Michael David Lukas, Faculty Advisor

Michael David Lukas has been a Fulbright Scholar in Turkey, a night-shift proofreader in Tel Aviv, a student at the American University of Cairo, and a waiter at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in Vermont. Translated into more than a dozen languages, his first novel The Oracle of Stamboul was a finalist for the California Book Award, the NCIBA Book of the Year Award, and the Harold U. Ribalow Prize. His second novel, The Last Watchman of Old Cairo, won the Sami Rohr Prize, the National Jewish Book Award, the Prix Interallié for Foreign Fiction, and the ALA’s Sophie Brody Medal. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Slate, National Geographic Traveler, and Georgia Review.

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Quinn R. Fairchild, Editor-in-Chief

Quinn Rennerfeldt Fairchild is a queer poet earning her MFA at San Francisco State University, where she lives with her family and animal menagerie. Their heart is equally wed to the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. Her work can be found in Cleaver, Mom Egg Review, SAND, elsewhere, and is forthcoming in A Velvet Giant. Their chapbook Sea Glass Catastrophe was released in 2020 by Francis House Press. Connect with her on twitter.

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Jack Darrow, Managing Editor

Jack lives on the north slope of Mt. Tamalpais, waiting for rain.

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August Edwards, Creative Nonfiction Editor & Art Editor

August Edwards is a nonfiction writer pursuing her MFA at San Francisco State University. Born in the Midwest, raised on the east coast, transplanted from California to New Mexico and back, she has found so much love across the country. She loves desert rock. You can find her work in Albuquerque Green Room, Mulberry Literary, and Hard Noise. 

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Tadeh Kennedy, Fiction Editor

Tadeh enjoys writing a mess of different works, ranging from horror to fantasy, to experimental essays and prose poetry. He has had his work published in Transfer magazine and continues to work on a number of different projects that he hopes to finish soon (one day.) He is a writing coach for Gilliam Writer’s Group where he works to guide storytellers with their storytelling journeys. Tadeh makes music, draws comics, churns ice cream (like roasted-butter-rosemary-persimmon ice cream,) and is relearning his first language of Armenian.

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Angelina Bidema, Assistant Fiction Editor

Angelina Bidema is a poet and writer of creative non-fiction, fiction, and cross-genre forms. She is currently working on her MA and MFA in Creative Writing at SFSU. Her work has been featured in A Thin Slice of Anxiety. She lives in San Francisco and is proud to be a part of San Francisco State and the Bay Area’s progressive writing community.

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Rachel Blythe, Assistant Fiction Editor

Rachel Blythe is pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. She is currently working on a novel that explores the interdependence of cultural values and scientific advancements in modern times. She has received support from the Center for Cultural Innovation, as well as the Joe Brainard Creative Writing Fellowship. In addition to writing, Rachel works with public agencies to address health inequities and environmental justice, particularly focusing on community burdens of air pollution and COVID-19. She has a Master of Public Health from UC Berkeley, and a Bachelor of Arts from Florida Atlantic University.

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Jasmine Mosher, Assistant Fiction Editor

Jasmine Mosher is a writer, movement practitioner, teacher, and evolving interdisciplinary artist. She is currently working on her MFA in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University and received her BFA in Dance from California State University, Long Beach. 

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Cyril Sebastian, Assistant Fiction Editor

Cyril Sebastian is originally from Bombay, India and currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. He worked in Television and Film for over a decade before moving to the United States. He spends more time than he should watching reruns of trash procedurals from the 00s.

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Aja Josephine

Aja Josephine is a fiction writer and personal essayist. A Hawaiian American born in Alabama, her writing addresses topics of race, gender, politics, and all of the other social constructs by which we live our lives. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Fiction from San Francisco State University, and holds a BA in English, with a focus on Creative Writing, from California State University. Northridge

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Michaela Chairez, Poetry Editor

Michaela Chairez is a poet from the Inland Empire. She holds a BA in English from Cal State Fullerton and is currently pursuing an MA in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. She’s planning ideas for a poetry book and where to travel next in the world.​

 

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Christopher Jones, Assistant Poetry Editor

Christopher was born and raised in Northern California and later, spent many years traveling and living abroad throughout Europe. Inspired by the native poet and activist, John Trudell, he joined the MFA program at San Francisco State University for Creative Writing. He has just finished crafting a heavy suit of armor to finally be able to share some of his work with the local writing community.

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Michael Gallagher, Assistant Poetry Editor

Michael is an Irish-Mexican poet from Oakland, California currently doing his MFA in Creative Writing at San Francisco State. Michael has published three books of poetry and earned his undergrad degree at California College of the Arts where he studied under poets such as Ishmael Reed, Joseph Lease, and Gloria Frym. Michael has attended writer's residencies at Arquetopia in Oaxaca, Mexico and CAMP FR in Toulouse, France.  He is an awardee of the Steven Kowit Poetry Prize and the Daniel Langton Poetry Prize. 

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James Giffin, Design Editor

James Giffin is a writer, designer, and multimedia consultant native to San Diego. He is currently finishing a memoir about his experiences coming of age on the streets of San Francisco, an excerpt of which has appeared in Heartwood Literary Magazine. He has three beautiful nieces, and is having difficulty watching his curse words.

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Kato Bisase, Publicity/Events Editor

Kato is a Ugandan-American poet, essayist and entrepreneur based in San Francisco. He is currently chipping away at an MA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. His work dances with a wide spectrum of topics and tensions, among them: human depth in a cursory world, the African experience in the American context, the Black experience in non-black spaces . . . and the beautiful anxieties conceived inside all of them.

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Meg Zukin, Assistant Publicity/Events Editor

Meg Zukin graduated from Pitzer College in 2017 and is currently pursuing her MFA in creative writing at San Francisco State University.

 

Her writing has appeared in Variety, Vulture, Black Fox Literary Magazine, and Flash Fiction Magazine.

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