OKD Staff Members

GENEVIEVE KERSTEN (She/Her) is Co-Publisher, Emeritus Poetry Editor, and Press Poetry Co-Editor. She’s a poet, romance writer, and professional semi-finalist. Her poetry has appeared in The Feckless Cunt Anthology, HAD, Heavy Feather Review, Hypertrophic Lit, No Contact, and Pithead Chapel. She lives in Los Angeles with her partner Eric and tweets at @joieduhvieve.

ERIC ANDREW NEWMAN (He/Him) is Co-Publisher and Co-Editor. He lives in Los Angeles with his partner Genevieve and works as an archivist for a non-profit foundation. His work has been nominated for the Best Small Fictions and Best Microfiction anthologies, and has appeared in Atlas and Alice, Bending Genres, Five:2:One, Pithead Chapel, The Rumpus, and Wigleaf, among others.

MATT BROADDUS (He/Him) is Press Poetry Co-Editor. He is a Cave Canem fellow and author of the chapbooks, Space Station (Letter [R] Press, 2018) and Two Bolts (Ugly Ducking Press, 2021). His poems have appeared in Black Warrior Review, Fence, The Rumpus, and Sundog Lit. He lives in Lakewood, Colorado and works at a public library. Sometimes he tweets @mattbroaddus.

STEVE CHANG (He/Him) is Fiction Co-Editor. He is a Taiwanese writer and educator from the San Gabriel Valley, California. His work has appeared in Epiphany, Guernica, Hobart, The Los Angles Review, North American Review, Wigleaf, and elsewhere. He has an MFA from Cornell and has been teaching for a really long time. You can find his tweets @steveXisXok.

ELIZABETH UPSHUR (She/Her) is Poetry Co-Editor. She’s a Black Southern writer and 2018-2019 Fulbright alumna. She holds an MFA from Western Kentucky University, and has won scholarships and awards from the Shipman Agency Work Room, Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference, and The Frost Place. Her writing has appeared in Brown Sugar Lit, Gigantic Sequins, Pretty Owl Poetry, Unsung Magazine, and elsewhere. She lives in Tennessee with her family of twelve, a small dog, and sightings of the occasional black bear.

VERONICA KLASH (She/Her) is Associate Fiction Editor. She is a Folio Award-winning essayist, and a Senior Reader for Witness Magazine. Her fiction has been anthologized recently in What I Thought of Ain’t Funny, a collection inspired by the comedy of the late Mitch Hedberg. You can read her flash in Cheap Pop, JMWW, Milk Candy Review, Wigleaf, and X-R-A-Y Lit, among others. A contributor to NPR’s Desert Companion, Veronica is working on a short story collection set in Las Vegas. Find her tweets @veronicaklash.

ERIC LOCHRIDGE (He/Him) is Associate Poetry Editor. He is the author of My Breath Floats Away From Me (FutureCycle Press, 2022) and three poetry chapbooks. His poems have appeared in The Daily Drunk, DIAGRAM, Ghost City Review, Kissing Dynamite, Slipstream, and UCity Review. He lives in western Washington between the mountains and the sea. You can find him on Twitter @ericedits and at ericedits.wordpress.com.

NIKO ANGELL-GARGIULO (She/Her) is a Fiction Reader. She’s a freelance editor and perfume enthusiast from Seattle, WA, now based in Paris, France, and is interested in translated works. She’s also one of the hosts of the podcast Desperate Readers, which brings readers together to discuss classic and contemporary literature.

REBECCA ACKERMANN (She/Her) is a Fiction Reader. She is a writer, artist, and designer living in San Francisco. Her essays have appeared in Electric Lit, Gloria, and The New York Times, and her short fiction has appeared in Barren Magazine, Flash Frog, Rejection Letters, and Wigleaf, among others. Her work has been supported by In Cahoots and the Wellstone Center in the Redwoods residencies, and you can find her tweeting bad jokes and strong opinions @rebackermann.

KATYA BURESH (She/Her) is a Poetry Reader. She is a writer, publicist, and candlemaker living in Maryland. Her poetry and literary criticism can be found in Full Stop, Grub Street Magazine, Ligeia Magazine, Los Angeles Review of Books, Metonym Journal, and The Rumpus, among others. You can find her at online at sincerelykatya.com and on Twitter @katyanburesh.

ADRIENNE CREZO (She/Her) is a Poetry Reader. Adrienne is a Pushcart-nominated writer and editor of Comanche descent. You can find her work in Complete Sentence, The Daily Drunk, HAD, Sledgehammer Lit, and more. She lives in Ohio.

