Masthead

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About Our Team

Hippocampus Magazine is a completely volunteer-run, reader-supported, and editor-subsidized publication fueled by a love for telling true stories. Here’s a look at the various roles (and you can see staff bios a bit farther down the page):

Managing & Administrative Staff
These staff members handle a lot of the behind-the-scenes and day-to-day operations, including production, marketing, strategic planning, events, and more.
Section & Special Editors
This talented team works with contributors to create compelling content for our articles sections. They sometimes also handle social media content creation for articles/essay in their sections.
Reading Panel Members
This dedicated team reads submissions and helps shape future issue, as well as often provides valuable feedback for writers. We have primary reading teams for flash and essays, as well as team of secondary team of readers who help out from time to time.
Staff Reviewers & Interviewers
This group of writers contributes reviews and interviews to Hippocampus Magazine on a regular basis, typically at least once a quarter.
Guest Columnists & Reviewers
We have a rotating group of recurring and one-time guest columnists who contribute to our CRAFT, WRITING LIFE, REVIEWS and INTERVIEWS sections. Their bios can be found beneath their individual stories.

Meet Our Team

You can use the category filters below to sort by roles; you can also click on staff members’ images to reveal their full bio and, if provided, links off to their social profiles or websites. We’re in the process of updating image sizes and dimensions so that the grid is more balanced.


AllAdminEditorialReading PanelReviews & Interviews Team
donna talarico head shot 2019
Founder, Publisher & Managing Editor

Donna Talarico

rae pagliarulo
Associate Editor & Flash Editor

Rae Pagliarulo

steph auteri
Essays Editor & Reader

Steph Auteri

wendy fontaine
Assistant Flash Editor

Wendy Fontaine

jenn hall
Assistant Flash Editor

Jenn Hall

Headshot of Author Lara Lillibridge
Interviews Editor

Lara Lillibridge

Author Morgan Baker
Staff Interviewer

Morgan Baker

kevin-beerman
Operations Assistant

Kevin Beerman

willa bell with dog

Willa Bell

amy braziller
Flash Reader

Amy Braziller

Carole Duff
Reader

Carole Duff

pietra dunmore
Flash Reader

Pietra Dunmore

amy eaton
Reader

Amy Eaton

Andrea Eschen
Reader

Andrea Eschen

angela eckhart
Reviewer

Angela L. Eckhart

amy fish
Staff Reviewer & Interviewer

Amy Fish

Sarah Evans
Reviewer

Sarah Evans

Sarah Kilch Gaffney
Essays Reader

Sarah Kilch Gaffney

faith kelleher gaddie
Essays Reader

Faith Kelleher Gaddie

Lillie Gardner
Essays Reader

Lillie Gardner

ariel m goldenthal
Reviewer

Ariel M. Goldenthal

Headshot of writer Michele Dawson Huber
Staff Interviewer

Michèle Dawson Haber

katie haegele with giant library card
Reader

Katie Haegele

wendy hudson
Flash Reader

Wendy Hudson

pamela ramos langley
Secondary Reader

Pamela Ramos Langley

lina lau

Lina Lau

leslie lindsay
Staff Interviewer

Leslie Lindsay

Brooke Knisley
Essays Reader

Brooke Knisley

natasha
Essays Reader

Natasha Lvovich

riendly face coming soon graphic
Reviewer

Laurel Miram

anthony j. mohr on boat
Essays Reader

Anthony J. Mohr

anita nham
Reviewer

Anita Nham

Melisssa Oliveira
Reviewer

Melissa Oliveira

riendly face coming soon graphic
Essays Reader

Meg Ringler

Lisa Romeo
Essays Reader

Lisa Romeo

Marsh_Rose
Essays Reader

Marsh Rose

ashley-supinski
Reviewer

Ashley Supinski

Elijah Tomaszewski
Essays/Memoir Reader

Elijah Tomaszewski

Denise Weaver
Essays Reader

Denise Weaver

Anri Wheeler
Reviewer

Anri Wheeler

aisha wiley
Reader

Aisha Wiley

Founder, Publisher & Managing Editor

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.

Associate Editor & Flash Editor

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.

Essays Editor & Reader

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.

Assistant Flash Editor

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.

Assistant Flash Editor

Jenn Hall

Jenn Hall lives and writes in Jersey. Her essays and fiction have been published in HAD, Entropy, Pidgeonholes, The Maine Review, Hippocampus Magazine, Paste, and others. She was a notable in Best American Food Writing 2019, and once spent several years writing about oyster farmers and those who make a living by the sea. Though driven to meander, she has come to learn that the best stories are hidden in plain sight. Follow along at jennhallwrites.com.

Interviews Editor

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, releases March 2024 with Unsolicited Press.

Staff Interviewer

Morgan Baker

Morgan Baker is an award-winning writer and professor at Emerson College. Her memoir Emptying the Nest: Getting Better at Goodbyes (Ten16 Press) is about identity, change, and mental health. Other work is featured in The New York Times Magazine, The Boston Globe Magazine, Motherwell, The Brevity Blog, Talking Writing, The Bark, Cognoscenti, among many regional and national publications. She is managing editor of The Bucket. She is the mother of two adult daughters, and lives with her husband and two dogs in Cambridge, where she also quilts and bakes.

