Brittany Rogers, Co-Editor-in-Chief
Brittany Rogers is a poet, mother, educator, and native Detroiter. She is Co-Editor-in-Chief for Muzzle Magazine, and has work published in Vinyl Poetry and Prose, Freezeray Poetry, Tinderbox Poetry, and The BreakBeat Poets: Black Girl Magic Anthology. Brittany is a fellow of VONA/ Voices, The Watering Hole, Poetry Incubator, and Pink Door Writing Retreat. Additionally, she is co-creator of A Real Poetry Unit, which brings professional development to Chicago and Detroit educators.
Raena Shirali, Co-Editor-in-Chief
Raena Shirali is the author of GILT (YesYes Books, 2017), which won the 2018 Milt Kessler Poetry Book Award. She is Co-Editor-in-Chief for Muzzle Magazine, and is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a VIDA scholarship, a Philip Roth Residency at Bucknell University, and a “Discovery”/Boston Review Poetry Prize. She has also received poetry prizes from Cosmonauts Avenue and Gulf Coast. Shirali’s poems & reviews have appeared widely in American Poetry Review, Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A Day, The Nation, The Rumpus, & elsewhere. Shirali lives in Philadelphia, where she recently co-organized We (Too) Are Philly--a summer poetry festival highlighting voices of color--and is an Assistant Professor of English at Holy Family University. Find her at: www.raenashirali.com
Ben Clark, Poetry Editor
Ben Clark lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota with his wife, Dana, and cat Joni. He works as an editor for Muzzle Magazine and Thoughtcrime Press, and is the author of two poetry collections: if you turn around I will turn around (2015) and Reasons to Leave the Slaughter (2011). He’s currently working on a full-length manuscript with Dana McKenna, tentatively titled Tell Me Again.
Gala Mukomolova, Poetry Editor
Gala Mukomolova is a Moscow-born, Brooklyn-raised, poet and essayist. Her full length poetry collection, Without Protection, is available through Coffee House Press. Her chapbook, One Above One Below: Positions & Lamentations, is available with YesYes Books. She is a recipient of the 2016 Discovery Prize from 92nd St Y & Boston Review and has held residencies at Vermont Studio Center, Pink Door, and ASYLUM Arts. Gala currently writes astrology articles for NYLON Magazine, cohosts Big Dyke Energy Podcast, and is one of the creators of QueerHealers.com. She is a founder and part of The Cheburashka Collective.
kiki nicole, Poetry Editor
kiki nicole [they ● them] is a Black, Queer, Agender poet and artist currently based in North Carolina. They have poems published in The Shade Journal, beestung mag, voicemail poems, TWANG Anthology, and more. kiki has been invited to attend retreats and workshops with Pink Door Writing Retreat, The Watering Hole, In Surreal Life, and Winter Tangerine. Find out more at kikinicole.com.
Lily Zhou, Poetry Editor
Lily Zhou is an undergrad at Stanford University. Her work appears in Poetry, Best New Poets 2017, Tin House, Sixth Finch, Asian American Writers’ Workshop, and The Adroit Journal. She is based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Claudia Cortese, Reviews Editor
Claudia Cortese is a poet, essayist, and fiction writer. Her debut full-length, Wasp Queen (Black Lawrence Press, 2017), won Southern Illinois University’s Devil’s Kitchen Award for Emerging Poetry. Her work has appeared in Bitch Magazine, Black Warrior Review, Crazyhorse, Gulf Coast, and The Offing, among others. Cortese received a 2018 OUTstanding Faculty Ally of the Year certificate from the LGBTQ+ Center at Montclair State University. The daughter of Neapolitan immigrants, Cortese grew up in Ohio and lives in New Jersey. She tweets, mostly about fat liberation and dismantling diet culture, @theclaudster.