KELSEY FUSON (They/She) is a Poetry Reader. Kelsey is a queer poet who lives and works in Cusco, Peru and they once drove from South Carolina to Vermont for a pint of ice cream. They believe in snap decisions. Their poetry and fiction have been published in LandLocked Magazine, perhappened magazine, HAD, CLOVES Literary, and others.

RHEA GANGAVKAR (She/Her) is a Fiction Reader. Rhea is an editor, writer, and writing mentor based out of India. She is a 25-year-old aspiring recluse who’s always looking to superimpose cinema, art, philosophy, and literature over one another. Gulping down books and coffee is a second nature, the first is cynicism.

MEGAN M. GARWOOD (She/They) is a Fiction Reader. Megan is a writer originally from Metro Detroit. Her fiction has appeared in Misery Tourism, Okay Donkey, and X-R-A-Y Lit and her essays on art have appeared in publications like Triangle House, White Hot Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal. You can find her online at www.megan.wtf.

MARGARYTA GOLOVCHENKO (She/Her) is a Poetry Reader. She is a poet, freelance critic, and settler-immigrant from Tkaronto/Toronto, Canada, Treaty 13, and Williams Treaty territory. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks and a book reviewer for The Town Crier, Anomaly, and TERSE Journal. She is also a Ph.D. student in the Art History program at the University of Oregon and can be found sharing her (mis)adventures on Twitter @Margaryta505.

MEGAN HANNAY (She/Her) is a Fiction Reader. She is a writer, reader, and designer. She has won the Willie Lavonsa Moore Prize in creative nonfiction, and you can read her fiction in The Madcap Review. She has also dabbled in screenwriting in L.A. You can find her scribbling, daydreaming, and talking to her cat (of course) in Chapel Hill, NC.

MIRANDA HOLMQVIST (She/Her) is a Fiction Reader. She is a freelance writer and journalist from Stockholm, Sweden. She can be found translating and ghostwriting scripts, writing nonfiction and poetry, reading a lot of books, and she loves to play with her hyper Corgi, Ella.

SABINA KHAN-IBARRA (She/Her) is a Poetry Reader. She is Pashtun-American writer and an educator, and is a recent San Francisco State University Graduate with an MFA in Creative Writing. She’s also a member of the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto. Her poems, short stories and creative nonfiction have been published in various journals and anthologies. She is currently working on a poetry collection, Moving Mountains and a novel The Poppy Flower. She resides in Northern California with her husband, two children, six chickens, four rabbits, and two cats.

LINDA LEVITT (She/Her) is a Poetry Reader. She lives in Deep East Texas and teaches communication and media studies. She holds an MFA in creative writing and a PhD in communication, and was recently awarded a fellowship for the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. Levitt has published poems in Roam and Ekphrastic Review, and reviews books for PopMatters and Spectrum Culture. Her book Culture, Celebrity, and the Cemetery: Hollywood Forever was published by Routledge in 2018. Find her on Twitter @lindalevitt.

ELEONORA LUONGO (She/Her) is a Poetry Reader. She is a poet and artist living in New Jersey, and received her MFA in Creative Writing from Rutgers University-Newark. Her poems have appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, Black Telephone Magazine, Coachella Review, and others. She has poems in the following anthologies: No Tender Fences: An Anthology of Immigrant & First-Generation American Poetry, Divine Feminist: An Anthology of Poetry & Art by Womxn & Non-Binary Folx, and Hecate: Decay. She can be found on Twitter and Instagram as @phigirl.

HEIDI MARJAMÄKI (She/Her) is a Fiction Reader. She grew up in the small seaside town of Vaasa, Finland, studied literature at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, and worked in Oxford and London before settling in Berlin. She spends her days reading everything she can get her hands on and writing horror, gothic, and ghost stories in English and Finnish. You can find her at heidiwritesthings.com.

MAEVE MCKENNA (She/Her) is a Poetry Reader. Originally from Dublin, she now lives in Sligo, Ireland. Maeve’s poetry has been placed in competitions and published online and in print, including Mslexia, The Stony Thursday Book, and Banshee. She was a finalist in the Eavan Boland Mentorship Award 2020. Maeve’s debut pamphlet, A Dedication to Drowning, was published in February 2022. She’s currently a MA student of Poetry at Queens University, Belfast. Check out her Instagram @maevemckenna37 and her website here: www.maevemckennawriter.com.

