Breshea Anglen is a YA Fantasy author from Cleveland, Ohio, and a BGSU Alumna. In 2015, she earned her undergraduate degree through the College of Education and Human Development; in 2016, she earned her graduate degree, thus becoming a double alumna. After leaving BGSU, Breshea returned to Cleveland and began her career as a middle school English teacher. During her near-decade of teaching, Breshea has self-published two full-length novels, one novella, and has written a host of other manuscripts just waiting for their time to shine. Breshea is currently a 7th-grade teacher and lives in Cleveland with her daughter and family.
Liz Barnett is a current Fiction MFA student at Bowling Green State University. They also earned their BFA in Fiction at BGSU. They love to write adaptation and particularly enjoy studying myth, fables, and fairytales. Outside of that, they have had work published in small zines/publications.
Jenna Bazzell received her MFA in poetry from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale and her undergraduate degree in English from the University of Alabama-Birmingham. Jenna’s chapbook, Floodgate Poetry Series Volume 1, was published by Upper Rubber Boot Books, an annual series of books collecting three chapbooks by three poets in a single volume. She was a semifinalist for the 2017 Akron Poetry Prize, a semifinalist for the 2017 Philip Levine Poetry Prize from Anhinga Press and a semifinalist for the 2016 Miller Williams poetry book contest at the University of Arkansas Press. Jenna won the 2015 Everett Southwest Literary Award and has received two honorable mentions from the Academy of American Poets. Her poems have appeared in Passages North, Cream City Review, Fifth Wednesday, Hayden’s Ferry Review, New Madrid, Naugatuck River Review, Southern Indiana Review, Crab Orchard Review, and Sou’wester. Jenna teaches at Monroe County Community College in Monroe, Michigan.
Joseph Celizic teaches writing at Bowling Green State University. His work has been published, or is forthcoming, in The Threepenny Review, North American Review, Indiana Review, CutBank, and Third Coast, and has been shortlisted in Best American Mystery Stories.
Lucas Dean Clark is from a small farming community in Northeast Ohio. His focus lies in studying and composing poetry; however, he loves teaching across genres in other areas of English studies to understand the overlap within disciplines. His poetry is mostly concerned with meditating in the experience of nature and relishing the love of close friendships. You can probably find him out in the woods walking, rain or shine.
Lawrence Coates is the author of five books of fiction and a long-time faculty member at Bowling Green State University. His work has been recognized with the Western States Arts Federation Award in Fiction, the Barthelme Prize in Short Prose, the Miami University Press Novella Prize, two Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Awards, and a Fellowship in Fiction from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Lori D’Angelo is a grant recipient from the Elizabeth George Foundation, a fellow at the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts, and an alumna of the Community of Writers. She holds an MA from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and an MFA from West Virginia University. Her work has appeared in various literary journals including BULL, Gargoyle, Drunken Boat, Moon City Review, and Rejection Letters. Her first book, a collection called The Monsters Are Here, is being published by ELJ Editions in October of 2024.
Caleb Danielak is a BGSU alumnus and current Master’s of Public Administration student at the university. Caleb has been featured as a Winter Wheat Festival presenter previously, been given the honor of hosting a TEDx talk, and has held numerous roles assisting professors across the university. Caleb is passionate about all things politics, education, and occasionally dabbles in TTRP writing.
Serenity Dieufaite is a MFA Creative Writing student in fiction. She is an international student from the Bahamas. Serenity has a BA in English with a minor in Business Administration from the University of the Bahamas. Serenity has a deep love of reading and writing. Her works focus on realistic fiction, speculative fiction, historical fiction, and postcolonial fiction. She enjoys writing about the Bahamian culture and life. Serenity is also inspired by her Haitian background. Serenity aims to become an English professor and publish her creative works in the future.
Amanda Ellard is a PhD in English concentrated in Fiction Creative Writing candidate and writing teacher at Ohio University. She achieved an MA in Folklore Studies from George Mason University, an MFA in Creative Writing from Stetson University, and a BA in English and Japanese from Florida State University. She is Assistant Fiction Editor for New Ohio Review, Guest Editor for The Master’s Review, and Associate Editor for Quarter After Eight. Her work has appeared across five literary journals, ebook platforms, and the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage’s Folklife Magazine.
