Staff and Board

Luke Hankins

Founder & Editor

Luke Hankins is the author of two poetry collections, Radiant Obstacles and Weak Devotions, as well as a collection of essays, The Work of Creation: Selected Prose. He is also the editor of Poems of Devotion: An Anthology of Recent Poets. A collection of his translations from the French of Stella Vinitchi Radulescu, A Cry in the Snow & Other Poems, was published by Seagull Books in 2019. Hankins is a graduate of the Indiana University MFA program, where he held the Yusef Komunyakaa Fellowship in Poetry. His poems, essays, and translations have appeared in numerous publications, including 32 Poems, American Literary Review, The Collagist, EuropeNow, Image, Linebreak, New England Review, New Poetry in Translation, Pleiades, Poetry International, Verse, West Branch, World Literature Today, and The Writer’s Chronicle, as well as on the American Public Media radio program “On Being.”

Jessie van Eerden

Nonfiction Editor

Jessie van Eerden is the author of The Long Weeping: Portrait Essays (Orison Books, 2017), winner of the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award for Essays, as well as three novels, Glorybound, recipient of the 2012 Editor’s Choice Fiction Prize from Foreword Reviews, My Radio Radio, and Call it Horses, winner of the 2019 Dzanc Books Prize for Fiction. Her work has appeared in The Oxford American, Image, Cimarron Review, The River Teeth Reader, and Best American Spiritual Writing, among other places. She teaches in the Hollins University MFA program.

Amber Taliancich

Fiction Editor

Amber Taliancich received her MFA in Fiction from the Northeast Ohio MFA Program, where she currently acts as the Program Coordinator. She’s also the Co-founder and Essay Editor for Sidereal Magazine, an online, bi-annual publication. In addition to her editorial work, she teaches creative writing at Cleveland State University and was the 2017 Artist-in-Residence for the Cleveland School of the Arts, where she taught 11th-grade Fiction and Creative Nonfiction workshops. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Entropy, Hobart, The Pinch, Ninth Letter, and elsewhere.

Jonathan Geltner

Fiction Editor

Jonathan Geltner holds a BA in English and Classics from the University of Cincinnati, an MA in English from the University of Chicago, and an MFA in fiction from Warren Wilson College. He is also a classically trained cellist. Currently Jonathan lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan with his wife and two young sons. He teaches creative writing at Adrian College and studies Hebrew and Irish in his spare time. His novel manuscript, Absolute Music, was a finalist in the 2019 Autumn House Fiction Contest.

Karen Tucker

Board Member & Advisory Editor

Karen Tucker served for three years as Fiction Editor and currently serves as a board member, advisory editor, and co-editor of The Orison Anthology. Her debut novel, Bewilderness, is forthcoming from Catapult Books. Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in EPOCH, The Missouri Review, Tin House: The Open Bar, Carve Magazine, American Literary Review, Salamander, and elsewhere. Her short film “Purple Velvet Tube Top Truck Stop Madonna” screened as an Official Selection at Silver Lake Film Festival and LA Shorts Fest. Born and raised in North Carolina, she holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College and has received an Elizabeth George Foundation Grant for Emerging Writers. Currently, she is pursuing a PhD in Creative Writing at Florida State University.

Nathan Poole

Associate Editor

Nathan Poole is the recipient of the 2012 Narrative Prize; the 2013 Mary McCarthy Prize for his debut story collection, Father, Brother, Keeper, which was published by Sarabande Books in 2015; and the 2014 Quarterly West Novella Contest for Pathkiller as the Holy Ghost. He is a former Milton Fellow at Seattle Pacific University and Joan Beebe Teaching Fellow at Warren Wilson College.

Rebekah Denison Hewitt

Associate Editor

Rebekah Denison Hewitt holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was the Martha Meier Renk Distinguished Graduate Fellow. Her work has appeared in The Pinch, Gulf Stream, Narrative, The Rumpus, and the anthology New Poetry From the Midwest. 

Mackenzie Kozak

Associate Editor

Mackenzie Kozak holds a BA from Wake Forest University and an MFA from UNC-Greensboro, where she served as Poetry Editor of The Greensboro Review. Her poems have appeared in The Boston Review, Diagram, jubilat, Prelude, Sixth Finch, THRUSH, and elsewhere.

Eric Tran

Associate Editor

Eric Tran is the winner of the Autumn House Press 2019 Rising Writer’s Award for his debut poetry collection, The Gutter Spread Guide to Prayer. He is also the author of the chapbooks Revisions (Sibling Rivalry Press) and Affairs with Men in Suits (Backbone Press). His work has appeared in Diagram, Indiana Review, Black Warrior Review, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. He is a resident physician in Asheville, NC.

Morgan Bambey

Associate Editor

Morgan Bambey earned a B.A. in Foreign Languages from Elmira College and is a graduate of the University of Freiburg, Germany’s M.A. program in English Literatures and Literary Theory. Fluent in Spanish and German, Morgan has a fascination with world literature and the art of literary translation. She is currently in the process of relocating to Germany, where she will complete an editorial traineeship at an international publishing house.

Sophie Oullettee-Howitz

Reader

Sophie Ouellette-Howitz earned her B.A. at Smith College, where she concentrated in the formation of identity through literature. She has since studied creative writing at Tin House, Catapult, Literary Arts, and the Gotham Writers Workshop. She has also served as editor of Call Sign KJEH, a blog sourced from archival material related to an historic ocean liner, the SS United States. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in SELF, Pigeon Pages, HoneyColony, and elsewhere.

Matthew Leeallen Gilbert

Reader

Matthew Leeallen Gilbert is a graduate student in English literature at East Tennessee State University. His poems have been published in Echoes and Images and The Mockingbird.

Brandon Amico

Reader

Brandon Amico is the author of the poetry collection Disappearing, Inc. (Gold Wake Press, 2019). Amico is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Regional Artist Grant from the North Carolina Arts Council, and Southern Humanities Review's Hoepfner Literary Award for Poetry. His poems have appeared in The Adroit Journal, Blackbird, The Cincinnati Review, Kenyon Review, New Ohio Review, and Verse Daily, among other publications.

Sam Campbell

Reader

Sam Campbell is the 2019-2020 managing editor of The Mockingbird, a student arts and literary magazine at East Tennessee State University, where she is currently earning her MA in English. She teaches freshman composition courses at ETSU, as well as freshman English at David Crockett High School. Her fiction has been published by October Hill Magazine, Z Publishing, and Unto These Hills, among others.

Luke J. Johnson

Reader

Luke J. Johnson lives on the California Coast with his wife and three kids. His chapbook, :boys, was published by Blue Horse Press in 2019. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Narrative Magazine, Kenyon Review, Nimrod, Tinderbox, Asheville Poetry Review, Greensboro Review, The American Journal of Poetry, and Connotation Press, among other places. His work was a finalist for The Pablo Neruda Prize and The Brett Elizabeth Jenkins Award, and he is completing his MFA at Sierra Nevada College.

Madeline Forwerck

Social Media Coordinator

Madeline Forwerck is a graduate of Western Carolina University. Her poetry has been published in Asheville Poetry Review and HeartWood Literary Magazine and her journalism in Borgen Magazine.