmental conservation, universal healthcare and the expansion of democracy. Before joining The Maine Review, John also launched several award-winning healthcare journalism sites and served as editorial director and CEO of MedTech Media. He now lives and works in Brunswick, Maine. You can reach him at managingeditor@mainereview.com.
Dewaine Farria, Embody Co-Editor
Dewaine’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, CRAFT, Drunken Boat, Outpost Magazine, and the Afropunk website. He is a frequent contributor to The Mantle. He holds an MA in International and Area Studies from the University of Oklahoma and an MFA in Creative Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. As a U.S. Marine, Dewaine served in Jordan and Ukraine. Besides his stint in the military, Dewaine spent most of his professional life working for the United Nations Department of Safety and Security, with assignments in the Russian North Caucasus, Kenya, Somalia, and Occupied Palestine. He presently lives in the Philippines with his wife, three children, two cats, and a dog. You can reach him at embody@mainereview.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. You can reach her at embody@mainereview.com.
Brett Willis, Fiction Editor
Brett feels honored to be in a position to strengthen Maine’s already robust literary community. He has been published in Intrinsick Mag, The Maine Review (long before he was fiction editor, he swears), and as a word-of-the-day example usage in Merriam Webster. The word was “zephyr.” A lifelong reader and writer, he is working on his first novel. He loves the work of Jim Shepard, Alice Munroe, George Saunders, Toni Morrison, Rebecca Makkai, Colson Whitehead, Lauren Groff, Charles Portis, and Herman Melville. You can reach him at fiction@mainereview.com.
Emily W. Blacker, Nonfiction Editor
Emily’s writing has appeared in 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 MFA in writing from 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 nonfiction@mainereview.com.
Rebecca Irene, Poetry Editor
Rebecca Irene holds an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her work is published, or forthcoming, in Carve, Juked, Atlanta Review, Burningword, *82 Review, Typehouse, and elsewhere. She received a fellowship from the Norton Island Artist Program, and residencies from Sundress Academy for the Arts, and Hewnoaks. She lives in Portland, Maine, where she supports her word-addiction by waitressing. Her website is rebeccairene.com. She tweets @cicadacomplex. You can reach her at poetry@mainereview.com.
Staff Readers
Chanel Dubofsky, Embody & Fiction Reader
Chanel Dubofsky is a fiction writer, journalist and essayist based in Brooklyn, New York. Her work on health, gender, sexuality, religion and reproductive justice has been published in New York Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Lilith, Previously.TV, and Rewire, and her fiction at Atlas and Alice, Monkey Bicycle, Atticus Review, Matchbook, Staccato, and Quick Fiction. She has an MFA in Fiction from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Follow her on Twitter at @chaneldubofsky and on Instagram at cdubofsky.
Shanta Lee Gander, Nonfiction Reader
Shanta is an artist and multi-faceted professional. As an artist, her endeavors include writing prose, poetry, investigative journalism, and photography. Her poetry, prose, and personal essays have been featured in Rebelle Society, on the Ms. Magazine Blog, The Commons weekly newspaper. Shanta Lee is an editor at the literary arts magazine Mount Island and co-author of Ghosts of Cuba: An Interracial Couple’s Exploration of Cuba in the Age of Trump—Told in Images & Words (Green Writers Press, Spring 2020). Shanta has an MBA from the University of Hartford and an undergraduate degree in Women, Gender and Sexuality from Trinity College. She is currently completing her MFA in Creative Non-Fiction and Poetry at the Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Sarah Curtis, Nonfiction Reader
Sarah’s essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Creative Nonfiction, River Teeth, Crazyhorse, Salon, The American Literary Review, Assay, Chaleur, Literary Mama, and elsewhere. Her work has been noted in 2018 Best American Essays, nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and will be anthologized in a 2020 collection marking the best of the first twenty years of River Teeth Journal. She holds an MFA in writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and lives in Michigan with her husband and three daughters.
Megan Baxter, Nonfiction Reader
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.
Zach Lavoie, Poetry Reader
Zack is a graduate of the University of Maine at Farmington and lives in coastal Maine. He is the author of the chapbook UPHEAVALS and was the recipient of the 2017 Alice James Books Directors Chair Fellowship. He works as a copywriter, editor, and content coordinator. His work can be found on his website and in print nationally and internationally. He loves his dog. Find him at zackarylavoie.com and @zclavoie on Twitter.
Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson, Poetry Reader
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.
Meghan Sterling, Poetry Reader
Meghan lives in Portland with her husband, Matthew, daughter Adeline, and cat, Little Bea. She is co-editor of the anthology, A Dangerous New World: Maine Voices on the Climate Crisis, which is coming out in the Fall of 2019. Her work has been published in Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Driftwood Press, lingerpost, the Chronogram, red paint hill, Balancing Act, the Sandy River Review, Sky Island Journal, and others, and is forthcoming in Literary Mama, and Third Wednesday. Her chapbook, How We Drift, was published by Blue Lyra Press in September 2016. She will be the Featured Poet in Frost Meadow Review’s Spring 2020 Issue, and will be a resident at Hewnoaks Artists Colony in September, 2019. Her work can be found at meghansterling.com.
Santino DallaVecchia, Poetry Reader
Santino is a poet from Michigan. The recipient of an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts, Santino’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Dream Pop Press, Cotton Xenomorph, Crab Fat Magazine, Pithead Chapel, & Yes, Poetry, among others.
Madeline Miele, Poetry Reader
Madeline Miele writes poems and photographs ballets in Portland, Maine. She is currently training to be a yoga teacher and spends much of her free time trying to facilitate a way to read and spin wool simultaneously. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Dogwood: A Journal of Poetry and Prose, The Stonecoast Review, and Uppagus.
Cassie Powers, Fiction Reader
Cassie is a multi-talented writer who happens to be a psychiatric nurse practitioner in Portland, Maine. She has written short fiction, plays, and is currently working on a novel. Her work has appeared in The Gettysburg Review, Bellevue Literary Review, and Meridian. Cassie believes in the power of exposing herself to a variety of work—movies, plays, and, of course, books—in the hopes that on some level, in addition to the sheer joy of it, she’s absorbing the tenets of crafting good stories.
Rhonda Zimlich, Fiction Reader
Rhonda teaches composition at the University of Oregon. An insatiable reader, Rhonda particularly enjoys the works of emerging writers—a magical time for new scribes capturing voice and honing skills. Though she claims to be an emerging writer herself, she has published in journals like Briars Lit, Ink Stains, Scarlet Leaf Review and Acorn Review. She is hard at work on her first novel.
Reed Patterson, Fiction Reader
In keeping with his dedication to fiction, Reed has played Dungeons & Dragons (3.5 edition) with the same group for more than two decades. He writes short fiction and is currently working on what he views as a Bildungsroman. His taste in literature wide, but he finds himself gravitating toward fantasy, mythology, and religion.
Issue Readers
Siarra Riehl, BellaBianca Lynn, Alex Phuong, Tyler Orion, Aaron Hand, Anne McGrath, Linda Presto, Jocelyn Winn, Deanne Battle, Andrea Vassallo, Elizabeth Austin, Michelle Lewis, John Browning, Ethan Stonerook, Robert Wilson, Carolyn Ogburn, Terri Bruce, David Grubb, Wilson Koewing, Kathleen Siddell, Bree Leslie, MK Sturdevant, Rashmi Vaish, Matthew Schwager, and Kimberly Ann Priest.
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. You can reach her at media@mainereview.com.