Nathan Fako is a member of the poetry cohort for the MFA at Bowling Green State University.
Pella Felton is a poet, educator, and performance artist centered out of Bowling Green Ohio. A graduate of BGSU’s Performance Studies program, Pella’s performance repertoire covers a broad spectrum of performances including stand-up comedy, preaching, teaching, theatrical acting, spoken word recitation, and wedding officiating. Pella has presented her research on queer sound performance at the Great Lakes Association of Sound Scholars, The Society of Cinema and Media Studies, and the Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association. Most Recently, Pella’s poetry has been featured on the stages of Toledo Fringe Festival, Uncloistered Poetry, and in the pages of the Of Rust and Glass literary journal.
Timothy Geiger is the author of the new poetry collection In a Field of Hallowed Be, just released in September from Terrapin Books. His other books include: Weatherbox, winner of the 2019 Vern Rutsala Poetry Prize from Cloudbank Books; The Curse of Pheromones from Main Street Rag Press; and Blue Light Factory from Spoon River Poetry Press. He is also the author of ten chapbooks, most recently Holler (APoGee Press, 2021). His work has received a Pushcart Prize XVII and a Holt, Rinehart and Winston Award in Literature, as well as many state and local grants from Ohio, Minnesota, and Alabama. He runs a small farm in Northwest Ohio raising goats, chickens, ducks, turkeys and pigs. The proprietor of Aureole Press, a letterpress imprint publishing fine press books of contemporary poetry, he is a professor of English at The University of Toledo where he teaches Creative Writing, Poetry and Book Arts.
Jaden Gootjes is a first year MFA creative writing student at BGSU studying poetry. She earned her B.S. in English with minors in sociology and political science from Northern Michigan University in 2024. She is originally from Grand Rapids, Michigan, but she lived in Marquette, Michigan for three years while completing her undergraduate degree. Jaden lives with her ten year old cat, Bear, and in her free time she likes hiking, creating artwork, binging TV shows, playing video games, and knitting.
Hannah Goss is a first-year MFA candidate in Fiction at Bowling Green State University. She received her Bachelor’s degree in English with a concentration in writing from Duquesne University. When she’s not reading or writing, she enjoys spending time outside, hiking, or going to local coffee shops.
Daniel Groves (he/him) is a writer from Ohio whose work appears in Roi Faineant Press, SciFanSat, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, and others. He’s an MFA candidate at Concordia University—Saint Paul, won the 2022 and 2023 Massillon Public Library Poetry Contests, and is working on his debut novel. When not writing, he masquerades as an event planner who enjoys reading, sports, F1, theater, and film. A complete list of his published work is available on Chill Subs and he’s on X – @The_Grovenator.
Janine Harrison wrote the memoir/guidebook, Turning 50 on El Camino de Santiago: A Solo Woman’s Travel Adventure (Rivette Press, 2021), poetry collection, Weight of Silence (Wordpool Press, 2019), and chapbook, If We Were Birds (Locofo Chaps, 2017). Her work has appeared in Haiku for Hikers; Veils, Halos, and Shackles: International Poetry on the Oppression and Empowerment of Women; Not Like the Rest of Us: An Anthology of Contemporary Indiana Writers; A&U; Gyroscope Review; and other publications. She teaches creative writing at Calumet College of St. Joseph and serves on the Highland Arts Council. Formerly, Janine was a Highland Poet Laureate, an Indiana Writers’ Consortium leader, and a poetry reviewer for The Florida Review.
Carolyn Hogg is an MFA candidate in BGSU’s fiction program.
Samantha Imperi is a Ph.D. student in Creative Writing at Ohio University. She received her MFA from the NEOMFA consortium program at the University of Akron in 2023. Her work appears or is forthcoming in the I-70 Review, The Great Lakes Review, The Southern Review, Allium, Pinch, and Canary, among others. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @simperi08 or visit www.samanthaimperi.net for more information.
