Meet Our Team

Melissa Paulsen

Melissa Paulsen graduated from the University of Montana with a BFA in creative writing and a minor in history. She has an immense passion for storytelling and its power to create unique connections. In her free time, she enjoys writing fiction, reading one of the books from her growing “to be read” pile, playing video games, cheering for the Pittsburgh Steelers, and spending quality time with her friends and family.

Lani McHenry

Lani McHenry is a fiction writer and filmmaker with a BFA in Film and Television from NYU. Based in Houston, Texas, she tutors creative writing students, teaches ESL in her free time, and collaborates with fellow alumni on comedic skits for an upcoming web series. Currently working on her first novel, she spends her time crafting intricate fantasy worlds—or getting lost in them from the comfort of her front porch. She aspires to write and tell stories around diverse characters in fantasy, coming-of-age, and comedic genres. She’s thrilled at the opportunity to deepen her understanding of publishing through this internship and contribute to the impactful mission of Brink.

Hannah M

Hannah M is a student trying to navigate the industry far away from major publishing hubs, eager to soak up all the knowledge she can. What she’s looking to gain from this internship the most is pushing herself creatively, whether that’s in production or outreach. She’s passionate about elevating underrepresented voices, especially South Asian and Muslim women, so she will be hunting for stories like these!

When she’s not reading, she’ll either be adding 100 more books to her TBR, or researching for her articles.

Bekah Bahn-Crownover

Bekah Bahn-Crownover is a second-year English-Creative Writing master’s student at the University of South Dakota. She received her BA in English with a minor in Vocal Music and certifications in both Professional Writing and Digital Marketing. Her creative interests include high fantasy, dystopian, and climate fiction. Her work can be found in Broken Antler Magazine and is forthcoming in F(r)iction. She is currently finishing her debut fantasy novel, which serves as her thesis for her master’s program. She lives in Tea, SD, with her husband and their two cats, Blueberry and Goose.

Bea Basa

Beatrice Basa (Bea) is an Irish-Filipino writer, artist, and purveyor of all things weird and wonderful. She is in her final year of Classics, English and History at University College Dublin, and her capstone dissects the interplay between Gothic literature and female-centric horror games. Literature-wise, they are particularly keen on the macabre, mythology, and magical realism.

In between what they refer to as “rounds of academic jump-rope,” they are looking to (hopefully!) get started on their first chapbook. When not writing or reading, she enjoys playing lore-heavy video games, alternative music, and mulling over her next body-mod idea.

Skyler Boudreau

Skyler Boudreau graduated from the New Hampshire Technical Institute with an AA in English and AS in General Studies. During her time at NHTI, she served as an editor and webmaster for The Eye, NHTI’s student literary journal. In 2023, she produced a digital special edition of The Eye with a focus on literary censorship, which went on to win the first place Change the World award in the New Hampshire Humanities Collaborative’s HUGEmanities contest. She is currently working on her BA in Creative Writing and English with a concentration in fiction at Southern New Hampshire University. Find Skyler on BlueSky: @skylerboudreau.bsky.social.

Lydia Layton

Lydia Layton is an aspiring novelist and filmmaker pursuing a bachelor’s degree in English Literature and Creative Writing. Her literary interests include contemporary working-class fiction, narratives of trauma, and depictions of masculinity in media. In her free time, you may spot her jumping waves on the beach, musing over which language to learn next, and attempting to skateboard. 

Ainsley Louie-Suntjens

Ainsley Louie-Suntjens (she/her) is a Chinese-Canadian writer, editor, student, and artist from Calgary. She is working towards her undergraduate in English and History at the University of Calgary. Her writing is gothic, horror-inflected, and full of weird women who get up to strange activities. You can find her work in Deathcap, Lida Literary, Wyrd & Wise, Undressed Society, and Nowhere Girl Collective. She is also a passionate dance artist, cinephile, watercolor painter, and avid thrift-shopper. You can find her social media below: 

Instagram
Twitter
Letterboxd
Goodreads

Stevi Sargas

Stevi Sargas is a queer, spec-fic author from Aotearoa, New Zealand. They graduated NorthTec: Tai Tokerau Wānanga summa cum laude in 2024 with a Diploma in Creative Writing. Their work can be found in journals such as bad apple and A Part of Me. Stevi edits for F(r)iction and freelances in publishing, where their recent project won the 2023 Australian Game Developer Award (ADGA) for Excellence in Narrative. They are an unflappable welfare advocate, using their experience of chronic illness and neurodivergence to increase accessibility and awareness. Stevi writes about messy little guys new to the human condition—which, honestly—aren’t we all? 