Operations Assistant

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.

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.

Flash Reader

Amy Braziller

Amy Braziller is a former punk rocker, sometimes banjo twanging foodie, and current Professor of English at Red Rocks Community College, located just outside Denver, Colorado. Publications include Hippocampus, Brevity Nonfiction Blog, Front Porch, Entropy, Split Rock Review. Amy is working on a hybrid memoir related to coming out and her punk rock days in NYC. She can be found at amybraziller.com and @asbraziller on Instagram.

Reader

Carole Duff

Carole Duff is a veteran teacher, serious flutist, avid naturalist, and writer of creative nonfiction. She posts weekly to her long-standing blog Notes from Vanaprastha, and has written for Brevity blog, Mockingbird, Streetlight Magazine, The Perennial Gen now The Sage Forum, for which she is a regular contributor, and other publications. Carole lives in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains with her husband, writer K.A. Kenny, and two, large overly-friendly dogs.

Flash Reader

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.

Reader

Amy Eaton

Amy is a writer and Live Lit performer, producer and arts educator based in Chicago. Her work has been seen onstage throughout Chicago including Links Hall, Write Club Chicago, Fillet of Solo, and MissSpoken. Published work includes The Coachella Review and Mulberry Literary. Amy is a Ragdale alumnus and the second runner up in the 2023 Daisy Pettles Women’s Writing Contest.

Reader

Andrea Eschen

Andrea Eschen’s writing examines family history to better understand and shape the present. She focuses on historical narrative and personal essays. She recently moved from Washington, DC, to Madrid, Spain, to immerse herself in a different culture, perfect her language ability, write almost as much as she’d like, and be close to big mountains. One of her essays has appeared in a parenting anthology, and another in Months to Years.

Reviewer

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.

Staff Reviewer & Interviewer

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.

Reviewer

Sarah Evans

Sarah Evans is an Oregon writer who has been published in Mom Egg Review and on the Brevity Nonfiction Blog and the River Teeth Beautiful Things blog. She has an MFA in nonfiction writing from Pacific University. Read more about her at www.sarahevanswriter.com.

Essays Reader

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

Essays Reader

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.

Essays Reader

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.

Reviewer

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.

Staff Interviewer

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.

Website:www.micheledhaber.com.

Reader

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.

Flash Reader

Wendy Hudson

After a career in advertising and a move from Toronto to Los Angeles, Wendy earned her MFA in Creative Writing at Antioch University. She is a writer, editor, grant writer, and volunteer writing mentor with WriteGirl, a writing and mentoring organization that empowers teen girls. Wendy received the Tiferet Prize for Creative Nonfiction and her writing has appeared in various publications including Lunch Ticket Special, Two Hawks Quarterly, and Dog Eyes Magazine. Her current projects include a collection of essays and a book collaboration.

Secondary Reader

Pamela Ramos Langley

Pamela Ramos Langley lives in an exurb of So Cal where she periodically pecks out stories on her laptop. Her work has been published in The Santa Fe Literary Review, Literary Orphans, The Writing Disorder, MARY: A Journal of New Writing, The Story Shack, Hippocampus Magazine, Elohi Gaduji, The River Poets Journal, Drunk Monkeys and elsewhere. She’s been twice nominated for Best of the Net, had a most memorable essay at Hippocampus, won the 2014 MARY’s editor’s prize for non-fiction, and was nominated for a Pushcart prize. She suffers from impostor syndrome, and has no current work in progress.

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.

Staff Interviewer

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.

Essays Reader

Brooke Knisley

Brooke Knisley is a disabled writer whose work has appeared in Vulture, HuffPost, McSweeney’s, and others. She is working on a memoir about trauma and its damage.

Essays Reader

Natasha Lvovich

Natasha Lvovich is a writer and scholar of multilingualism and creativity. Originally from Moscow, Russia, she teaches 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 and her list of creative nonfiction and essays is steadily growing. 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 Lvovich is editor-in-chief of Journal of Literary Multiliingualism published by Brill.

Reviewer

Laurel Miram

Laurel Miram is a Midwestern essayist and short fiction writer. Her work appears in SmokeLong Quarterly, OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters, and the Eastern Iowa Review, among other publications. She is a reader for The Lascaux Review and Witness Magazine, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best American Essays, Best of the Net, and the PEN/Dau Short Story Prize.

Essays Reader

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.

Reviewer

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.

Reviewer

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.

Essays Reader

Meg Ringler

Meg Ringler is a writer living in Pittsburgh, PA, with her husband, the world’s best dog, and the world’s worst cats. She is working on a collection of essays interrogating what it means to take care. Her work has previously appeared in Catapult, the Chicago Review of Books, no tokens and elsewhere.

Essays Reader

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.

Essays Reader

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.

Reviewer

Ashley Supinski

Ashley Supinski has an MFA with a focus on young adult fiction from the Maslow Family Graduate Creative Writing Program at Wilkes University. She works as an adjunct English professor in eastern Pennsylvania. She is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in psychology at Southern New Hampshire University and is a mental health advocate.

Essays/Memoir Reader

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.

Essays Reader

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.

Reviewer

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.

Reader

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.

 

(MASTHEAD LAST UPDATED FEB. 24,2024)