MASTHEAD

ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR & EDITOR
Hilary Plum’s recent books include the novel State Champ (Bloomsbury, 2025), the long poem Important Groups (Community Mausoleum, 2025), the poetry collection Excisions (Black Lawrence, 2023), and the essay collection Hole Studies (Fonograf Editions, 2022). Her poetry, prose, and criticism have appeared in Granta, Astra, Fence, American Poetry Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, Cleveland Review of Books, College Literature, and elsewhere. She co-edits the Open Prose Series at Rescue Press and co-hosts the podcast Index for Continuance. She teaches at Cleveland State and in the NEOMFA Program.

ANISFIELD-WOLF FELLOW IN WRITING & PUBLISHING
Xan Forest Phillips, a poet hailing from rural Ohio, is the acclaimed author of HULL (Nightboat Books, 2019) and a recipient of the Whiting Award. He is the 2024-2026 Anisfield Wolf Fellow in Writing and Publishing at Cleveland State University and has received fellowships from Brown University, Callaloo, Cave Canem, The Conversation Literary Festival, the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, the Sewanee Writers Conference, and the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics. Xan is the recipient of the Lambda Literary Award, the 2023 Oscar Williams and Gene Derwood Award, and a 2022 Advancing Black Arts in Pittsburgh Grant. His poetry has been translated into Spanish, Czech, and Slovenian. Xan’s poetry can be found in Berlin Quarterly Review, BOMB Magazine, Crazyhorse, Poets.org, Virginia Quarterly Review, and elsewhere.

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
Kristen Tetzmann (née Tetzlaff) is a poet and painter from Wisconsin. She received her BA in Art Therapy and Creative Writing from Mount Mary University. She is a second-year poetry candidate in the NEOMFA program. Her work has appeared in Bodega Magazine, Furrow, Respect Your Mother, and elsewhere. She knows how to say “watermelon” in twenty-six languages.