READERS

(in alphabetical order)

Edward Belfar

Edward Belfar is the author of the novel A Very Innocent Man, published by Flexible Press in 2023. Stories in his previous book, Wanderers (Stephen F. Austin State UP) were chosen for the Sports Literature Association’s fiction competition and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His work has appeared in numerous literary journals, including Shenandoah, The Baltimore Review, Potpourri, Confrontation, Natural Bridge, Schuylkill Valley Journal, and Tampa Review. He reads nonfiction for The Plentitudes.

Andrew Bertaina

Andrew Bertaina is the author of the essay collection, The Body Is A Temporary Gathering Place,  the book length essay, Ethan Hawke & Me (Barrelhouse, 2025)and the short-story collection, One Person Away From You. His work has appeared in The ThreePenny Review, Witness Magazine, Post Road, and elsewhere. His work has been anthologized in The Best American Poetry, The Best Microfiction, and listed as notable in three editions of The Best American Essays. He has two cats, a guinea pig, and a larger number of children. Find him on Twitter and Instagram.

Kerry Folan

Kerry Folan writes about art and culture for a variety of outlets. She was born and raised in Maryland and now lives in Easton, where she runs Shore Lit—an organization that brings free literary events to the rural Eastern Shore. You can follow along @shore_lit on Instagram. 

Katey Funderburgh

Katey Funderburgh is a queer Colorado poet. She is a current MFA Candidate at George Mason University, a co-coordinator for the Incarcerated Writers Program of Phoebe Journal, and a Poetry Alive! fellow. Some of Katey’s poetry appears or is forthcoming in Pigeon Pages, The Blood Pudding, and Black Glass Pages. When she isn’t writing poems about horses or dirt, you can find her laying in the sun with her cat, Thistle. Or find her on Twitter.

Nick Gardner

Nick Gardner is a writer, teacher, and recovering addict who has worked as a winemaker, chef, painter, shoe salesman, teacher, and addiction counselor. He holds an MFA in fiction from Bowling Green State University. His writing has appeared in Atticus Review, Ocean State Review, Mid-American Review, and other journals. His latest book, Delinquents, is out now from Madrona Books. He also has published a book of sonnets, So Marvelously Far, a chapbook, Decomposed, and a novella, Hurricane Trinity. He lives in Ohio and Washington, DC. Find him on Twitter and Instagram.

Nikoletta Gjoni

Nikoletta Gjoni is a writer living outside of Washington, D.C. Her work has appeared in the 2023 Rising Stars London Independent Story Prize anthology and has been previously nominated for the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story prize, Best of the Net, and Best Microfiction. She was a 2024 scholarship recipient for the Salty Quill Writers Retreat and will be a 2026 Chateau d’Orquevaux writer-in-resident in France. When not writing or working, you can find her every October with dowsing rods in hand, ghost hunting in Gettysburg. 

Michaela Godding

Michaela is a current GMU Poetry MFA candidate. Her debut chapbook, dwelling, was published by Bottlecap Press, and her first full collection, the year our grandmothers died, will be released in February of next year through AOS Publishing. More of her work can be found in Rabble Review Issues 4, 5 and 7, in the Connecticut Bards Poetry Review Book of 2022, and on the side of Arlington, Virginia’s public buses, which feature her poem “I Pray Often”. When she’s not writing, singing, teaching, or reading poetry submissions for the magazine Same Faces Collective, she’s most likely eating mac and cheese straight out of the pan next to a freshly lit candle. You can follow her current projects, interviews, podcast appearances and upcoming publications on her instagram, @michaelagodding.

Ariel Goldenthal

Ariel M. Goldenthal lives, writes, and works in Fairfax, where she is an associate professor of English at George Mason University. Her flash fiction and CNF has appeared in Fractured Lit, Exposition Review, JMWW, and others. Her dog has appeared in most Zoom meetings.

Ashlee Green

Ashlee Green (they/she) is an MFA candidate in nonfiction writing at George Mason University. Green has written for NPR, Thrillist, HuffPost, and the Washington Independent Review of Books (WIRoB). In their free time, they enjoy hiking, handstand training, and the D.C. music scene.

