Stevie Edwards, Editor-in-Chief & 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.
Hanif Abdurraqib, Poetry Editor
Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His first collection of poems, The Crown Ain't Worth Much was released in 2016 and was nominated for the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. His first collection of essays, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was released in fall 2017 by Two Dollar Radio.
Cameron Awkward-Rich, Poetry Editor
A poet and critic, Cameron Awkward-Rich is the author of Sympathetic Little Monster (Ricochet Editions, 2016) and the chapbook Transit (Button Poetry, 2015). His poetry has appeared in Narrative, The Baffler, Indiana Review, Verse Daily, The Offing, and elsewhere, and he has received fellowships from Cave Canem and The Watering Hole. Cam holds a PhD in Modern Thought and Literature from Stanford University and is Assistant Professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Find him at cawkwardrich.com.
Ben Clark, Poetry Editor
Ben Clark grew up in Nebraska and now lives in Chicago, where he works as an editor for Muzzle Magazine and Thoughtcrime Press. He has two full-length collections of poetry: if you turn around I will turn around (2015) and Reasons to Leave the Slaughter (2011).
Collaboration has become a major part of his writing practice, and he’s been lucky enough to work with Dana McKenna, GennaRose Nethercott, Whitney Seiler, Colin Winnette, Rebecca Elliott, and Kate Jury among others. He spent last October living with raccoons, sipping whiskey, and collaborating with Josh Gaines at Art Farm Nebraska, a multi-disciplinary artist and writer residency.
Collaboration has become a major part of his writing practice, and he’s been lucky enough to work with Dana McKenna, GennaRose Nethercott, Whitney Seiler, Colin Winnette, Rebecca Elliott, and Kate Jury among others. He spent last October living with raccoons, sipping whiskey, and collaborating with Josh Gaines at Art Farm Nebraska, a multi-disciplinary artist and writer residency.
Gala Mukomolova, Poetry Editor
Gala Mukomolova's chapbook, One Above / One Below: Positions & Lamentations, is available from Yes Yes Books. She received the 92nd Street Y Discovery/Boston Review Poetry Prize in 2016. Her full-length poetry collection is forthcoming from Coffee House Press in Spring 201
Hieu Minh Nguyen, Poetry Editor
Hieu Minh Nguyen's poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Devil’s Lake, The Journal, Southern Indiana Review, Vinyl, The Paris-American, and Indiana Review. Hieu is a Kundiman fellow, a recipient of the Minnesota Emerging Writers’ Grant from The Loft Literary Center, and the University of Arizona Poetry Center's Summer Residency. His debut collection of poetry, This Way to the Sugar (Write Bloody Publishing, 2014), was a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award, and the Lambda Literary Award. He is currently living in Minneapolis.
Raena Shirali, Poetry Editor
Raena Shirali is the author of GILT (YesYes Books, 2017). A Pushcart Prize recipient, Shirali’s honors include a Philip Roth Residency at Bucknell University’s Stadler Center for Poetry, a Gulf Coast Poetry Prize, a Cosmonauts Avenue Poetry Prize, & a “Discovery”/Boston Review Poetry Prize. Born in Houston, Texas, & raised in Charleston, South Carolina, the Indian American poet earned her MFA from The Ohio State University. She currently lives in Philadelphia, where she works for a literacy outreach nonprofit, serves as Poetry Editor for Muzzle Magazine, and Poetry Reader for Vinyl.
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.
Claudia Cortese, Book Reviewer
Claudia Cortese is a poet, essayist, and fiction writer. Her debut full-length, Wasp Queen, was published by Black Lawrence Press in 2017. Her work has appeared in Blackbird, Black Warrior Review, Crazyhorse, Gulf Coast, and The Offing, among others, and she writes reviews for Muzzle Magazine. The daughter of Neapolitan immigrants, Cortese grew up in Ohio and lives in New Jersey. She also lives at claudia-cortese.com.
