Masthead
January 2023: Change can be complicated, especially when it comes to human emotions. We are sad to bid farewell to longtime Poetry Editor Mare Heron Hake, as her other obligations have changed. At the same time, we are excited that Jessica Cuello is staying on as full editor of poetry and that two associate poetry editors, Dana Cheaib and LiAnne Yu, are joining us. Please see the entries below.
Ann Beman, Nonfiction Editor and Publisher, was longtime nonfiction editor of The Los Angeles Review. She currently chairs the executive board of directors for Red Hen Press. She earned her MFA from the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts. Her work has appeared in DIAGRAM, Hippocampus Magazine, Mojave River Review, Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review, and Canoe Journal, among others. She lives in California’s Sierra Nevada with two whatchamaterriers, a chihuahua, and her husband, on the Kern River, in Kern County. Cue the banjos.
Dana Cheaib, Associate Poetry Editor joins us for Issue 25. She is a Lebanese Canadian writer and MFA candidate at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her work has been featured in Harper’s Bazaar Arabia and The National. She was also the 2022 winner of the MEPRA Creative Writing Competition. Her current focus is the study and translation of Lebanese “zajal” poetry—a lively oral tradition known for its improvisational semi-sung poetic battles.
Jessica Cuello, Poetry Editor is the author of LIAR (2022), selected by Dorianne Laux for the 2020 Barrow Street Book Prize. She also is the author of Hunt (The Word Works, 2017) and Pricking (Tiger Bark Press, 2016). She has been awarded The CNY Book Award, The Washington Prize, The New Letters Poetry Prize, a Saltonstall Fellowship, and The New Ohio Review Poetry Prize. Her poems can be found in Copper Nickel, Cave Wall, Missouri Review, Pleiades, and Salamander.
Leanne Dunic, Fiction Editor As a biracial, bisexual woman, Leanne has spent her life navigating liminal spaces, inspiring her to produce trans-media projects such as To Love the Coming End (Book*hug/Chin Music Press 2017) and The Gift (Book*hug 2019). Her most recent book is a lyric memoir with music entitled One and Half of You (Talonbooks 2021).
Leanne strongly encourages submissions from voices not typically heard, including writers who are Black, Indigenous, People of Colour, LGBTQIA+, Disabled, and Neurodivergent. She is the leader of the music band The Deep Cove, and lives on the unceded and occupied traditional territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh people.
Jim Gearhart, Managing Editor and Publisher earned an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Antioch University. His work has appeared in High Country News, Shark Reef and STATNews. Jim lives, writes and edits near Seattle.
Bernard Grant, Associate Fiction Editor is a nonbinary, autistic writer whose prose has appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Third Coast, and CRAFT, among other publications. Bernard holds a PhD from the University of Cincinnati and an MFA from Pacific Lutheran University.
Stefen Styrsky, Associate Fiction Editor Stefen's stories have appeared in The Offing, Amazon's Day One, Orca Magazine, Switchblade, Tough, and Best Gay Stories 2017. He earned his MA in Fiction Writing from the Johns Hopkins University. He lives in Washington, DC.
LiAnne Yu, PhD, Associate Poetry Editor joins us for Issue 25. Dr. Yu is an anthropologist and writer. Her poetry won first place at the 2022 Tucson Festival of Books and will be published in the literary journal, F(r)iction in 2023. Her personal essays have been featured in The New York Times and The Seventh Wave, and she has received several awards from the Society of Professional Journalists. She is working on her first novel, Chasing Margaret Mead. Raised in San Francisco, she now lives on the Big Island of Hawaii.
Isaac Yuen, Associate Fiction Editor A first generation Hong Kong-Canadian, Isaac's short stories and essays have appeared in Newfound, Orca, Orion, Shenandoah, Tin House, and elsewhere. He was a 2019 nature writer-in-residence at the Jan Michalski Foundation in Switzerland. Isaac is interested in voices not commonly heard, from perspectives not commonly seen. You can find him on Twitter @ekostories or at www.ekostories.com
Founding Editors Kelly Davio and Joe Ponepinto established Tahoma Literary Review in 2014.