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 (she/her) is the Executive Director of Sundress Publications and the Sundress Academy for the Arts and a 2023 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow. She is the author of three full-length collections of poetry, most recently DOWN (SFASU 2020) and the founder of the Best of the Net Anthology. Her work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, Guernica, Ecotone, Crab Orchard, and Mid-American. Smith is a Professor of English at at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

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

Krista Cox is a poet, activist, teacher, and freelancer. Krista is Managing Editor of The Wardrobe and Doubleback Review, interim Managing Editor at Sundress Publications, and an Associate Poetry Editor at Stirring: A Literary Collection. She’s the Executive Director of Lit Literary Collective, and on the Board of Directors of both Sundress Academy for the Arts and the LGBTQ Center of South Bend, Indiana. Her poetry has appeared in Columbia Journal, South Dakota Review, and elsewhere. On the web at www.kristacox.com.

Staff Director at Sundress Publications

Kanika Lawton is a Cambodian-Chinese Canadian writer, editor, and film scholar. 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, BOAAT Writer’s Retreat, and the Sundress Academy for the Arts 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). Born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, they now live and work in Toronto, Ontario.

Editor for Chapbook Series at Sundress Publications

Ashley Elizabeth (she/her) is a queer Pushcart-nominated writer and educator. Her poems and essays have appeared in or are forthcoming from Honey Lit, SWWIM, Stanchion, Hellebore, and West Trestle Review, among others. Ashley’s first chapbook collection, you were supposed to be a friend, is available from Nightingale & Sparrow, while her sophomore collection, black has every right to be angry, is forthcoming from Alternating Current Press. When Ashley isn’t teaching, editing, or working as a chapbook editor for Sundress Publications, she habitually posts on Twitter and Instagram (@ae_thepoet). She lives with her partner and their cats in Baltimore, MD. Ashley is Black before she is anything else.

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.

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

Danielle Hanson strives to create and facilitate wonder. She is author of 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 was the basis for a puppet show at the Center for Puppetry Arts. She is Marketing Director for Sundress Publications, and serves on their Editorial Board. She curated a poet/artist collaboration show Alloy at Arts Beacon in Atlanta, where she was Poet-in-Residence. Previously, she has also been Writer-in-Residence for Georgia Writers, Poetry Editor for Hayden’s Ferry Review, and Poetry Editor for Doubleback Books. Her work has appeared in over 100 journals. She teaches poetry at the University of California, Irvine. More at daniellejhanson.com.

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

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.

Associate Editor at Sundress Publications; Nonfiction Editor of Craft Chaps; Vice President of the Board of Directors

Rita Mookerjee is an Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Worcester State University. Her research has been funded by the Fulbright Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She is the winner of the 2023 Steel Toe Books Poetry Award and the author of False Offering (JackLeg Press). A co-founder of Honey Literary, she serves as the Poetry Editor of Split Lip Magazine. Her poems can be found in CALYX, Copper Nickel, Passages North, Poet Lore, and the Offing.

Associate Poetry Editor at Sundress Publications; Lead Grant Writer at the Sundress Academy for the Arts

Ada Wofford is a trans/genderqueer, asexual writer interested in Dadaist and Absurdist thought. They hold an MA in English and an MA Library & Information Studies. Their first chapbook, I Remember Learning How to Dive, was published in 2020 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 Nonfiction Editor at Stirring: A Literary Collection and an Associate Poetry Editor and the Lead Grant Writer at Sundress Publications. They recently published the YA novel, Loops of Willow, under a pen name available at losgannpress.com.

Associate Prose Editor at Sundress Publications

Assistant Chapbook Editor

Brendon Blair is an Appalachia-borne writer born and bred on trailer living and warm Mexican cuisine. Having a dual major in Psychology and English from the University of Tennessee Knoxville, Brendon enjoys intertwining the experiences of queer and fostered people in poetry and prose. They also hold an administrative assistantship at the Office of Science and Technology Information in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. When not writing or working, Brendon enjoys playing strategy games, and dreams of owning a cat to call Eggs Benedict.