Tyler Michael Jacobs is the author of The Weight of Drought forthcoming from Stephen F. Austin State University Press and Building Brownville (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2022). His words have appeared or are forthcoming in Passages North, Variant Literature, Plainsongs, Pidgeonholes, Sierra Nevada Review, and elsewhere. His poems have also been featured on Nebraska Public Media’s Friday LIVE! He received his MFA from Bowling Green State University.
Sydney Koeplin is a first-year MFA student at Bowling Green State University with a particular interest in “weird” and speculative fiction. Her work has appeared in the Corvus Review, Qu Literary Magazine, and the Hypertext Review, among others. She won the Elmira Nelson Jones Prize for Creative Writing from Colby College in 2021.
Drew Kopp is a writer and journalist specializing in gaming news and an alumnus of BGSU. He’s written articles for several websites, including Comic Book Resources, Attack of the Fanboy, and Destructoid. He’s also an active member of the Bowling Green Writer’s Workshop and the Toledo Writers Workshop. If he’s not writing speculative fiction, he’s probably off playing D&D or snapping amateur photos.
Paula J. Lambert of Columbus, Ohio, has published several collections of poetry including As If This Did Not Happen Every Day (Sheila-Na-Gig 2024) and Uncertainty (The Only Hope We Have) (Bottlecap 2023). Her work has been supported by the Ohio Arts Council, the Greater Columbus Arts Council, and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. More at www.paulajlambert.com.
Lara Lillibridge (she/they) is the author of The Truth About Unringing Phones: Essays on Yearning; Mama, Mama, Only Mama: An Irreverent Guide for the Newly Single Parent; and Girlish: Growing Up in a Lesbian Home. Lara is a Creative Nonfiction Co-editor for HeartWood Literary Magazine and holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from West Virginia Wesleyan College.
Jessica Manack holds degrees from Hollins University and lives with her family in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her recent work explores her family of origin, the melting pot of America in general and northern Appalachia in particular, the effects of generational cycles of addiction, and the challenges and joys of girlhood, womanhood and motherhood. Her writing has appeared widely in literary journals and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and she has been the recipient of a Curious Creators Grant and Getaway Artist Fellowship. As the winner of the 2023 First Chapbook Prize, her poetry collection GASTROMYTHOLOGY was published by Sheila-Na-Gig Editions in 2024. Keep up with her work at: http://www.jessicamanack.com
Jamie Manias is a second-year poetry candidate in BGSU’s MFA program.
Rod Martinez writes middle grade & young adult. Growing up on Marvel Comics and Twilight Zone, the inspiration was inevitable. After a challenge by his son to write a story about him and his friends “like the Goonies’ but based in Tampa”, his first novel “The Juniors” was published – and the rest as they say – is history.
Garret Miller is a native of Northwest Ohio. He received a B.A. in English from The Ohio State University at Lima.
Caitlyn Mlodzik (she/her) graduated with her MFA in Creative Writing from Bowling Green State University in 2024. She has published fiction, poetry, and photography in journals such as The American Library of Poetry, Palouse Review, and The Pinyon Review. Her writing explores place, identity, and the past, and her thesis for BGSU was a novel that utilized two points of view spanning thirty years for a complex view of a family haunted by the past and how they reconciled for the future.
Brad Aaron Modlin is the Reynolds Endowed Chair of Creative Writing & a professor at University of Nebraska, Kearney, where he teaches undergraduates & grad students, coordinates the visiting writers series, & keeps “healthy” snacks in his office filing cabinet. His book, Everyone at This Party Has Two Names won the Cowles Poetry Prize. His Surviving in Drought (fiction stories) won the Cupboard Contest. His poetry has been the basis for orchestral scores, a Brooklyn art exhibition, and numerous speeches, reflections, meditations, and podcasts. His poetry is featured in an episode of The Slowdown with U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón (American Public Media & The Poetry Foundation) and the premier episode of Poetry Unbound with Pádraig Ó Tuama (On Being Studios).