Hannah Grieco

Hannah Grieco is a writer in Washington, DC. She edits novels and prose collections for Alan Squire Publishing, who published her anthology Already Gone in 2023. Her own work can be read in The Washington Post, Al Jazeera, The Rumpus, Brevity, Poet Lore, Fairy Tale Review, Shenandoah, and more. Outside of the literary/academic world, she’s attempting to develop a non-parent identity. All advice on new hobbies (that don’t involve high levels of executive function) is welcome! Find her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Billy Howell

Billy Howell’s work has appeared in Columbia Review, The Florida Review, Fugue, and elsewhere. An enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, he lives in Fairfax with his lovely wife, elderly cat, and cantankerous rabbits. In his free time, he is trying to master German grammar and to expand his repertoire of Nineties guitar covers. Find him on Instagram and Threads.

Shelagh Powers Johnson

Shelagh Powers Johnson teaches English and Creative Writing at Bowie State University, and she is the faculty editor of the university’s literary magazine, The Torch. Her debut short story collection, A History of Existing Life, was released this August. Her work has appeared in the Portland Review, the Grace and Gravity Anthologies, The Plentitudes, and Ghost Parachute, among others, and has been nominated for Best Small Fictions and Best Microfiction. She lives outside Baltimore with her husband, daughter, two cats, and sixteen-year-old dog, and because life was feeling a tad too manageable, she recently started working on her PhD. 

Sally Keith

Sally Keith is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently Two of Everything, from Milkweed Editions. She teaches at George Mason and is a co-Editorial Director of Poetry Daily.  Most of her free time is currently spent doing laps around football fields while her darling sons practice their tackling skills.

Courtney LeBlanc

Courtney LeBlanc is the author of the full-length collections Her Whole Bright Life (winner of the Jack McCarthy Book Prize); Exquisite Bloody, Beating Heart, Beautiful & Full of Monsters ,and Her Dark Everything. She is the Arlington County Poet Laureate and the founder and editor-in-chief of Riot in Your Throat, an independent poetry press. She loves nail polish, tattoos, and a soy latte each morning. Find her online at www.courtneyleblanc.com. 

Nathan Leslie

Nathan Leslie won the 2019 Washington Writers’ Publishing House prize for fiction for his collection of short stories, Hurry Up and Relax. He is also the series editor for Best Small Fictions. Invisible Hand (2022) and A Fly in the Ointment (2023) are his latest books. Nathan’s previous books of fiction include Three Men, Root and Shoot, Sibs, and The Tall Tale of Tommy Twice. He is also the author of a collection of poems, Night Sweat. Nathan is currently the founder and organizer of the Reston Reading Series in Reston, Virginia, and the publisher and editor of the online journal Maryland Literary Review. Previously he was series editor for Best of the Web and fiction editor for Pedestal Magazine. His fiction and nonfiction has been published in hundreds of literary magazines. such as Shenandoah, North American Review, Boulevard, Hotel Amerika, and Cimarron Review.

Sam Liming

Though she once moved away, Sam Liming is back living and writing in the DMV. When not writing, she is scavenging in other ways. All her published poems can be found online by searching her name.

Cameron MacKenzie

Cameron MacKenzie’s work has appeared in CutBank, Salmagundi, Cleaver, Blackbird, and The Michigan Quarterly Review, among other places. His novel, The Beginning of His Excellent and Eventful Career (2018, MadHat) chronicled the rise to power of Pancho Villa, and his story collection River Weather (Alternating Current, 2021) detailed his childhood growing up in Loudoun County. His flash collection, All of Our Sadness Has Been A Mistake, is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press. He just survived beach week with his extended family, which includes 8 children under 15.

Greg Marak

Greg enjoys writing and reading short fiction, particularly ‘dirty realism’ though he’s anxious to learn about better ways to describe that genre. In his paid time, he works in education policy, and as a twelve year old started a very brief letter correspondence with Jimmy Carter. His face is also printed on a Kraft Mac and Cheese box.