Assistant Marketing Director

Amber Alexander, who publishes creative work as e. holloway, is a poet based in Ohio. They started at Sundress as an Editorial Intern before becoming Assistant Editor for Best of the Net and a member of the Reader Board. They were a previous SAFTA Writing Resident in 2023, have been published by Cornfield Review, and earned multiple awards during undergrad at The Ohio State University. They focus both their professional and creative work on building a sense of community. @hollowaye_ on twitter.

Assistant Acquisitions Editor; Managing Editor for the Best of the Net Anthology

Assistant Staff Director at Sundress Publications

Whitney Cooper holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Eastern Kentucky University, where they served as editor-in-chief of Jelly Bucket, the graduate literary journal run by the university. They also work as a reader for Atlanta Review. A clerical error was made while earning their bachelor’s degree, and they have been passionate about poetry ever since. Their poetry appears in Glassworks Magazine, Stillpoint Literary Magazine, Calliope, Right Hand Pointing, and SHARK REEF. They live in Metro Atlanta with their partner, cat, and miniature schnauzer mix.

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.

Member of the Board of Directors

Evelyn Berry (she/her) is a trans, Southern writer, editor, and educator. She’s the author of Grief Slut (Sundress Publications, 2024) and Buggery (Bateau Press, 2020), winner of the BOOM Chapbook Prize. She’s a recipient of a 2023 National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship. Her work has appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, South Carolina Review, Gigantic Sequins, Moist, Taco Bell Quarterly, and elsewhere. She lives in Columbia, South Carolina.

Member of the Board of Directors

KB Brookins is a Black queer and trans writer, cultural worker, and visual artist from Texas. KB’s chapbook How To Identify Yourself with a Wound won the Saguaro Poetry Prize, a Writer’s League of Texas Discovery Prize, and a Stonewall Honor Book Award. Their debut poetry collection Freedom House won the American Library Association Barbara Gittings Literature Award and the Texas Institute of Letters Award for the Best First Book of Poetry. KB’s debut memoir Pretty releases on May 28, 2024 with Alfred A. Knopf. Follow them online at @earthtokb.

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

Sarah Clark is a mad crip genderfuck two-spirit enrolled Nanticoke editor, writer, and cultural consultant. They are Editor-in-Chief of beestung, Editor-in-Chief and Poetry Editor at ANMLY, Editor-in-Chief at ALOCASIA: a journal of queer plant-based writing, Co-Editor of The Queer Movement Anthology and the Bettering American Poetry series, a former reader at The Atlas Review, and a current Board member and Assistant Editor at Sundress Publications. They have edited folios for publications including the GLITTERBRAIN folio and a folio on Indigenous & Decolonial Futures & Futurisms at ANMLY, folios on Sound Art, “Desire & Interaction,” and a collection of global Indigenous art and literature, First Peoples, Plural at Drunken Boat. They were co-editor of the folio at Apogee Journal, #NoDAPL #Still Here folio, and their series WE OUTLAST EMPIRE and Place[meant]. Sarah is a former Executive Board member at VIDA and former Editor-in-Chief of VIDA Review, where they curated a series of essays by writers outside of the binary, Body of a Poem and the interview series, Voices of Bettering American Poetry. Sarah freelances, and has worked with a number of literary and arts publications and organizations, including the Best of the Net anthology, contemptorary, Curious Specimens, #PoetsResist at Glass Poetry, Apogee Journal, Blackbird, the Paris Review, and elsewhere.

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 twenty poetry collections, most recently Tongues Out in the Garden of Spectacle (Newcomer Press, 2023).  He is the recipient of a Greater Columbus Arts Council Grant, an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, the Louise Bogan Award from Trio House Press, and the Nancy Dew Taylor Award from Emrys Journal.  He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Best of the Net Anthology and the Managing Editor of Ovenbird Poetry.  He is currently living in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.

Assistant Editor at Sundress Publications

Dr. Stevie Edwards is an Assistant Professor at Clemson University and Poetry Editor of The South Carolina Review. Stevie’s poems have appeared in Poetry, American Poetry Review, TriQuarterly, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. They are the author of Quiet Armor (Northwestern University Press, 2023), Sadness Workshop (Button Poetry, 2018), Humanly (Small Doggies Press, 2015), and Good Grief (Write Bloody Publishing, 2012). They hold a PhD from the University of North Texas and an MFA from Cornell University. Originally a Michigander, they now live in South Carolina with their spouse and a small herd of rescue pitbulls.

