Meet Our Team

Helen Maimaris

With a background in writing and BA in English Literature and Creative Writing, Helen joined Brink in 2016, soon rising to the rank of COO. When she’s not madly consuming any comic she can get her hands on, she oversees Brink’s large scale education projects, granting, and fundraising, and heads up staff management. She also frequently speaks on panels and at events, specializing in discussing positive and ethical internships in the publishing industry, increasing accessibility, and how to manage a volunteer taskforce ethically and effectively.

Helen also serves as F(r)iction’s Managing Editor, overseeing the submission pipeline, senior editor team, volunteer training, and production of the journal. She lives in Bristol, UK, and has traveled extensively, with past adventures including training as a professional scuba diving guide, participating in scientific fieldwork with humpback whales in Ecuador, and assisting at a rainforest animal rehabilitation center in Bolivia.

Dani Hedlund

After the publication of her first novel at the age of eighteen, Dani Hedlund founded the international literary nonprofit Brink Literacy Project (formerly Tethered by Letters). Over the course of the last decade, Brink has grown into one of the largest independently-funded literary nonprofits in the nation, with bases across the US, UK, and Southeast Asia. She is also the founder and Editor-in-Chief of F(r)iction, an art and literary collection specializing in boundary-defying work. Since its inception in 2015, F(r)iction has risen to critical acclaim, becoming one of the fastest growing literary journals in the world. In her ever-elusive free time, Dani lectures about the ins and outs of the publishing industry, writes very weird fiction, and runs a strange little board game company called Bad Hipster Games.