JONAH MEYER (He/Him) is a Poetry Reader. He is a poet, writer, and editor based in North Carolina, and his creative work has appeared in numerous publications, both in print and online. Jonah serves as Poetry Editor for Mud Season Review, Assistant Poetry Editor with Random Sample Review, Staff Writer for The US Review of Books, and Copy Editor at Under The Gum Tree. When not penning poems, Jonah jams on guitar, banjo, and piano, shoots street photography, and studies neuroscience and Buddhist philosophy.

VIC NOGAY (She/Her) is a Poetry Reader. She’s a very emo Pushcart Prize- and Best Microfiction-nominated poet and writer whose work appears in Fractured Lit, Barren Magazine, and Lost Balloon, among others. Her micro chapbook of poems, under fire under water was published in 2022 by tiny wren publishing. She’s an Associate Poetry Editor for Identity Theory and lives in Columbus, Ohio. Find her online at vicnogay.co

TIMOTHY ARLISS O’BRIEN (He/They) is a Poetry Reader. He is an interdisciplinary artist in music, writing and visual arts, and has premiered music ranging from opera to film scores to electronic ambient projects. He’s published books of poetry, including The Art of Learning to Fly and Happy LGBTQ Wrath Month, and written for Look Up Records and Deep Overstock. He also the founded podcast & small press publisher, The Poet Heroic, and the digital magic space, The Healers Coven. He showcases his psychedelic makeup skills as the phenomenal drag queen Tabitha Acidz. Find more online at his website: www.timothyarlissobrien.com.

JESSICA NIRVANA RAM (She/Her) is a Poetry Reader. She is an Indo-Guyanese MFA candidate at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington. She is equal parts poet and essayist, while occasionally moonlighting as a fiction writer. Her work appears in Barrelhouse, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Hellebore, Honey Literary, and No Contact. Jessica also attended the 2021 Tin House Summer Workshop. You can find her tweets on teaching, writing, and all other life things @jessnirvanapoet.

PAUL RUTA (He/Him) is a Fiction Reader. He’s an old Canadian ad guy who’s now based in London. He lives by the river. He writes for kids under the pen name Andy Spearman, and keeps his website surprisingly up to date. You can find it at paulthomasruta.com.

CHRISTINE SALEK (They/Them) is a Fiction Reader. Christine has lived on both coasts, and currently resides in Wisconsin. Their writing ranges from sports journalism to flash fiction to music and everything in between, and has appeared in AutoStraddle, Crab Fat Magazine, iō, FIVE:2:ONE, So to Speak, and White Wall Review, among others. They work at a library, watch a lot of soccer, and tweet @enbybird.

KODI SAYLOR (She/Her) is a Poetry Reader. She received her MFA in poetry at New York University where she was a Lillian Vernon Fellow. Her poems have appeared in Ghost Ocean, Heavy Feather Review, Indianapolis Review, Lime Hawk, and Reservoir Lit. She currently works at Auraria Library in Denver.

JEANETTE SMITH (She/Her) is a Fiction Reader. She is a copyeditor, writer, and cat Instagrammer based in Dallas, TX. Her work has been published by Glassworks, Jelly Bucket, and Sheepshead Review, among others. In her spare time, you can find her teaching a scuba diving class or wondering if inanimate objects have feelings. You can find her online at jeanettethewriter.com or on TikTok @Jeanettediting.

NEDJELKO SPAICH (He/Him) is a Fiction Reader. He is a Serbian-American writer living in Los Angeles, California. His fiction has been published in Jellyfish Review, Maudlin House, MoonPark Review, Tiny Molecules, and elsewhere. His non-fiction work has appeared in LAist, LA Weekly, and Los Angeles Review of Books. He is also a reader for Pidgeonholes, a graduate of Bennington College, and is at work on his first novel. You can visit him at nedjelkospaich.com and find him on Twitter @Nedjelko.

EMILY SPANGENBERG (She/Her) is a Fiction Reader. A research coordinator and translator by day, she trades an office desk for her kitchen table to read and write fiction by night. Emily is based in North Carolina and regularly attends workshops organized by the Redbud Writing Project. She is happiest with a coffee in her hand and her beagle, Millie, at her feet.

LUCY ZHOU (She/Her) is a Fiction Reader. Her writing has appeared in Barren Magazine, HAD, Rejection Letters, Sublunary Review, X-R-A-Y Lit, and elsewhere. In 2020, she received an honorable mention for the Felicia Farr Lemmon Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets. She loves long-haired cats, labyrinths, and endlessly revising her pieces. You can find her on Twitter @lrenazhou.