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Donna Talarico

Donna Talarico is the founder of Hippocampus Magazine and Books and its conference, HippoCamp. Her creative nonfiction appears in The Superstition Review, The Los Angeles Review, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times (Modern Love’s Tiny Love Stories), Wanderlust Journal, and The Writing Disorder (from which her essay “A Prequel to My Sister’s” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2022).

While running Hippocampus is a full-time effort in itself, it’s a volunteer position; her *actual* job is as an independent writer and content strategist in higher education. Donna has more than two decades of experience in marketing, communications, writing and media, and about half of that time has been in higher education. She speaks at higher education and publishing conferences, writes an adult learner recruiting column for Wiley, and has contributed to Guardian Higher Education Network, The Writer, mental_floss, Games World of Puzzles, and others.

Donna teaches or has taught about branding and digital identity in several graduate creative writing programs, including Wilkes University and Rosemont College, as well as at Pennsylvania College of Art & Design. She earned an MFA in creative writing from Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. (2010), and, later, she returned to Wilkes to pursue a master’s in literary publishing (2016). She also has an MBA from Elizabethtown College and a bachelor’s degree in communication studies from Wilkes.

She lives Lancaster, Pa. with her husband, Kevin Beerman and their cat. She loves road trips, national parks, board games, greasy-spoon diner breakfasts, and museums.

Rae Pagliarulo

Rae Pagliarulo works as a nonprofit fundraising consultant in her lifelong home of Philadelphia. Her essays, poems, and articles have appeared in Full Grown People, bedfellows, Hippocampus, The Manifest-Station, r.kv.r.y. quarterly, the Brevity Blog, and numerous others. Her work is anthologized in The Best of Philadelphia Stories: 10th Anniversary Edition. She is the 2014 recipient of the Sandy Crimmins National Poetry Prize, a 2019 Best of the Net nominee, and a graduate of Rosemont College’s MFA program.

Role: As associate editor, Rae works closely with the publisher on overall strategic planning for the magazine, books, and events. She oversees and collaborates with section editors and works with contributing writers to our articles section.

Steph Auteri

Steph Auteri has written for the Atlantic, the Guardian, Pacific Standard, VICE, and other publications. Her more literary work has appeared in Poets & Writers, Creative Nonfiction, Under the Gum Tree, and elsewhere. She is the author of A Dirty Word and the founder of Guerrilla Sex Ed.

Wendy Fontaine

Wendy Fontaine’s work has appeared in dozens of literary journals and magazines including Pithead Chapel, Hippocampus Magazine, Longridge Review, Creative Nonfiction’s Sunday Reads, Sweet Lit and Yemassee. She has received nonfiction prizes from Identity Theory, Hunger Mountain and Tiferet Journal, as well as nominations to the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net anthologies. A native New Englander, she currently resides in southern California with her daughter and husband.

Role: As flash editor, Wendy oversees the reading panel and collaborates with the assistant flash editor on curating content for our six bimonthly issues. She works with flash contributors to get their accepted stories ready for publication.

Jenn Hall

Jenn Hall lives and writes in Jersey. Her essays have been published in the Brevity blog, Peregrine Journal, HAD, Entropy, Pidgeonholes, The Maine Review, Hippocampus Magazine, and Paste, and she was a notable in Best American Food Writing 2019. Though driven to meander, she has learned that the best stories are hidden in plain sight. Follow along at jennhallwrites.com.

Role: As assistant flash editor, Jenn helps manage the reading panel and collaborates with the flash editor on curating content for our six bimonthly issues.

Molly Bilinski

Molly Bilinski is an award-winning journalist and storyteller based in Monroe County, Pennsylvania. She writes on the environment and science beat for LehighValleyNews.com, but her byline has also appeared in the Reading Eagle, The Press of Atlantic City and The Morning Call. She was the first-place winner of the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association’s 2022 Diversity Portfolio.