Ellie White, Poetry Reader & Social Media Editor
Ellie White has been over-dramatic since 1986. She holds a BA in English from The Ohio State University, and an MFA from Old Dominion University. Ellie writes nonfiction and poetry. She is also the creator of the comic strip “Uterus & Ellie.” Her work has been published in Foundry, Breakwater Review, Meridian, and The Columbia Review, as well as other journals. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Requiem for a Doll (ELJ Publications 2015) and Drift (Dancing Girl Press 2019). Ellie’s first full-length collection, and for too long after, was published by Unsolicited Press in 2019. Her work has won an Academy of American Poets College Poetry Prize, a Best of the Net nomination, two Pushcart Prize nominations, and was a finalist for the Meridian Short Prose Prize. Ellie served as a poetry editor at Barely South Review for three years, and as a poetry and nonfiction editor for Four Ties Literary Review for two years. Ellie currently lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Derrick Carr, Poetry Reader
Derrick Carr is a Black poet. He's lived in the San Francisco Bay Area since he was old enough to read. His work has been published in The Adroit Journal, Oakland Review and here at Muzzle, among others. He’s co-edited Tandem, an annual anthology published through The Lit Slam. He’s participated in KSW/CIIS’s Interdisciplinary Writer’s Lab and is a founding fellow in OCTO, an interdisciplinary collective of Black artists in the Bay Area. Like his mother and grandmothers, all he knows is survival.
Stephanie Chang, Poetry Reader
Stephanie Chang is a Sino Canadian writer from Vancouver, BC. Her work appears or is forthcoming from The Adroit Journal, Kenyon Review, Waxwing, Blue Mesa Review, and others. She is the Runner-Up of the 2020 Adroit Prize for Poetry, judged by Jericho Brown.
Alana Folsom, Poetry Reader
Alana Folsom ran around the world on national television. Before that, she earned her MFA in poetry from Oregon State, where she co-founded its literary magazine, 45th Parallel. www.alanafolsom.com
Aidan Forster, Poetry Reader
Aidan Forster is a queer poet and writer from Greenville, South Carolina. They are the author of the chapbooks Exit Pastoral (YesYes Books, 2019) and Wrong June (Honeysuckle Press, 2021). Their work appears in or is forthcoming from The Adroit Journal, Best New Poets 2017, BOAAT, Columbia Poetry Review, Copper Nickel, DIAGRAM, Indiana Review, Ninth Letter, Teen Vogue, and Tin House, among others. A finalist for the 2020 Iowa Review Poetry Prize and winner of a Copper Nickel Editors’ Prize in Prose, they read poetry for Muzzle and serve as an Associate Editor at Sibling Rivalry Press. A graduate of the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities’ creative writing program, they study Literary Arts and Public Health at Brown University.
Kamal E. Kimball, Poetry Reader
Kamal E. Kimball is an Ohio poet. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Phoebe, Hobart, Juked, JuxtaProse, Tahoma Literary Review, Sundog Lit, Bone Parade, Inverted Syntax, Forklift Ohio, and elsewhere. She teaches writing at The Ohio State University. Find her at kamalkimball.com, on Twitter @kamalkimball and on Instagram at kamal_e_kimball
Fatima Jafar, Poetry Reader
Fatima Jafar lives in Karachi, Pakistan, where she works at a publishing house. Her work has appeared (or is forthcoming) in Jamhoor, VAYAVYA, What's Afghan Punk Rock, Anyway?, and dreams walking. She will be starting her MFA at Emerson College this fall (inshAllah).
Caely McHale, Poetry Reader
Caely McHale (she/hers) is a queer poet from Washington, DC. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from George Mason University, where she was awarded the 2019-2020 Heritage Fellowship in Poetry and served as an editorial intern with Poetry Daily. Her writing has been recently featured in the Heavy Feather Review, Lammergeier Magazine, Radar Poetry, and other publications, and is forthcoming in On the Seawall. She strives to walk the thin line between the lush and the fecund, and to find little magics in the Anthropocene.
Jane Morton, Poetry Reader
Jane Morton is a poet and MFA candidate at the University of Alabama. Their poetry is published or forthcoming in Boulevard, Passages North, Poetry Northwest, The Offing, Muzzle Magazine, Redivider, and The Rupture, among other journals.