Assistant 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.

Assistant Editor at Sundress Publications

Ashley Hajimirsadeghi is an Iranian-American multimedia artist, journalist, and writer. She currently is an M.A. Candidate in Global Humanities at Towson University and previously received her BS in International Trade and Marketing from the Fashion Institute of Technology.  The recipient of awards, scholarships, and honors from the US State Department, the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program, the State University of New York, and Brooklyn Poets, Ashley is the author of two chapbooks (cinephile, Ghost City Press, and cartography of trauma, dancing girl press) and currently writes/interviews for MovieWeb. Her creative writing has appeared in Hobart, RHINO, Salt Hill, DIALOGIST, among others. Find her online at www.ashleyhajimirsadeghi.com

Member of the Board of Directors; Editor of Rogue Agent

Jill Khoury (she/her) is a 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, CALYX, diode, and The Shore. Winner of the Gatewood Prize from Switchback Books, her second full-length collection earthwork is forthcoming in 2024. Connect with her at jillkhoury.com.

Assistant Editor at Sundress Publications

Angel Leyba is a writer and creative from South Bay San Diego living in Oakland. They are the Social Media Director at Honey Literary and a former Managing Editor at Berkeley Poetry Review. Their words have appeared or are forthcoming in Dialogist, Mercury Firs, Dadakuku, The B’k, Honey Literary, Perhappened Mag, and elsewhere. Find them on instagram @_slutstation2 or twitter @xspacebar

Assistant Editor at Sundress Publications

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

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 Poetry 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.

Member of the Board of Directors; Assistant Editor at Sundress Publications; Creative Director at the Sundress Academy for the Arts

Alexa White is a mixed-race, neurodivergent writer and graduate of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she earned her BA in creative writing and studio art. While attending, she won the 2022 Bain-Swiggett prize for traditional poetry forms and her poetry and art has appeared in The Phoenix, the school’s literary and arts magazine. Alexa lives in Knoxville, her semi-hometown, and is the Grants Manager at Sundress Academy for the Arts. She takes delight in backroads, quarries, and the last few seconds of sunset and redefines her bedtime nightly.

Member of the Reader Board

Beth Couture is the Director of the Counseling Center at University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA. Her clinical interests include grief and loss, LGBTQIA+ concerns, neurodivergence, existential issues, transitions, and creative concerns. Before working at UArts, she worked in community mental health and with adults with autism. Beth is also a fiction writer. Her novella Women Born with Fur was published by Jaded Ibis Press in 2014, and she has stories in Gargoyle, Drunken Boat, The Yalobusha Review, and other print and online journals. She is currently under supervision for her PTR (Poetry Therapy Registration). _

Assistant Executive Director at the Sundress Academy for the Arts; Member of the Reader Board

Sierra Farrare is a short fiction writer from Baltimore, Maryland. In addition to a limited self-published run of her collection, Friday Night Hand Grenade, you can also find her work featured in Pretty Owl Poetry and University of Baltimore’s Welter. You can find her online at sierrafarrare.com.

Member of the Reader Board

Adriana Rambay Fernández is a writer, poet, and artist currently living in Virginia. She holds an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars where she was a recipient of the MFA Fiction Prize. She was also a Writers of Immigration and Diaspora Fellow for Jack Jones Literary Arts. Her writing has appeared in the American Literary Review, Hennepin Review, Four Way Review, and elsewhere. Born in New Jersey to Dominican immigrants, her writing explores the nature of absence, loss, and intergenerational wounds. Adriana is currently at work on a collection of short stories and a collection of poetry.

Member of the Reader Board; Assistant Editor at Best of the Net

Jen Gayda Gupta is a poet, educator, and wanderer who spent the last two years traveling across the country in a tiny camper with her spouse and their dog. She recently traded in her nomadic life for a home without wheels in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Jen’s work has been published in Up the Staircase, Rattle, Whale Road Review, Ballast, The Shore and others. She is an assistant editor at Best of the Net, and works as a reader for Sundress Publications and The Maine Review. You can find her in the woods or @jengaydagupta and jengaydagupta.com.