Molly earned her master’s of fine arts in creative nonfiction in the summer of 2024 from Wilkes University’s Maslow Family Graduate Program in Creative Writing.

Role: As articles editor, Molly works with contributing writers to curate content for our monthly Writing Life and Craft columns.

Sara Pisak

Sara Pisak is a reviewer, essayist, and poet. Sara participates in the Poetry in Transit Program and has work in The Rumpus, The Fourth River, LandLocked, Hippocampus, the Deaf Poets Society, Door is a Jar, and Appalachian Journal, among others. In total, she has published over 130 pieces. When not writing, Sara can be found spending time with her family and friends.

Role: As community content editor, Sara creates written and visual content for Hippocampus social channels and website, helping promote our magazine and uplift our contributors.

Kevin Beerman

As a songwriter, Kevin has an intimate understanding of what it takes to translate real events into an artistic telling of a story. He serves on the Hippocampus reading panel, researches photography and artwork for stories, and handles several administrative aspects of the magazine and its conference, HippoCamp. Kevin is a seasoned music professional with nearly two decades of experience in performing, teaching, writing and producing. He was a staff songwriter for a major label, and, as a multi-instrumentalist, Kevin backed up several recognizable names in rock, country, bluegrass, and indie. Today, he’s the drummer for Jon Smith’s Voyages, an original ’70s band influenced by Queen and Bowie, performing at various festivals and venues throughout the region. Kevin has a corporate communications degree from Elizabethtown College.

Morgan Baker

Morgan Baker writes about reinventing yourself, learning how to handle loss, and emerging from depression in her award-winning memoir Emptying the Nest: Getting Better at Good-byes (Ten16 Press). Other work can be found in the Boston Globe Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, The Martha’s Vineyard Times, Dorothy Parker’s Ashes, Grown & Flown, Motherwell and the Brevity Blog, among others. She teaches at Emerson College and is managing editor of The Bucket. She is the mother of two adult daughters and lives with her husband and two Portuguese water dogs in Cambridge, Mass. She is an avid quilter and baker.

Justin Ancheta

Justin Ancheta resides in Treaty 13 territory and is a stuttering Filipino-Canadian passionate about the tarot, science, spirituality and queerness. They are exploring their writing voice in experimental writing forms, drawing from their experience as a racialized bi+ ace person with a speech disorder living in intersecting liminalities. Their work has been published in AZE Journal, Queer Toronto, carte blanche and the Tahoma Literary Review. He is working on a memoir-in-pieces as a collection of experimental creative non-fiction, and an examination of the tarot from an asexual and intersectional perspective.

Willa Bell

Willa Bell is a queer writer from central Pennsylvania. Their work can be found in the anthology Night Sweats of the Sprit from Maitri Poetry Press. When not writing, reading voraciously, or skulking in thrift shops, they can be found with their dogs on less-traveled paths in the woods.

Amy Braziller

Amy Braziller is a former punk rocker, sometimes banjo twanging foodie, recovering academic, and queer writer living in Denver, Colorado. She is currently nurturing her inner actress, working as a standardized patient and learning lots of random medical tidbits. Publications include Hippocampus, the Brevity blog, Hobart, Front Porch, Entropy, Split Rock Review.

Kerby Kunstler Caudill

Although born in Oregon with roots in New York, Kerby Kunstler Caudill has spent most of her life in Southern California. She earned a BA in film studies from the University of California at Irvine and an MA in education from Cal State Long Beach. After 20 years in education, she joined a workshop with author Francesca Lia Block. Caudill’s work has been published in The Good Life Review, Months to Years, Lit Angels, MUTHA Magazine, and Dorothy Parker’s Ashes. She is assistant editor of Lit Angels, and is working on her third novel, Facing Reality.

Amber Christopher-Buscemi

Amber Christopher-Buscemi teaches writing and literature at Suffolk County Community College on Long Island, where she lives with her husband and two sons. She received her MA in English from The Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College. Her essays have been published in Foliate Oak Literary Review, The Mark Literary Review, and others. She is working on a memoir in essays about living with chronic illness.