Jazzmin Joya

Jazzmin Joya (she/her) is an enthusiastic young writer who is currently attending the University of California, Berkeley pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in English and Media Studies. She enjoys reading short fiction, poetry, and horror/mystery thrillers but is open to all genres. She spent her high school career participating in an organization called WriteGirl where she was published in one of their anthologies, This Moment. She also wrote for her school’s advocacy newspaper and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Youth Poet Laureate two years in a row. She plans to continue her passion in writing and exploring the publishing industry.

Ciena Valenzuela-Peterson

Ciena Valenzuela-Peterson is a writer, artist, and editor from Los Angeles, CA. She currently works as an Artist in Residence for the nonprofit organization Light Bringer Project, providing arts education opportunities to high school students. She graduated from USC with a master’s in Literary Editing and Publishing and a bachelor’s in Creative Writing and Political Science with a concentration in Race, Gender, and the Politics of Justice. Ciena is passionate about the transformative power of art, from the visual to the verbal, and believes everyone deserves access to the tools to help their creativity flourish. A lover of all things gothic, she is fascinated by the macabre and the horror genre’s underrated literary merit. Her work has been published by F(r)iction, Pornstar Martini Magazine, ARC South Pasadena, and Systems Change Alliance. In her spare time, you can find Ciena drawing in her sketchbook, eating takeout with friends, and building elaborate houses in Minecraft. 

Asma Al-Masyabi

Asma Al-Masyabi is a poet, writer, and visual artist based in Colorado. She is a Scholastic Silver Medal Poetry winner and ruth weiss Foundation Emerging Poet Award winner with publications in The Cincinnati Review, Subnivean, the Santa Clara Review, and more. In her spare time, she spends too much money on manga, watches competitive cooking shows with her family, and gets lost on Pinterest while trying to draw all the pretty outfits. She’s pursuing a degree in creative writing at the University of Colorado-Denver and looks forward to a career filled with words and art, her two biggest passions. 

Ari Iscariot

Ari Iscariot is a queer, neurodivergent, chronically-ill author and artist living in Florida. They graduated from Florida International University summa cum laude, with a BA in Literature and a minor in International Communications. Among their many hobbies, they DM for an insatiably chaotic DND group, attend weekly meetings with their (somewhat) less chaotic writing group, “Seaquills,” and regularly fall down research rabbit holes from which they’ve always emerged unscathed. (So far.) But mostly, they write. Their writing centers intense queer relationships, indulges in the power of ravenous love, and explores the transgressive nature of gender-variant bodies.   

Zara Garcia

Zara Garcia graduated summa cum laude from Florida Gulf Coast University with a BA in English and a minor in World Literature. Passionate about genre-blending narratives and Latinx literature, she spends most of her time reading and honing her editing skills at F(r)iction. Outside of her literary pursuits, she enjoys collecting weird trinkets and experimenting with vegan recipes.

Sara Santistevan

Sara Santistevan is an emerging poet and the 2021 Recipient of the Reyna Grande Scholarship for her chapbook The Root from which Freedom Blossoms (Fauxmoir). Her poetry has been published in Shō Poetry Journal, The Acentos Review, Latin@ Literature, Akéwì Magazine, The Porter Gulch Review, and elsewhere. 

She first fell in love with speculative fiction when she read Edith Pattou’s East as a child and is thrilled to discover fresh and boundary-breaking narratives through her work with F(r)iction. In her free time, she can be found at a cafe, a nearby beach or pool, or her local library. She has a soft spot for walkable cities, flavored lattes, quirky earrings, and anything cute—especially cats! Learn more about her at sarasantistevan.com. 

Inanna Carter

Inanna is a recent graduate of Kutztown University with a B.S. in Psychology and a B.A. in English/Professional Writing. She’s currently undertaking an online MFA in Emerson College’s Popular Fiction Writing and Publishing program and freelances for a gaming journalism site. With her two wild cats Remy and Mouse constantly on the run, Inanna’s been doing her best to outline and write her first novel, all while crocheting, reading (more like collecting) any romance books she can find, and happily listening to BTS or Stray Kids. 

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Aubrey Unemori

Aubrey Unemori graduated from the University of Washington with a BA in Creative Writing. She was born and raised on Maui, Hawaii but currently resides in Seattle, Washington. She likes to fill her days with reading, writing, playing games with friends, and pretending to be a coffee snob.   

Race Garber

Race has a background in editing, including fiction and non-fiction, scientific and technical papers, professional essays, and legal writing. Regardless of the nature of the writing, a powerful creation stems from strong narrative, approachable language, solid structure, and momentum-building flow. Race enjoys donating his time to Brink to assist new and established authors in suffering through the revision process and celebrating the progress.

Simon Kerr

Simon Kerr (he/they) is a writer and bookseller from Colorado. His home turf is fantasy and sci-fi, his passion is queer representation in media, and his opinions about tea are many. 