Member of the Reader Board

Annalisa Hansford (they/them) studies Creative Writing at Emerson College. Their poetry appears or is forthcoming in The West Review, The Lumiere Review, and Heavy Feather Review. They are the co-editor-in-chief of hand picked poetry and a poetry editor for The Emerson Review and Hominum Journal.

Assistant Managing Editor at Sundress Publications

SINDUS Kim (any/all) is a writer & fan of the odd, off-putting, and preternatural. Though they have a penchant for fiction and CNF/essays, their Word document dedicated to bad poems about their ex-girlfriend well-exceeds fifty pages. You can find him at his completely empty Instagram and Twitter @sinducated, or her website, where she’s open to all kinds of small talk and inquiries.

Member of the Reader Board

Member of the Reader Board

Sienna Morgan, who publishes literary art as Sienna L. M., is a poet born, living, and writing in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. She is a recipient of a Pitt County Arts Council at Emerge, Artist Support Grant. She is also the author of her self-published, debut poetry chapbook, Palmade Poiēmas: For This Is My Handiwork, released in November 2023. She was the 2021 Colorism Healing Writing Contest Guest Judge. Her poems, short stories, and essays are published or are planned to be published by Colorism Healing, The Black Light Project, Black Oak Society Magazine, Midnight & Indigo, The Arrow: A Journal of Wakeful Society, Culture & Politics, and more.

Member of the Reader Board

Robin LaMer Rahija is originally from Kansas City but has lived in Kentucky for over a decade. She received her MFA from the University of Kentucky, where she is currently the Department Manager Associate in the Department of English. In 2010, she co-founded and edited Rabbit Catastrophe Press, a handbound, feminist, book arts micropress, which closed in 2020. In 2015, she co-founded Workhorse Writers Collective, a publishing and education platform for poets outside of academia. Her poems have appeared in Puerto Del Sol, FENCE, Guernica, and elsewhere. Inside Out Egg, her first full-length book, will be published by Variant Lit in 2024.

Member of the Reader Board

Writer in Residence at Sundress Academy for the Arts

Staff Director at Sundress Academy for the Arts

Erin Cantrell is a senior at the University of Tennessee where she is earning her BA in Creative Writing and plans on attending Law School. She is a poetry, pickleball, and bad reality TV fanatic. Outside of school, you can find her on the volleyball court working with middle school and high school girls who remind her that life is only as fun as you make it.

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 Detroit, all of which taught her to contribute to the narrative of those who live, love, and look like her. She has spent two decades as a teaching artist, performing poetry around the country, and leading workshops for the likes of Midnight & Indigo and Room Project. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in AADUNA, Harbinger Asylum, Third Wednesday Magazine, and others.  Most recently, she was selected as a Writing Fellow by The Watering Hole and a semifinalist for America’s Next Great Author.

Reading Series Coordinator, Sundress Academy for the Arts

Shira Haus (she/her) is a queer, Jewish writer pursuing an MFA in poetry at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Her work has appeared in HAD, West Trade Review, and Honey Literary, among others. She has received support from the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference and placed third in the 2024 Pinch Literary Awards for poetry. She works as an Associate Poetry Editor for Grist Journal, a reader for The Maine Review, and the Reading Series Coordinator for the Sundress Academy for the Arts.

Community Outreach Director, Sundress Academy for the Arts

Heaven Lanagan, hailing from the Appalachian Mountains, is a skilled negotiator and communication specialist based in Knoxville, Tennessee. She holds a degree in Rhetoric and Professional Writing and has been active in the hospitality sector since 2019. Her experience includes writing and directing for various publications in nearby cities, such as Strike Magazine in Chattanooga and FYN News in Atlanta, Georgia. After relocating to Knoxville, she has partnered with local non-profit organizations such as Blount County Good Neighbors and For the Love of Reading to strengthen community resources and enhance public relations efforts throughout various communities.