Michelle Cutler

Michelle is a writer,
in nature
with a dog
and a lover
and a mother,
who runs
and lifts
and oms
and eats local.
Blogging at thatplaceulove.substack.com

Eileen Drennen

Eileen Drennen is a writer and editor in Lafayette, Indiana who came up through newspapers back when most people read one every day. Her writing has appeared in O, the Oprah Magazine, The Rumpus and Literary Mama and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is working on a memoir.

Carole Duff

Carole Duff is a veteran teacher, flutist, naturalist, and writer of creative nonfiction. She posts weekly to her long-standing blog Notes from Vanaprastha, and has written for the Brevity blog, Cleaver Magazine, Huffington Post, Mockingbird, Please See Me, Streetlight Magazine, The Sage Forum, for which she is a regular contributor, and other publications. Carole lives in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains with her husband, author K.A. Kenny, and two large dogs. Her memoir, Wisdom Builds Her House, released in August 2024.

Evelyn M. Duffy

Evelyn M. Duffy is a writer, editor, and playwright. Her journey into nonfiction and love of dialogue began with transcribing hundreds of hours of recordings for Bob Woodward and other journalists. Evelyn collaborated with Woodward on six books, including three #1 NYT bestsellers, and with Fawn Weaver on the NYT-bestselling Love & Whiskey (2024). She also coauthored Jill, a 2022 biography of Dr. Jill Biden, with Julie Pace and Darlene Superville at the Associated Press. Evelyn founded Open Boat Editing, where she and her team support nonfiction and fiction writers. She and her wife live in Washington, DC, with their cat.

Pietra Dunmore

Pietra Dunmore is a New Jersey-based creative. She is a dual-degree graduate of Rosemont College, with an MFA in Creative Writing and a MA in Publishing. Her work has appeared in Philadelphia Stories, The Journal of New Jersey Poets, Santa Fe Writers Project Quarterly, The Nasiona, Penumbra Online, and Causeway Lit. Her short story will be anthologized in The Best Short Stories of Philadelphia, by Toho Publishing. Read more about her at www.pietradunmore.net.

Amy Eaton

Amy is a writer, Live Lit performer, coach, and arts educator. She co-hosts MissSpoken, a monthly Live Lit show featuring female identifying and non-binary readers. Her work has been published in the Coachella Review and Mulberry Literary and can be heard live throughout Chicago at venues including Write Club Chicago, Voicebox, Karaoke Storytellers, Based on a True Story, and You’re Being Ridiculous! She is a Ragdale alum and a runner up to the 2023 Daisy Pettles Writing Contest.

Andrea Eschen

Andrea Eschen’s writing examines how historical events, even small ones, shape the present. She has published essays in a parenting anthology and two literary magazines. She has an essay forthcoming in Pembroke Magazine. She is writing a book about the making of Chicago and the role of her great-grandfather, Victor Falkenau, a renowned building contractor in Chicago at the turn of the 20th century. Her Substack “Building Modern Chicago” describes the findings she uncovers on this writing journey. Her Substack “Snippets from Spain” explores the historical and cultural meanings of day-to-day occurrences she experiences living in Madrid.

Angela L. Eckhart

Angela earned her M.A. in creative writing from Wilkes University. She’s edited two books for local authors and worked as an adjunct writing professional at her local community college for two semesters. She has completed a novel, is currently working on a memoir, and has been reviewing books for Hippocampus magazine since 2011, where she previously served as Book Reviews Editor for several years. She’s a staple volunteer at HippoCamp, and she’ll be participating in the Belize Writer’s Conference, as well as her bi-annual writing retreats.

Sarah Evans

Sarah Evans is an Oregon writer and social justice activist who tries to raise marginalized voices by reviewing books written by and about people of color, women, and those who identify as LGBTQ+. She has an MFA in nonfiction writing from Pacific University.