Shonté Murray-Daniels, Poetry Reader
Shonté Murray-Daniels is a writer living in Maryland. She spends her time split between writing poetry and writing video games. You can find her sporadic thoughts on Twitter @ShonteWrites, or visit her website for an archive of her work, Shonte-daniels.com
Sun Paik, Poetry Reader
Sun Paik is a poet residing in Seoul and San Francisco. Her work can be found in Hobart, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, The Margins, and others.
stevie redwood, Poetry Reader
stevie redwood is a sino-jewish neuroemergent introvert genderpervert homotrash littledreamer bigmouth freak living & dying on Yelamu Ohlone land (San Francisco, CA). they like shittalk, porchsitting, leaflitter, & riffraff. find them trolling yimbys on twitter @trash_whisperer
Christina D. Rodriguez, Poetry Reader
Christina D. Rodriguez is a Latinx poet, entrepreneur, and woman of tech from New York, currently living in Chicago. Her poems have appeared in Tupelo Quarterly, Yes, Poetry, Rust + Moth, Satin Soulbits, and elsewhere; she also has work published in the anthologies War Crimes Against the Uterus, edited by Wide Eyes Publishing as a response to the recent anti-abortion laws and the She Will Speak Series: Gender Based Violence Anthology, a book that has appeared on the bookshelves of organizations such as End Rape on Campus. Christina has received awards for the Frost Place Conference on Poetry and Winter Tangerine’s Catalyze Self-Revolutions workshop. Christina was the winner of the 2016 Commencement Poetry Contest and performed at Columbia College Chicago’s commencement ceremonies. She has performed in places such as the Chicago Public Library and The New York Poetry Festival. She is a board member of the Chicago Writers Association as the coordinator of social media and the organization’s internship program. She is also a contributor to the Instagram poetry book club, Can We Discuss Poetry with a weekly series called Poems Picked by Christina and is a poetry reader for Muzzle Magazine. To learn more about Christina, visit her at crodonline.info or @poemlust on Instagram.
Miona Short, Poetry Reader
Miona Short is a poet and former astrophysicist from Chicago. The South Side native received a full-tuition scholarship for her poetry through the OMAI First Wave, Hip-hop and Urban Arts Initiative. A fellow of both The Banneker Institute and The Watering Hole, she has performed and facilitated workshops around the country for such diverse venues as correctional facilities as well as Harvard University. Miona writes from a place of deep wonder and play as she explores such concepts as Black womanhood, faith, and relationships. Currently working in tech, Miona is always thinking about: Black folks, home, healthcare, gentleness, and the sky. She loves food. She loves to laugh. Her favorite galaxy is Henize 2-10.
Yvanna Vien Tica, Poetry Reader
Yvanna Vien Tica is a hearing-impaired Filipina writer who grew up in Manila and in a suburb near Chicago. She has been recognized by The Kenyon Review, The Young Playwrights Festival, Princeton University's Creative Writing Department, The Poetry Society UK, Aster Lit, and The Hippocrates Young Poets Prize. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in EX/POST Magazine, DIALOGIST, Hobart, and Shenandoah, among others. Learn more about her at her website, yvannavientica.carrd.co. In her spare time, she can be found enjoying nature and thanking God for another day.
McKenzie Lynn Tozan, Poetry Reader
McKenzie Lynn Tozan lives and writes in Europe with her family, where she works as a poetry reader for Muzzle Magazine, full-time freelance writer, poet, novelist, and avid book reviewer. She received her MFA in Poetry from Western Michigan University and her BA in English/BS in Education from Indiana University South Bend, where she began her work in publishing. Her poems have appeared in Rogue Agent, Whale Road Review, Young Ravens Review, The Birds We Piled Loosely, and Encore Magazine, among others; and her book reviews and essays have appeared with The Rumpus, Green Mountains Review, Memoir Mixtapes, Percolately, Motherly, and others. When not writing, she enjoys reading, appreciating nature, and spending time with her husband and three children, dividing their time between Croatia and Chicago. For more, visit her at www.mckenzielynntozan.com.
Julio Cesar Villegas, Poetry Reader
Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, raised in Essex County, New Jersey, Poetry Reader for Muzzle Magazine, and recipient of the 2017 Atlantis Award for Poetry, Julio Cesar Villegas is the writer that the elders warned you about. His scriptures can be found in PANK, Puerto Del Sol, Rigorous Mag, Grist Online, Waccamaw, Subprimal Poetry Art, Into The Void, as well as the inescapable mouth of the abyss. Puerto Rico Se Levanta. His tweets from the abyss can be found at @VforVillegas
Samantha Williams, Poetry Reader
Samantha Williams is a poet and mother. She is from Chicago but resides in Atlanta. Her work has been published by Eclectic Literary Magazine. She is currently getting her B.A in English with a minor in Black Studies at KSU.