Development Director, Sundress Academy for the Arts

Lead Grant Writer, Sundress Academy for the Arts

Caroline Webster lives and works in Raleigh, NC. She is a graduate of Davidson College, where she earned a BA in English and Classical Studies and wrote a lot of poems about slugs. She likes to sing and watch squirrels from her back porch.

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.

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.

Fiction Coordinator for the Best of the Net Anthology

Assistant Fiction Coordinator for the Best of the Net Anthology

Heather Leigh (they/them) is a queer, disabled, Chicago-based professor, editor, and writer. They have worked with the editing team of Uncanny Magazine, as a fiction and poetry editor for Curbside Splendor, and as managing editor of Lacerta Publications. Their most recent publication, “Netflicks and Chill,” was published in CultureCult’s anthology, Bloodlet. Their writing has been greatly influenced by working with students from marginalized backgrounds throughout Northern Illinois, and currently teach using the theme of analyzing how diverse identities are represented in American culture and entertainment. Their rescue cats strongly approve of her genre-mashup critiques of late-stage capitalism and the harm it is doing to humans living in America and elsewhere.

Nonfiction Coordinator for the Best of the Net Anthology

Descended from ocean dwellers, Ching-In Chen is a genderqueer Chinese American writer, community organizer and teacher. They are author of The Heart’s Traffic: a novel in poems (Arktoi Books/Red Hen Press, 2009) and recombinant (Kelsey Street Press, 2018 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry) as well as chapbooks to make black paper sing (speCt! Books) and Kundiman for Kin :: Information Retrieval for Monsters (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, Leslie Scalapino Finalist). Chen is co-editor of The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities (South End Press, 1st edition; AK Press, 2nd edition) and currently a core member of the Massage Parlor Outreach Project as well as a Kelsey Street Press collective member. They have received fellowships from Kundiman, Lambda, Watering Hole, Can Serrat, Imagining America, Jack Straw Cultural Center and the Intercultural Leadership Institute as well as the Judith A. Markowitz Award for Exceptional New LGBTQ Writers. They are currently collaborating with Cassie Mira and others on Breathing in a Time of Disaster, a performance, installation and speculative writing project exploring breath through meditation, health and environmental justice. They teach in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences and the MFA program in Creative Writing and Poetics at University of Washington Bothell and serve as Writer in Residence at Hugo House.

Visual Arts Coordinator for the Best of the Net Anthology

Laura Page lives and works in Eugene OR. She studied English and Writing at Southern Oregon University and is the author of Dove, Coyote, (Ghost Peach Press, 2020). Laura has worked as a literary editor, a poet, and in more recent years, an artist, visually collaborating with writers and small presses in the poetry community.

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

Sohini Basak is a freelance editor and writer from India, and currently the poetry editor at Words Without Borders. Her first poetry collection We Live in the Newness of Small Differences was awarded the inaugural International Beverly Manuscript Prize and published in 2018. She studied literature and creative writing at the universities of Delhi, Warwick, and East Anglia, where she received the 2015 Malcolm Bradbury Grant for Poetry. Other honours include a Toto Funds the Arts writing award (2017) and a Vijay Nambisan Sangam House fellowship (2022).

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

Aslan Gossett is a queer poet from Tennessee with a heart built for southern Appalachia. They hold a BA in English and Philosophy from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where they served as poetry editor for the Phoenix Literary Arts Magazine. They are a two-time recipient of the Margaret Artley Woodruff Award for Creative Writing and were runner-up for both the Bain-Swiggett Poetry Prize for Traditional Forms and Michael Dennett Prize for non-Traditional Forms. Aslan is also an enthusiast of coffee, meditation, and corduroy.

Coordinator for Poets in Pajamas

Gardner Dorton (he/him) is a poet born in Knoxville, TN. He holds a BA in English from The University or Tennessee and an MFA in poetry from the College of Charleston. His poems have appeared in journals like The Florida Review, Narrative, and the Greensboro Review. Gardner also loves his dog Cooper, longer daylight hours, and tea.

Managing 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.