Amy Fish

Amy Fish is a writer of true stories, some of which are funny. She is the author of “I Wanted Fries with That: How to Ask for What You Want and Get What You Need” (NWL 2019) and “The ART of Complaining Effectively” (Avmor 2015). Amy is currently doing her MFA at Kings’ College in Halifax, Canada. She is the Ombudsperson at Concordia University in Montreal, where she lives with her husband and kids.

Sarah Kilch Gaffney

Sarah Kilch Gaffney is a writer, brain injury advocate, and homemade caramel aficionado. She lives in Maine and you can find her work at www.sarahkilchgaffney.com

Faith Kelleher Gaddie

Faith Kelleher Gaddie writes, knits, and gardens in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where she lives with her partner and pets. If it’s warm enough to grip the handlebars, she can be found exploring rail trails from the stoker seat of a tandem bicycle.

Lillie Gardner

Lillie Gardner writes prose and screenplays. She studied creative writing at New York University and has been published in Quail Bell Magazine, the Delmarva Review, PANK Magazine and more. She reviews books for EcoLit Books and writes for Feminist Book Club. As a screenwriter, Lillie was a recent Winner at Austin Film Festival and Catalyst Story Institute. When she’s not writing, she’s usually practicing piano or taking her cat Ava Gardner for a walk. Learn more at lilliegardner.com or follow @lilliegardner on social media.

Ariel M. Goldenthal

Ariel M. Goldenthal is an assistant professor of English at George Mason University. Her work has appeared in Tiny Molecules, Emerge Literary Journal, MoonPark Review, and others. Follow her on Twitter @arielgoldenthal or read more at arielgoldenthal.com.

Michèle Dawson Haber

Michèle Dawson Haber is a Canadian writer, potter, and union advocate. She lives in Toronto and is working on a memoir about family secrets, identity, and step adoption. Her writing has appeared in Oldster Magazine, The Brevity Blog, Salon.com, and in the Modern Love column of The New York Times. You can find her at www.micheledhaber.com.

Katie Haegele

Katie Haegele is a writer and longtime zine maker from Philadelphia. She has published three books of creative nonfiction with Microcosm Publishing, and keeps a blog called Indicative Mood. Her most recent book, Spiritbox, is a collection of poetic memes.

Kim Hayes

Kim Hayes lives and works in Chicago. During the baseball season she works for the Chicago Cubs. Hobbies include cross stitching, cooking and reading. She and her husband are owned by two cats. She’s been writing fiction and creative nonfiction since early 2023. Her stories have been published in Corner Bar, The Malu Zine, Fireworks and The Academy of the Heart and Mind.

Jess Heron

Jess Heron is an ability-queer pizza bagel poet and applied linguist from NYC living at the Jersey Shore. Her work has appeared in Hot Pink Mag, Let’s Stab Caesar!, Horror Sleaze Trash, Bruiser, Tiny Spoon, and others. She lives quietly and mostly indoors but requires beaches and woodsy parks within a few short miles of her at all times.

Wendy Hudson

After a career in advertising and a move from Toronto to Los Angeles, Wendy earned her MFA in creative writing from Antioch University. She is a writer, editor, grant writer, and volunteer writing mentor with WriteGirl, a writing and mentoring organization that empowers teen girls and gender-expansive youth. Wendy received the Tiferet Prize for Creative Nonfiction and her writing has appeared in various publications including The Keepthings, Months to Years (Fall 2024), Lunch Ticket Special, Two Hawks Quarterly, and Dog Eyes Magazine.

Kristine Laco

Kristine Laco lives in Toronto and spends her days trying to find something for her dog to do that will afford her an hour to write. When she does get time, Kristine pens satire, flash fiction, and personal essays. Her two completed manuscripts—a memoir and a women’s fiction—are close to query stage.

