Wallstrait

Danny Judge's fiction has appeared in Litro, The Boiler Journal, Lunch Ticket, and other journals. His writing has been nominated for several awards, including two Pushcarts—which he clearly did not win, or this sentence would've started very differently. He was the Editor-in-Chief of  The Indianola Review from 2015-2017, has a BA in English, and works as a Marketing Director. He's one of the few living people to have read both Gravity's Rainbow and Infinite Jest in their entirety, which aged him horribly. 

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J. Courtney Reid has written plays that have been produced for the Unchained Theatre Festival in Long Island City and throughout the Capital District of New York. She has written essays published in the Oxford Journal of Public Policy, Maine Life Magazine, and Manifest Station. She has been a recipient of a New York State Artists Grant, a feature writer for a newspaper, and a bookstore owner. She is a novelist and an emeritus professor of English. Since girlhood, her passion has been reading and writing. By the ocean.

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​Aisling Lynch is a writer from Ireland, currently living in Boston. She writes short stories because doing that makes her feel the most alive. She is obsessed with people, and she kept on learning about them until she had an MS in Psychology. She is a first-generation college student, a mother, an obsessive reader, and a volunteer at 826 Boston and The Learning Exchange, places whose mission is about making writing accessible to everyone. These days, she is also pursuing a Master's degree in Creative Writing and Literature at Harvard Extension School.

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Alexandra (Alex) Hall Miles is a millennial who loves books, dogs, and solitude. Her perfect day would be curling up with a good book, one or both of her senior dogs, and quiet. Originally from Canada, she now lives in North Carolina and hates the summer heat. If Alex won the lottery, she’d buy a house in the mountains, rescue dogs, and hoard books. 

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Jay Barrett, a Jersey Shore native, recently graduated from Ithaca College with a BA in Writing. His creative nonfiction has been published in DIAGRAM Magazine. When he’s not reading, he’s daydreaming about opening a dog sanctuary.

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​​Myranda Lockwood is an undeniable bibliophile who lives in Upstate New York. She has her BA in English Professional Writing and Rhetoric and is currently pursuing a Master's in Publishing at George Washington University. What she feels to be her most impressive literary feat, Myranda has read almost all of Stephen King's 98 novels and novellas and is willing to discuss the topic with anyone at all times. A polarizing opposite, Myranda also has a strong passion for 19th-century British novels and has spent time in London, England studying works of Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Shakespeare, among others. Her ideal day is any day that she gets to read with no distractions.

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LW Platt is an essayist and fiction writer from the Midwest who grew up in a trailer and now longs for the comforts of his family’s double-wide while he currently resides in some metropolitan hell-hole on the East Coast. He has published works in CNF and short fiction and now enjoys receiving weekly (and sometimes daily) encouraging letters of rejection from publishers and journals alike far and wide. Name a continent, he’s definitely been told by someone on that strip of rock that they loved his work but it wasn’t a good fit. I—He’s not bitter, not bitter at all. Feel free to talk to him about literature and be amazed at how quickly he shoehorns Flannery O’Connor or Raymond Carver into the conversation. It’s a party trick at this point—though not a very fun one for anyone but him. Has he mentioned how The Violent Bear It Away is the greatest American novel ever written? Because he will whether you ask him or not. Because it is.

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Zachary Shiffman is a fiction writer. He has a BA in Creative Writing from Susquehanna University, where he served as the fiction editor for the magazine RiverCraft. His fiction has appeared in the online magazines Variety Pack, Inspiring Fiction, and Rune Bear. When he’s not tinkering with a story or reading an Octavia Butler novel, he can be found watching sitcoms at his home in New Jersey.

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Sophia Craig is an English PhD candidate at the University of Iowa interested in 19th/20th century American novels and short stories. Before graduate school, Sophia earned her BA at Purdue University where she studied English literature, creative writing, and classics. At Purdue, she acted as Editor-in-Chief for The Bell Tower, where some of her poems are published. Her poetry can also be found in Meow Meow Pow Pow. In her free time, she enjoys procrastinating on her novel and critiquing movies with her cat. Find out more on her website.

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​​​​​Zalak Shah decided that after a decade of corporate work, it was time for Career 2.0. So she quit her job, moved to a new city and started feeding her creative alter-ego. Now she spends her days reading, writing, getting rejected for publishing internships and sending cold emails to not receive any responses. In short, living the dream! 

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Caroline Tuss graduated from the University of Montana with a BFA in Creative Writing. Her poetry can be found in Scribendi, The Oval, and Mosaic, and she spent time as a poetry reader for the High Desert Journal. When she's not bouncing between prose, poetry, and playwriting, she can be found onstage or backstage for her local community theatre. She lives and works on Montana's Hi-Line with her partner. Her favorite word is spelunk. 

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​Valeria (Val) Valdez is a fiction writer and poet from border town Laredo, Texas. They are currently based in Austin, Texas and have a BA in English literature from the University of Texas at Austin. During their time at UT, they were a part of the poetry editorial board for Analecta Journal. They have also written for the Austin Chronicle. Currently, they spend their days curating tea and specialty coffee menus when they aren’t working as a barista. They love spending their free time making playlists, reading queer horror, romance, and coming-of-age novels, as well as making their way through Mubi’s catalog of films. 

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Alexandrea Watson grew up between Southern Ohio and Nassau, Bahamas. She has since lived in Portland, Paris, Beirut, and London. Curious about language and Karl Marx, she earned a BA in Linguistics from Reed College and a MSc in Development Economics from École d’économie de Paris. An avid reader and a writer, Alexandrea particularly enjoys both absurdist and 19th century romance fiction.