Social Media Manager

Sundress Reads Editor

Blog Contributor for We Call Upon the Author to Explain

Marah Hoffman grew up in Reading, Pennsylvania. Since graduating with her bachelors in English and creative writing in 2022, she has lived in Tennessee, Michigan, and now North Carolina. She is an MFA candidate in creative nonfiction at University of North Carolina Wilmington and the Creative Director of Sundress Academy for the Arts. She enjoys genre fluidity, whimsicality, cats, lattes, distance running, travel, and adding to her personal lexicon. Her list of favorite words grows every week.

Blog Contributor for Lyric Essentials

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

Mia Grace Davis is an undergraduate student at Stanford University. Her work appears in Gone Lawn, The Tusculum Review, and Ice Lolly Review, among others. She is a 2023 National YoungArts Finalist in Writing and a U.S. Presidential Scholars in the Arts Semifinalist. Visit her at miagracedavis.com.

Editorial Intern at Sundress Academy for the Arts

Hannah Dettmann is currently majoring in English with a minor in Secondary Education at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She is originally from Chicago, Illinois. In her free time, she loves spending time with friends, trying new foods, and going on walks.

Editorial Intern at Sundress Publications

Nic Job is a queer writer with their MFA from DePaul University and a constant curiosity for the world—cultures, places, people, and themself. They are a human who likes humans, and all of their tangled-up ordinariness. Their fiction, non-fiction, and poetry has been published in Club Plum, Defunct Magazine, Spare Parts Literary, and other magazines.

Editorial Intern at Sundress Publications

Erica Leal is a student writer and journalist at the University of California, Irvine. She is currently enrolled in the Literary Journalism B.A. program and is also pursuing a minor in English. With a passion for both fictional writing and journalism, Erica seeks to create works that spark the imagination as well as inform and inspire. Her diverse writing experience includes both short and long-form narratives, magazine articles, and poetry as well as experience in radio and podcasting.

Editorial Intern at Sundress Academy for the Arts

Hannah McInturff is an independent writer studying Cinema and Creative Writing at the University of Tennessee. She enjoys all forms of storytelling and shares her love of reading with her rabbit Bumbles who has inspired many of her works. Apart from writing, Hannah paints portraits and landscapes and participates on her university’s ultimate frisbee team.

Editorial Intern at Sundress Publications

Ines Pinto (she/her) is from a small beach town near Lisbon, Portugal. She decided to leave those shores behind as she moved around Europe, eventually completing her Master’s degree in International Politics. She dreams of a fairer world, so she worked in the non-profit sector to call for the end of corruption and dirty money flows before moving to New York to start a brand new adventure. She is also the proud mother of a spoiled cat named Louis, a certified multilingual Eurovision fan, and a reader with an appreciation for all genres.

Editorial Intern at Doubleback Books

Editorial Intern at Sundress Publications

Scott Sorensen is a junior at Dartmouth College studying English while performing standup, writing for the Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern satire magazine, and helping edit the Stonefence Review. Scott dreams of becoming the first Latvian man to win an MMA championship, which is pretty unlikely given the fact that he is not Latvian and has no idea how to fight.

Editorial Intern at Sundress Academy for the Arts

Lyndsey Summers (she/her) is from the small town of McKenzie, Tennessee, and her grandest experiences live within the pages of her favorite books. She is a senior at the University of Tennessee majoring in journalism and minoring in English and advertising/public relations. She has worked as a general news reporter for her local newspaper, The McKenzie Banner, and is a social media intern for her university’s Student Life department. In her free time, you’ll likely find Lyndsey reading, adding to her Pinterest boards, or curating new Spotify playlists.

Editorial Intern at Sundress Publications

Claire Melanie Svec is a writer, poet, and singer-songwriter whose work focuses on mental health, morality, and feminism. She has won the first-place prize in fiction for The Ear Literary Magazine‘s Linda Purdy Memorial Prize. Claire is currently serving as a fiction reader for West Trade Review in addition to her editorial internship at Sundress Publications. Follow her projects on Instagram @_clairedavila.

Editorial Intern at Sundress Publications

Sophia Zhang is a Chinese-American writer from California. Her poetry and memoir—which centers around diaspora, joy, and womanhood—has been recognized by YoungArts, Columbia College Chicago, The Pulitzer Center, and others. In her spare time, she likes to browse thrift shops and binge movies. She is an incoming undergraduate student at Harvard University.