Lina Lau

Lina Lau is a mother, creative nonfiction writer, and green tea drinker in Toronto, Canada. Her work can be found in X-R-A-Y Lit Mag, The Citron Review, Prairie Fire, Emerge Literary Journal, carte blanche, and others. She writes during the in-between moments of parenthood.

Lara Lillibridge

Lara Lillibridge (she/they) is the author of Mama, Mama, Only Mama: An Irreverent Guide for the Newly Single Parent; Girlish: Growing Up in a Lesbian Home, and co-editor of the anthology, Feminine Rising. Her essay collection: The Truth About Unringing Phones, released in March 2024 with Unsolicited Press.

Leslie Lindsay

Leslie Lindsay is a writer/creative based outside Chicago. Her essays, interviews, and photography have been published in many literary journals, including Hippocampus, Ruminate, The Millions, and The Rumpus. Her book, Speaking of Apraxia: A Parents’ Guide to Childhood Apraxia of Speech was released in audio by Penguin Random House in 2021. She is a book ambassador, influencer, and active on Instagram.

Natasha Lvovich

Natasha Lvovich is a writer and scholar of multilingualism and creativity. Originally from Moscow, Russia, she is professor emerita at City University of New York and divides her loyalties between academic and creative writing. She is an author of a collection of autobiographical narratives The Multilingual Self. Her work appeared in journals (Life Writing, New Writing), anthologies (Lifewriting Annual, Anthology of Imagination & Place) and literary magazines (Post Road, Nashville Review, Two Bridges, bioStories, NDQ, Epiphany, New England Review, Hippocampus Magazine, Jewish Fiction); one of her CNF pieces has been nominated for Pushcart Prize. Natasha is editor-in-chief of Journal of Literary Multilingualism published by Brill.

Vicki Mayk

Vicki Mayk is a memoirist, nonfiction writer and magazine editor who has enjoyed a 40-year career in journalism and public relations. Her nonfiction book, Growing Up On the Gridiron: Football, Friendship, and the Tragic Life of Owen Thomas (Beacon Press) was published in September 2020. Her creative nonfiction has been published in Hippocampus Magazine, Literary Mama, The Manifest-Station and in the anthology Air, published by Books by Hippocampus. She’s been the editor of three university magazines, most recently at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., and now freelances and teaches adult writing workshops. Vicki previously served as reviews editor at Hippocampus Magazine. Connect with her at vickimayk.com.

Ally McGee

Ally McGee, a writer and conservationist, is a longtime resident of Northeastern Pennsylvania. Here, she is inspired by the intersection of nature and art to drive both her fiction and nonfiction writing. She has done work in science communication, environmental regulations, and nature writing and enjoys adventuring on hiking trails and doing yoga.

Laura Cuevas Meléndez

Puerto Rican born and raised, Laura currently resides in Kentucky where she is pursuing her master’s in health promotion. She is an avid sexual health nerd and is starting her fourth year as a sexual health educator. Laura has a BA in writing, rhetoric, and digital studies from the University of Kentucky, and mostly writes nonfiction. With her love for writing and sexual health, she aims to reduce stigma around sex and sexuality. When she’s not studying or working, you can find her reading or listening to an audiobook.

Meredith Miller

Like many writers, Meredith started as an angsty journaling teenager. As an adult, she met her first love, “copywriting” and enjoyed a successful 20+ year career writing, creating, producing motion picture advertising. She made trailers and TV spots for everything from horror films to children’s animation and is the author of two children’s books through one of the first read aloud apps. Now, she writes primarily creative non-fiction, flash, and essays. Her personal story, “Mohawk” was performed at the nationwide showcase, “Expressing Motherhood”. She’s volunteered as a mentor for Write Girl and is happy to read for Hippocampus!