Jessica McCaughey

Jessica McCaughey is an Associate Professor at George Washington University in Washington, DC. Her creative work has been published in places like The Rumpus, The Colorado Review, Fourth Genre, and The Best American Travel Writing. Jess earned her MA, MFA, and PhD at George Mason University and lives in Virginia with her husband Jay and their 7-year old daughter Sylvia.

Carol Mitchell

Carol Mitchell is the author of the novel What Start Bad a Mornin’ and 19 books for children. She holds an MFA and teaches writing in Virginia. She is also a fellow of the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. Her short stories have appeared in various Caribbean journals and four of them have been long-listed for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Find her on Twitter and Instagram.

Martin Mitchell

Our fresh linguine will not fall flat, hand-crafted with the finest semolina flour and farm-fresh eggs, embodies the authentic taste of Italy in every delicate strand. Perfectly al dente after just a few minutes of cooking. Find him on Twitter.

Liz Paul

Liz Paul is the author of two chapbooks of ekphrastic prose poems inspired by Henri Matisse and Marc Chagall: Blue Lovers (Yavanika Press, 2024) and Reading Girl (Finishing Line Press, 2016). Her poems, essays, collages, and collaborations have appeared in The Carolina Quarterly, Duende, Cold Mountain Review, and elsewhere. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and finalist for the Gournay Prize and the Orison Anthology Best Spiritual Literature Award in Nonfiction. She lives in Fairfax with her husband and fox-obsessed dog, Romulus.

Martheaus Perkins

Martheaus Perkins is a former Texan, active milkshake enthusiast who writes poetry and fiction. He is a teacher and graduate student at GMU. His debut book, The Grace of Black Mothers, comes out this July and is available to preorder through Trio House Press. He’s not entirely sure about what the groundhog’s deal is, but he’s eager for their big day.

Taylor Franson-Thiel

Taylor Franson-Thiel is an ex-hooper turned poet. Poets are usually a lot nicer than athletes. Her favorite thing about moving to Virginia from Utah is constantly feeling like she lives in a forest. Her least favorite thing is the traffic. Her debut poetry collection comes out in March! Find her on Instagram and Twitter.

Emily Tuszynska

Emily Tuszynska lives in Fairfax and teaches at George Mason. Her first collection of poetry, Surfacing, (Grayson Books, 2024), was the winner of the Grayson Books poetry award. As a lifelong nature lover, even in July she spends as much time as she can outdoors.

Rachel Paris Wimer

Rachel Paris Wimer is a writer and web content editor living in Fairfax, Virginia. She holds a BA in English from Washington College and an MA in English from George Mason University. An alum of the Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshop and the Tin House Summer 2022 Workshop, Rachel has been published in Southeast Review, Under the Gum Tree, ANMLY, The ASP Bulletin, and elsewhere. She lives with her husband, son, and their rescue pup, Churro. Growing up in “The FAX,” she and seven of her high school friends once piled into a Cookie Monster blue Chevy Suburban, went through the Fair City Mall McDonald’s drive-thru, and got eight waters to go. She is currently working on a hybrid memoir.

Andrew Wingfield

Andrew Wingfield writes fiction and literary nonfiction. His books include a novel, Hear Him Roar, and a story collection, Right of Way. His stories and essays have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Places, Terrain, and many other journals. His current project, a coauthored book of literary nonfiction about the Maijuna Indigenous group in the Peruvian Amazon, is forthcoming from University of Georgia Press. He is an Associate Professor in George Mason University’s School of Integrative Studies.

Candice Wiswell

Candice Wiswell is a poet, writer, and ADHD writing coach living in Northern Virginia. Her background in psychological research shapes much of her creative work, which often explores trauma, resilience, and the complex beauty of being human—with a touch of levity. Her poetry has appeared in several anthologies, and she’s currently drafting her first novel. When she’s not deep in words or ideas, she’s probably dancing in the living room with her five-year-old or trying to remember where she left her coffee.