Serrina Zou, Poetry Reader
Serrina Zou is a Chinese-American writer from San Jose, California. She has been recognized by the National YoungArts Foundation, the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, the U.S. Presidential Scholars Program, and the Poetry Society of the UK, among others. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Cosmonauts Avenue, AAWW: The Margins, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Rust+Moth, and elsewhere. She will attend Columbia University in the fall of 2021.
Hafsa Zulfiqar, Poetry Reader
Hafsa Zulfiqar is an international student from Pakistan, studying literature and psychology at Bennington College. Her work explores brown identity, dreams, language, liminality, and above all the notion of home; it has been published in Anti-Heroin Chic. Currently, she serves on the staff of Bennington Review, Muzzle Magazine & Pollux Journal. You can find her on Twitter @vibingwithabook
C. Bain, Book Reviewer
C. Bain is a gender-nonconforming writer, performer, and mental heath worker. For fun, he practices karate, memorizes Shakespeare monologues, and twerks. He dreams of doing these simultaneously. He is the author of a collection of poetry called Debridement (Great Weather for Media), and reads regularly at Kiss:Punch:Poem at the Magnet Theater. He lives in Brooklyn. More at corrinabain.com.
Benjamin Grimes, Book Reviewer
Benjamin Grimes earned his MFA from Randolph College, where he worked on the lit mag Revolute. He writes poems and letters wherever he makes his home, which is currently the Berkshires. His poetry is forthcoming in the New Ohio Review.
Frances Nan, Book Reviewer
Frances Nan (francxs gufan nan) is 31 and an emerging poet. Their “balding haibun” won the inaugural Pigeon Pages NYC 2020 Poetry Contest, selected by Ada Limón, and was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is a reader for Frontier Poetry and has received fellowships from the Open Mouth Poetry Retreat, Brooklyn Poets, and The Watering Hole.
Deborah Mouton, Book Reviewer
Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton is an internationally-known writer, educator, activist, performer, and and the first Black Poet Laureate of Houston, Texas. Formerly ranked the #2 Best Female Performance Poet in the World, Her recent poetry collection, Newsworthy, garnered her a Pushcart nomination, was named a finalist for the 2019 Writer’s League of Texas Book Award, and received honorable mention for the Summerlee Book Prize. Its German translation, under the title "Berichtenswert," is set to be released in Summer 2021 by Elif Verlag. She lives and creates in Houston, TX. For more information visit www.LiveLifedeep.com
Noel Quiñones, Book Reviewer
Noel Quiñones is a Puerto Rican writer, performer, educator, and community organizer from the Bronx. He has received fellowships from Poets House, the Poetry Foundation, CantoMundo, Candor Arts, and SAFTA (Sundress Academy for the Arts). His work has been published in POETRY, Green Mountains Review, the Latin American Review, Kweli Journal, and elsewhere. He is the founder and former director of Project X, a Bronx-based arts organization, and a current M.F.A. candidate in poetry at the University of Mississippi. Follow him at noelpquinones.com or online @noelpquinones
Stevie Edwards, Founder
Stevie Edwards is the founder and editor-in-chief of Muzzle Magazine and senior editor in book development at YesYes Books. Her first book, Good Grief (Write Bloody, 2012), received the Independent Publisher Book Awards Bronze in Poetry and the Devil’s Kitchen Reading Award from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. Her second book, Humanly, was released in 2015 by Small Doggies Press, and her chapbook, Sadness Workshop, was published by Button Poetry in January 2018. She has an M.F.A. in poetry from Cornell University and is a Ph.D. candidate in creative writing at University of North Texas. Her writing is published and forthcoming in Indiana Review, Crazyhorse, TriQuarterly, Redivider, 32 Poems, West Branch, The Journal, Rattle, Verse Daily, Pleiades, Gulf Coast, Ninth Letter, and elsewhere.