Naomi North just completed the final draft of her creative nonfiction book, Keep Them in the Fight, which she coauthored with Afghanistan Veteran and Retired Army Colonel Thomas Stokes. Naomi is a mama, freelance writer, editor, writing coach, and ESL tutor. Raising her daughter is her most important creative work in this crazy, beautiful world. She earned her BA in English with a focus on poetry writing, fiction writing, and literature from the University of Pittsburgh and her MFA in poetry from BGSU in 2016. After graduating from the MFA, she returned to Pittsburgh and helped to found the nonprofit Operation Strong Mind, which educates civilians on contemporary military service and strives to connect members of the military community in lasting, meaningful ways with the civilians they served. From 2016 to 2020, she served as the organization’s CFO. Now that she’s finished her CNF manuscript, she’s thrilled to be writing poetry and silly little stories again, which is keeping her sane while she queries and obsessively revises her proposal. Her words can be found at Oxford University Press, in magazines in the US and Canada, on various websites she’s written content for, and, apparently, ChatGPT depending what questions you ask. Keep an eye out for her new stuff cause she’s actually submitting poems again! Find her @naomithepoet on whatever that thing is that used to be Twitter.
Melayna Pongratz is a member of the poetry cohort for the MFA at Bowling Green State University.
M.M. Porter is attending Ohio University to pursue her PhD in English with an emphasis in Poetry. She is a graduate of the MFA poetry program at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. She has been published or has poems forthcoming in Epiphany, The Shore, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Originally from Michigan, you can find her work at mm-porter.com.
Jennifer Pullen is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Ohio Northern University. Her chapbook, A Bead of Amber on Her Tongue, won the Omnidawn Fabulist Fiction Award. Her book Fantasy Fiction: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology (Bloomsbury Academic) is the first comprehensive history of fantasy and craft guide.
Elly Luisa Salah is an MFA candidate in Poetry at Bowling Green State University. Elly received a BA from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where she studied Sociology and Creative Writing. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in Eunoia Review, DeFunkt Magazine, Revolute Literary Magazine, Scraps, Strange Horizons, Taos Journal of Poetry, and others. She is also an assistant editor for MAR, co-managing the Mid-American Review blog.
Sophfronia Scott is a novelist, essayist, and leading contemplative thinker whose work has received a 2020 Artist Fellowship Grant from the Connecticut Office of the Arts. Her book The Seeker and the Monk: Everyday Conversations with Thomas Merton won the 2021 Thomas Merton “Louie” Award from the International Thomas Merton Society. She holds a BA in English from Harvard and an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her latest book is Wild, Beautiful, and Free, a historical novel set during the Civil War. Sophfronia’s other books include Unforgivable Love, Love’s Long Line, and This Child of Faith: Raising a Spiritual Child in a Secular World, co-written with her son Tain. Sophfronia is the founding director of Alma College’s MFA in Creative Writing, a low-residency graduate program based in Alma, Michigan.
Mary Simmons is a queer writer from Cleveland, Ohio. She earned her poetry MFA from Bowling Green State University, where she also served as the managing editor for Mid-American Review. She has work in or forthcoming from Moon City Review, One Art, Beaver Magazine, Yalobusha Review, The Shore, Whale Road Review, and others.
Meg Spring is the 2024-2025 fiction editor for MAR and is an MFA fiction candidate at BGSU. She has also worked with Moon City Review at Missouri State University.
Anna Vaughn is currently pursuing an MFA in poetry at Bowling Green State University and holds an MA in Literature and Writing from Kent State University.
Jane Wageman is managing editor for MAR and an MFA fiction candidate at BGSU.
Jessica Dawn Zinz is a writer, artist, and professor living in Ohio. She has a Creative Writing MFA and teaches writing at Bowling Green State University. Her poetry, artwork, and visual poems have been published most recently in TAB Journal, ctrl+v journal, RHINO Poetry, and Harpy Hybrid Review. Her work has been anthologized in the Driftwood 2024 Anthology. She has work forthcoming in Diode. Jessica is currently working on visual poetry, collage poetry, and other hybrid writing and art related to aging, pregnancy, motherhood, and marriage.