Irène P. Mathieu, Book Reviewer
Irène P. Mathieu, MD is a pediatrician, writer, and public health researcher. She is the author of orogeny (Trembling Pillow Press, 2017), which won the Bob Kaufman Book Prize, and the galaxy of origins (dancing girl press & studio, 2014). She has won Yemassee Journal's Poetry Prize, received Honorable Mention and Editor’s Choice awards in the Sandy Crimmins National Poetry contest, and been a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Narrative Magazine, Boston Review,
Southern Humanities Review, Los Angeles Review, Callaloo Journal, New Delta Review, Yemassee Journal, Foundry, and elsewhere. A Callaloo and Fulbright fellow, Irène also serves as an editor for the Journal of General Internal Medicine's humanities section, and is on the Jack Jones Literary Arts speakers' bureau.
Southern Humanities Review, Los Angeles Review, Callaloo Journal, New Delta Review, Yemassee Journal, Foundry, and elsewhere. A Callaloo and Fulbright fellow, Irène also serves as an editor for the Journal of General Internal Medicine's humanities section, and is on the Jack Jones Literary Arts speakers' bureau.
Willy Palomo, Book Reviewer
Willy Palomo is the son of two immigrants from El Salvador. His poems and book reviews have been featured on PBS, Waxwing, Vinyl, The Wandering Song: Central American Writing in the United States, and more. For more info, visit www.palomopoemas.com.
Derrick Carr, Senior Poetry Reader
Derrick Carr has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area since he was old enough to read. He graduated from Yale in 2011 with a degree in Black people. His work has been published in The Adroit Journal, Oakland Review and here atMuzzle, among others. He’s co-edited Tandem, an annual anthology published through The Lit Slam, a nonprofit working to broaden the conversation around literature. 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.
K. T. Landon, Senior Poetry Reader
K. T. Landon is the author of Orange, Dreaming (Five Oaks Press, 2017) and received her MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is the 2013 winner of the Arts & Letters PRIME Poetry Prize, a finalist in Narrative's Ninth Annual Poetry Contest, and her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net anthology. Her poems have appeared in Best New Poets 2017, Passages North, and Ibbetson Street, among others.
Sarah Sgro, Senior Poetry Reader
Sarah Sgro is the author of the chapbook Without Them I Am Still A Mother (Letter [r] Press 2017) and the forthcoming full-length collection If The Future Is A Fetish (YesYes Books 2019). She lives in Oxford, Mississippi, where she serves as Poetry Editor for the Yalobusha Review and reads poetry submissions for Muzzle. She is from New York and previously worked as an editorial assistant for Guernica. Her work appears or is forthcoming in BOAAT, Cosmonauts Avenue, Anomaly, The Offing, The Boiler, and other journals.
George Abraham, Poetry Reader & Copy Editor
George Abraham is a Palestinian-American Poet, Activist, and Bioengineering PhD Candidate at Harvard University. He is the author of two chapbooks: al youm (the Atlas Review, 2017), and the specimen’s apology (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2019). He is the recipient of fellowships from Kundiman, the Watering Hole, and Brooklyn Poets, as well as the honor of "Best Poet" at the 2017 College Union Poetry Slam Invitational. His poetry and nonfiction have appeared or are forthcoming in Tin House, Rattle, the Rumpus, Mizna, Washington Square Review, Puerto del Sol, and anthologies such as Bettering American Poetry, Nepantla, and the Ghassan Kanafani Palestinian Literature Anthology.
Ellie White, Poetry Reader & Social Media Editor
Ellie White holds an MFA from Old Dominion University. She writes poetry, nonfiction, and sometimes comics. Ellie has won an Academy of American Poets Poetry Prize, and has been nominated for both Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Her work has appeared in Crab Fat, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Arcturus and many other journals. Ellie’s first chapbook, Requiem for a Doll, was released by ELJ Publications in June 2015. In addition to her work at Muzzle, she is also a nonfiction and poetry editor at Four Ties Literary Review. She currently lives near some big rocks and trees outside Charlottesville, Virginia. To learn more about Ellie (and see her comics), visit elliewhitewrites.com.