Anthony J. Mohr

Anthony J. Mohr served twenty-seven years as a judge on the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles, and now sits there part-time. In January 2021, he became a fellow at the Harvard’s Advanced Leadership Initiative. His memoir, Every Other Weekend—Coming of Age With Two Different Dads (Koehler) was published in 2023. A five-time Pushcart nominee, Mohr’s work has appeared in, among other places, The Christian Science Monitor, Commonweal, DIAGRAM, Hippocampus Magazine, North Dakota Quarterly, Superstition Review, War, Literature & the Arts, and ZYZZYVA. Once upon a time he performed with the L.A. Connection, an improv comedy theater.

Anita Nham

Anita lives in Boston and is pursuing her passion in communications and higher education. She earned her BA in public relations from Penn State. You will probably find her at a concert, drinking iced coffee (even in the frigid winter) or reading while eating doughnuts. Follow her on Twitter @anita_nham. She won’t spam your timeline.

Melissa Oliveira

Melissa Oliveira’s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Ploughshares Solos, Agni, Pleiades, Calyx and others. Her previous work has garnered a Best American Essays Notable listing, a Best of the Net nomination and an honorable mention from Glimmer Train Stories. Her reviews have appeared in The Kenyon Review Online, Brevity, The Rumpus and more. Melissa currently lives in Berlin, Germany, where she is working on a novel-in-stories about the divided city.

Rudri Bhatt Patel

Rudri Bhatt Patel is a former attorney turned essayist, editor, and educator. She is the co-founder and co-editor of the nonprofit literary journal, The Sunlight Press. She is also a senior editor for Literary Mama and an associate nonfiction editor for Pithead Chapel. Her creative nonfiction has appeared in Pidgeonholes, MoonPark Review, Milk Candy Review, and several other publications. She is a two-time Best Small Fictions nominee. Her reported work has appeared in The Washington Post, Saveur, DAME, Civil Eats, Forbes, ESPN, Mothers Always Write, and elsewhere. You can find more of her work at www.rudribhattpatel.com.

Kate Ramsay-Scott

Kate Ramsay-Scott is an Australian writer who loves eavesdropping on the subway and lurking amongst the shelves of a good bookstore. She’s completing a master’s in of creative writing and lives in NYC with her husband and their cheese-obsessed dachshund. Reach her at kateramsayscott.com

Zeny May Recidoro

Zeny May Recidoro is a writer and literary coach born and raised in the Philippines where she earned a degree in art studies from the University of the Philippines. In 2018, she received scholarships from the Asian Cultural Council and the School of Visual Arts to obtain an MFA in art writing. She currently writes for the Women in the Arts, Inc. in Orlando, Florida.

Annie Rehill

Annie Rehill’s writing ranges from general-audience nonfiction to personal essays. Her essays have appeared in The Writer’s Center Magazine, Next Avenue, the Potomac Review, and New Millennium Writings, the latter winning first place in creative nonfiction. Her book The Apocalypse Is Everywhere: A Popular History of America’s Favorite Nightmare explores the end-of-world mindset that permeates even the environmental movement, and Backwoodsmen As Ecocritical Motif in French Canadian Literature is based on her dissertation. Having grown up in a family that moved every year in the United States, Canada, and Europe, Annie loves exploring intercultural spaces and history with her husband.

Meg Ringler

Meg Ringler is a writer living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with her husband, the world’s best dog, the world’s worst cats, and three hens, only one of whom is French. Her work has previously appeared in Catapult, the Chicago Review of Books, no tokens and elsewhere. Find her at megringler.com.

Lisa Romeo

Lisa Romeo is the author of the memoir Starting With Goodbye (University of Nevada Press). Her work is listed in Best American Essays (2016, 2018) and has been nominated several times for the Pushcart Prize. Lisa’s essays and creative nonfiction have appeared in newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times and O The Oprah Magazine, and in dozens of literary journals and websites. She was a founding faculty member of the Bay Path University MFA, and taught at Rutgers and Montclair State Universities. Lisa currently works as a freelance manuscript editor and writing coach. She lives in New Jersey.

