New Staff

We at Muzzle are feeling very lucky and excited to bring on a new group of Poetry Readers, Book Reviewers, and Copy Editors, as well as a Social Media Editor.  We were rather overwhelmed by the response to our call for applications, and were only able to take on a small handful of the talented and necessary writers who applied. We're proud to be adding the talents of Raul Alvarez, Derrick Carr, Brionne Janae, Sarah Sgro, and Raena Shirali, Claudia Cortese, Irène Mathieu, Willy Palomo, Ellie White,  George Abraham, and ​Shonté Daniels to our staff. 

Raul Alvarez, Poetry Reader

Raul Alvarez is the author of There Was So Much Beautiful Left (Boost House) and holds an MFA from Columbia College Chicago. His work is has been published in Fourteen Hills, Inferior Planets, PANK, Fanzine, Pinwheel, and elsewhere. He currently lives in Seattle and works for Northwest Immigrant Rights Project.

Derrick Carr, Poetry Reader

Derrick Carr is a poet and organizer in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he's lived since he was old enough to read. He co-founded Yale's slam team in 2010 while getting his degree in African-American Studies. He's co-edited the anthology Tandem as a staff member at The Lit Slam. His poems have been published or are forthcoming in Oakland Review, Adroit, and here at Muzzle. You can keep up with him at tinyletter.com/whyderrick.

​Brionne Janae, Poetry Reader

Brionne Janae is a California native, teaching artist, and poet living in Boston where she completed an MFA at Emerson College. Brionne was a recipient of the 2016 St. Botoloph Emering Artist award. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in jubilat, Boaat, Plume, Bayou Magazine, The Nashville Review, and Waxwing among others. And most importantly Brionne is a Cave Canem Fellow. 

Sarah Sgro, Poetry Reader

Sarah Sgro currently lives in Oxford, Mississippi, where she serves as Poetry Editor for the Yalobusha Review and co-hosts the Broken English Reading Series. She is from New York and previously worked as an editorial assistant for Guernica. Her poetry appears in Tagvverk ,Muzzle, TYPO, glitterMOB, Horse Less Review, Deluge, and other journals. Her website is sarah-sgro.com.

Raena Shirali, Poetry Reader

Indian American poet and educator Raena Shirali is the author of GILT (YesYes Books, 2017). Her work has appeared in Boston Review, Ninth Letter, Tupelo Quarterly, Crazyhorse, Indiana Review, and many more. Her honors include a 2016 Pushcart Prize and the 2014 Gulf Coast Poetry Prize, among others. She will be Bucknell University’s Philip Roth Resident this spring at the Stadler Center for Poetry.

Claudia Cortese, Book Reviewer

Claudia Cortese is a poet, essayist, and fiction writer. Her first book, WASP QUEEN (Black Lawrence Press, 2016), explores the privilege and pathology, the trauma and brattiness of suburban girlhood. Her work has appeared in Blackbird, Black Warrior Review, Gulf Coast Online, The Offing, and Sixth Finch, among others. The daughter of Neapolitan immigrants, Cortese grew up in Ohio and lives in New Jersey. She also lives at claudia-cortese.com.

Irène Mathieu, Book Reviewer

Irène Mathieu is a pediatrician and writer based in Philadelphia. She is the 2016 winner of the Bob Kaufman Book Prize and author of the poetry chapbook the galaxy of origins (dancing girl press, 2014) and book orogeny(Trembling Pillow Press, forthcoming). Her poetry, prose, and photography can be found in The Caribbean Writer, Muzzle Magazine, Los Angeles Review, Callaloo Journal, Jet Fuel Review, Lime Hawk, Big Lucks, and elsewhere. She has been a Fulbright scholar and a Callaloo Fellow, and her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Irène is a contributing author on the Global Health Hub blog and an editor for the humanities section of the Journal of General Internal Medicine. She holds a BA in International Relations from the College of William & Mary and MD from Vanderbilt University.

Willy Palomo, Book Reviewer

Willy Palomo learned poetry from the worlds of hip-hop and slam. In 2016, he was named the runner-up Latin@ Scholar at the Frost Place Conference on Poetry. He is currently working on his MFA in poetry and MA in Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Indiana University, where he teaches Intro to Creative Writing and the Poetics of Rap. He runs the Bloomington Poetry Slam. His work can be found online on Vinyl, Acentos Review, HeArt Online, and elsewhere. ​

Ellie White, Social Media Editor

Ellie White holds a BA in English from The Ohio State University, and an MFA from Old Dominion University. She writes poetry and nonfiction. Her work has appeared in Antiphon Poetry Magazine, Harpur Palate, Tincture, and several other journals. Ellie’s chapbook, Requiem for a Doll, was released by ELJ Publications in June 2015. She currently lives near some big rocks and trees outside Charlottesville, Virginia.

George Abraham, Copy Editor

George Abraham is a Palestinian-American poet attending Swarthmore College. He competed in the College Union Poetry Slam Invitational (placing 2nd out of 68 international teams), the National Poetry Slam, and the Individual World Poetry Slam. A 2016 Brooklyn Poets Fellow, his work was featured as part of the Brooklyn Poet of the Week spotlight series. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Thrush, Emerge Literary Journal, Riwayya, Crab Fat Magazine, Yellow Chair Review, the Shade Journal, Black Napkin Press, APIARY, and more. He hopes to continue bringing awareness to Palestinian human rights and socio-economic struggles through art. More work and contact info can be found at his artist website: http://gabrahampoet.wixsite.com/gabrahampoet

Shonté Daniels, Copy Editor

Shonté Daniels is a young poet and games journalist from New Jersey. She is currently an editorial associate at Rewire. Shonté's games criticism has appeared in places such as Deorbital, Kill Screen, and Motherboard, and her poetry has been on Apogee, The Rectangle, and Phoebe. Follow Shonté on Twitter @JohnnyxH or visit her website at Shonte-Daniels.com.