Kemi Alabi, Poetry Reader
Kemi Alabi is a writer, performer and Black queerdo from the future. Their poetry and essays can be found in The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 2: Black Girl Magic, Catapult, Winter Tangerine, Apogee Journal, HEArt Online and elsewhere. As Editorial Manager for the nonprofit organization Forward Together, they lead Echoing Ida, a community of Black women and nonbinary writers. They live in Chicago.
Alana Folsom, Poetry Reader
Alana Folsom earned an MFA in poetry from Oregon State University, where she founded and served as Editor-in-Chief of 45th Parallel, OSU's literary magazine. Her work has been published in The Believer, Missouri Review, The Journal, Apogee, and others. Originally from Los Angeles, she currently lives in Boston with her cat, Birthday. Find her @axfolsom
Aidan Forster, Poetry Reader
Aidan Forster is a queer poet from upstate South Carolina. A Tin House Summer Scholar in poetry, his work has been honored by the Poetry Society of America, the Poetry Society of the United Kingdom, the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, and the National YoungArts Foundation, among others. His work appears in or is forthcoming from Best New Poets 2017, BOAAT, Columbia Poetry Review, Indiana Review, Muzzle, Ninth Letter, Pleiades, and Tin House, among others. His debut chapbook of poems, Exit Pastoral, was a finalist for the Vinyl 45s Chapbook Contest and is forthcoming from YesYes Books in 2018.
Stephanie Horvath, Poetry Reader
Stephanie Horvath is a poet who divides her time between Oregon and Southern California. She received her MFA from Indiana University, where she worked both as Associate Poetry Editor and Nonfiction Editor for Indiana Review, and she is currently a PhD candidate in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Southern California
Kamal E. Kimball, Poetry Reader
Kamal E. Kimball is a Cincinnati poet, member of the Cincinnati DIY Writers, as well as the Ohio Poetry Association. Her work has been published in Rattle, Hobart, One, Sundog Lit, Bone Parade, The Sow's Ear Poetry Review, Kaaterskill Basin Literary Journal, Califragile, and elsewhere. She works as a freelance grant writer, journalist, and creative writing instructor. More at kamalkimball.com
Brittany Rogers, Poetry Reader
Brittany Rogers is a poet, mother, educator, and Hufflepuff Prefect. She is Co-Chief Editor for WusGood.black, a literary magazine that highlights urban writers. Brittany has work published in Vinyl Poetry and Prose, Freezeray Poetry, Gramma, and Tinderbox Poetry; she also has work forthcoming in The BreakBeat Poets: Black Girl Magic Anthology. Brittany is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and a fellow of VONA/ Voices and Pink Door Writing Retreat.When she’s not looking at poems, she’s decorating things with glitter and dying her hair colors black girls aren’t “supposed” to have.
Julio Cesar Villegas, Poetry Reader
Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, raised in Essex County, New Jersey, author of Memories of an Old World (Wilde Press, 2016), and current finalist for the Atlantis Award for Poetry, Julio Cesar Villegas is the writer that your abuelos warned you about. His scriptures can be found in Subprimal Poetry Art, Into the Void Magazine, Memoir Mixtapes, Rigorous Mag, as well as within the heart of the abyss. Puerto Rico Se Levanta.
Jameka Williams, Poetry Reader
Born and raised in Chester, PA, Jameka Williams is a MFA candidate in poetry at Northwestern University. She earned her BA in Creative Writing from Eastern University in Philadelphia, PA. Her poetry has appeared in Prelude Magazine, Gigantic Sequins, Powder Keg Magazine, Tupelo Quarterly, and elsewhere. Her poem, “Yeezus’ Wife [when asked what do you actually do]” was nominated for a “Best of the Net 2017” and a Pushcart Prize by Muzzle Magazine. She resides in Chicago, IL.