Marsh Rose

Marsh Rose is a freelance writer, psychotherapist, and college educator. Her short stories have appeared in Hippocampus, Cosmopolitan Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner, Salon.Com and other publications. Her second novel, Escape Routes, was published by Sunbury Press in March 2021. Marsh lives in northern California with her greyhound, Adin.

Erin Russ

Erin Russ is a writer living in California. She is currently in the querying trenches with her first book — a memoir about her time sailing from Seattle to New Zealand, and the dissolution of her marriage along the way. She’s also at work on her second book, a novel. You can find her writing and author interviews in Write or Die Magazine, and on her Substack.

Cindy Sams

Cindy Sams is a teacher and writer in Macon, GA. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Reinhardt University with an emphasis on literary nonfiction. Her work has appeared in Brevity blog, Pangyrus LitMag, High Shelf Press, The Chaffey Review, Canyon Voices Literary Magazine, Fatal Flaw Literary Magazine, and The New Southern Fugitives, which nominated her for a 2020 Pushcart Prize.

Sayani Sarkar

Sayani Sarkar is a reader, reviewer, and writer from Calcutta, India. She is a former biochemist with a PhD in biochemistry and structural biology. She writes academic book reviews and discusses interdisciplinary themes in her Substack space. Her book reviews fall within an intersection of science, nature, languages, popular culture, and philosophy. Her works have been published in LARB PubLab Magazine, Littera Magazine, The Write Launch, The Coil Magazine, and The Curious Reader. She is currently working on a book, a hybrid nonfiction, combining memoir with an exploration of natural sciences. She likes tea, sketching, calligraphy, languages, and ramen.

Elijah Tomaszewski

Elijah Tomaszewski (Eli Aharon) received his MFA from Rosemont College and his BA from Susquehanna University. In addition to reading for Hippocampus and assisting in HippoCamp programming, he contributes to Philadelphia Stories and Under the Gum Tree through contest coordinating and website help. His work has been featured in Soft Cartel, Isacoustic, Bright Sleep, Easy Street, and Jet Fuel Review, among others, and his current works in progress include an essay collection and a novel series set in coastal North Carolina. Despite living in Philadelphia, he has no cheesesteak recommendations due to keeping kosher.

Denise Weaver

Denise Weaver, a summa cum laude graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, is a freelance writer and former library director. Her love of sharing food and stories, a penchant for photography and research, and the need to be outdoors enjoying nature serve as inspiration for her writing. Denise has more than 250 nonfiction articles published in local and regional magazines, as well as essays and a short story in the Mindful Writers Retreat anthology series. She is currently delving into the world of food memoir. She once, temporarily, conquered her fear of public performance and sang on-stage at Carnegie Hall.

Anri Wheeler

Anri Wheeler is a multiracial writer, antiracist educator, and mother to three strong daughters. Her memoir-in-progress is about race, class, motherhood, and tearing open the boxes into which we’re asked to reduce ourselves. More at anriwheeler.com.

Aisha Wiley

After a half-life in Boston, Aisha Wiley now lives in the Philadelphia area. She writes humor, flash, poetry, and the lyric essay. Her work has appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Centifictionist, 50 Give or Take and 121 Words. She is now experimenting with mashup storytelling forms.

Regina Wilson

Regina Wilson writes both fiction and nonfiction from her home in Washington, D.C. She has a master’s in international affairs from Tufts University, but has since left her international policy career to focus on writing. She is a mom to daughter Sora, born in 2023, and partner to Jay. She is an avid naturalist and can be found traversing local hiking trails in search of interesting plants and mushrooms when not writing.

Sam Yugler

Sam Yugler is a writer living in Portland, Oregon. She got her BFA in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College and worked as a journalist before pivoting to career as a psychotherapist. She is working on a memoir about growing up in New York City, family fractures, grief, and queer life.