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Kylee Youngstrom is a poet and fiction writer from Minnesota. She recently graduated from the University of Denver with a degree in English and International studies. Her poetry has been published in Foothills Magazine as well as Half and One. When she’s not raving about the most recent book she’s finished you can find her outside with her doggo, watering her plants (objectively she has way too many), or watching some incredibly niche video on YouTube (who knew aquascaping was so interesting?).  

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Sophie Bookheimer is an idealist from South Carolina with a BA in Literary Studies from Roanoke College. She was born in Virginia and lived in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Virginia again, and she travels back to Vermont when she can. Basically, Sophie is convinced that she exists in some sort of Möbius Strip. Sophie is a fan of Steinbeck and Willa Cather, though her favorite stories include James Joyce’s “The Dead” and Jhumpa Lahiri’s “The Third and Final Continent.” She also enjoys cooking, listening to music from the Classical and Romantic eras, and managing the chaos created by her pet rabbit, Schubert. If you ask her about Schubert—the rabbit or the composer—she could probably talk for hours, for both mean a great deal to her. 

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Mora Donggur is an aspiring editor and writer from Charlotte, North Carolina. After receiving her BA in Sociology at the height of the COVID pandemic, she rediscovered her love of reading fiction after four years of dense, nonfiction during undergrad. In her free time, she is in a group for Montagnard writers, enjoys embroidering, looking at the fluctuating price of plane tickets on KAYAK, and is trying her hand at gardening in her backyard.

 

Ryan Fallon is a writer and editor from New Jersey. He is a recent graduate of Rutgers University with a BA in English, and his fiction has appeared in Volume 4 of Writers House Review. His favorite books are The Haunting of Hill House, Lincoln in the Bardo, and The Remains of the Day.

 

Taylor Ikehara is a writer and a critic, if you consider Goodreads and Letterboxd reviews “critiques.” Since getting his BA in English literature he has interned for a literary agency, graduated from the Columbia Publishing Course at Oxford, and currently works at his local library and bookstore. If you can’t find him on a Tuesday night, it’s because Cinemark sells tickets at half-price on Tuesdays and he wanted to see the newest 3/5 horror movie.

 

Alicia Maskley is a former Floridian / poet / writer / part-time swamp witch now lurking in Queensland, Australia. She holds a master’s degree in 19th-century U.S. history and has spent an unreasonable amount of time documenting cemeteries. She writes (and reads) Southern Gothic, weird fiction, thrillers, and cyberpunk—anything with a little darkness. Her work has appeared in Eye to the Telescope, Witcraft, and Australian Wildlife Magazine. These days, she’s a stay-at-home mom who listens to far too many podcasts and occasionally remembers to drink her coffee before it goes cold.

 

Saty Mukherjee is an emerging copyeditor and writer born in India but raised in the quiet suburbs of New Jersey. They currently work part-time as an English Tutor and as a reader for Wallstrait, Chestnut Review, and The Common. They take inspiration from many places, ranging from the quiet aisles of a grocery store, the sprawling landscapes of the videogames they play, and the powerful stories in the books they read. Although their work is yet to be published, they look forward to sharing their voice with a broader audience in the near future. On the days they aren’t working, they can often be found immersed in needlework, lost in their favorite game, or reading by the warm glow of a lamp clamped to their windowsill. 

 

Susannah Rigg is originally from London but has lived in Mexico for fourteen years. After a decade as a travel writer published in BBC Travel, Condé Nast and others, she now devotes herself to fiction and working as a writing mentor. Her fiction has been published by Inkfish Magazine, South 85 and is forthcoming in the Westchester Review. She’s working on her third novel and hoping that third time’s the charm. Susannah currently lives in the magical mountain town of Tepoztlán, where stories seep from the stones.

 

Alexis Rodriguez graduated from the University of Redlands with a BA in English: Literature & Writing. During her senior year, her interest in Philip Roth sparked a desire to write her capstone paper titled Does Philip Roth Hate Women? Motherhood in the Plot Against America. Her critical analysis earned her an Honorable Mention for the Eujene Kanjo prize that awards students for outstanding literary criticism. Right after graduation, she attended the Denver Publishing Institute hoping that will be her way to break into the industry. She's still hoping! She has a passion for all things fiction, especially mysteries, thrillers, and the supernatural. When not immersed in books, she can be found surrounded by animals at her pet store job, where she has yet to meet a furry (or scaly) friend she didn't like. Excluding the hamsters. 

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Emi Ruff is a writer, photographer, and ex-tech worker based outside Detroit. She is presently working on her second novel while pursuing next steps on her first, and looks forward to updating this sentence to something more definitive in the near future. She also writes about literature, music, and geopolitics on her blog, Emi on Earth.

 

Carolina Simionato grew up on a small farm in the southern Brazilian countryside. A writer and musician, Carolina’s long form fiction writing has been supported by Curtis Brown Creative's Breakthrough Mentoring Programme for Writers of Colour, and they’ve attended the Tin House Winter Workshop. Carolina also holds a bachelor’s degree in literature, arts and cultural mediation, with a focus on 20th century Latin American literature and decolonial theory.

 

Olivia Wieland is a writer and recent graduate of Kenyon College. Her publications include a chapbook, To Be the Candle or the Mirror That Reflects It, published by Bottlecap Press, as well as creative nonfiction and fiction pieces in VERDANT Journal and 805Lit. She is working on a manuscript, in the sense that all writers are working on a manuscript. Beyond the written word, she is passionate about solo traveling, playing guitar, boxing, and cats. She is a proud scorpio sun and scorpio rising.