Haley Lawson

Haley Lawson is a writer and educator, having taught English in the U.S.A., Mongolia, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. Currently, she works as a Program Coordinator for AmeriCorps. A lover of all things make-believe and magick, she writes genre fiction under the pen name H. M. L. Swann. Some of her works are published in The Manchester Anthology IX and Quibble Literary. She received her master’s degree in Creative Writing from the University of Manchester in December 2021. When not writing, she can be found reading tarot cards and hiking along the shores of Lake Superior. 

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Marizel Malan

Marizel Malan was born and raised in South Africa and graduated from the University of Pretoria with an Honours Degree in English Literature. She is working towards a graphic design qualification and drafting her first fantasy novel. Marizel is currently working as a ghostwriter, writing nonfiction books in various niches including history, hobbies, and crafts. Whenever she isn’t caught in the world of words, you’ll find her flexing her green thumb, glued to her headphones, or peacefully growing her connection to Mother Nature. 

Sam Burt

Sam is a tutor and proofreader living in east London. Since graduating in 2021 with a master’s in creative writing, he has been a bookseller for Phlox Books and Waterstones, and started the East London Indie Book Club to champion innovative fiction from small presses. Sam is the founder and editor of POINT BLOC, a new online literary journal that will launch later this year, and has edited fiction submissions to Bandit Fiction, An Inkling, and The Manchester Anthology IX. His fiction has appeared in Popshot Quarterly, Bandit Fiction, and Ink, Sweat and Tears, and his essays/reviews in The London Magazine, 3:AM Magazine, and BookRiot. Off the page, he can usually be found baking, volunteering at a local LGBTQ+ charity, or missing shuttlecocks.

Azalea Acevedo

Azalea Acevedo grew up in Florida, where she spent her childhood drawing portraits of her favorite characters from the books she read. In high school, she moved to South Carolina. She attended Trident Technical College and graduated from Converse University, where she studied creative and professional writing. She was an editor for The Concept Literary Magazine, the school’s literary journal, which piqued her interest in developing stories in collaboration with an editorial team. Azalea has been published in both The Concept Literary Magazine and Converse Magazine, the university’s annual publication.

Asmaani Kumar

Asmaani is a freelance writer, researcher, editor, and communications consultant based out of Assam, India. At Brink, she reads submissions, compiles editorial notes, works with writers and supports F(r)iction Log. When she’s not fighting her way through her endless to-do list and managing professional and personal projects, she can be found reading personal essays, watching K-dramas, curating playlists, trying new recipes, and playing with her puppy, Kulfi. 

Gina Gruss

Gina Marie Gruss is an undergraduate student at the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College of FAU, double majoring in Creative Writing and Visual Art. She’s a born-and-raised south Floridian who hates the heat but loves her home state’s myths and nature. Her works have been featured by Amazon Prime Video, Mensa America, Wattpad, and FAU. She’s excitedly crafting her interdisciplinary senior thesis, which explores different Armageddons while centralizing disabled, queer, and diverse narratives. When not creating, she loves planning events, cooking and baking way too much food for said events, avoiding getting eaten by gators, and spoiling her cat Apollo.

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Matt Peadon

Matt Peadon is a character artist and art director working in film and video games. As the only blonde Australian that can’t surf, he pivoted and opted for a more digital medium. He was part of productions like Game of Thrones, Aquaman, Underworld, and Ghostbusters and has collaborated with organisations like Weta Workshop, NASA, KikkiK, Epic Games, and Magic Leap. Matt pursues his interest in photography and Hedlund’s quips by camera-slinging for Brink.

Erin Clements

Erin is an Ohio-based lover of words with a graduate certificate in Publishing from New York University and a summa cum laude BA in English. Outside of her work with Brink, she works as a Strategic Proposal Writer, a personal assistant to a literary agent, and an editor. 

She loves everything literary, from Shakespeare to the newest fantasy and romance bestsellers, and she’ll happily tell you her opinions on everything. When she’s not working, she’s probably buying more books than she could ever read, talking about how she previously worked for bestselling author John Green, or getting emotional over cute dogs. 

Amber Sullivan

Amber is a writer and professional writing consultant based in Denver, CO. She graduated summa cum laude with a BA in English Writing with focuses in comics and film from the University of Colorado Denver. She can often be found lurking in the darkest alleys, reading comics to cockroaches. When she is not dreaming of life as an octopus, she writes and performs ridiculous lyrics to heal her friends during short rests.   

Ally Geist

Ally is a quirky little Canuck living in Toronto, Canada (yes, they do have a lot of maple syrup up there!). She graduated with a BA in Theatre Studies (specializing in Playwriting and Dramaturgy) from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada. She also has a post-grad certificate in Publishing from Ryerson University. When Ally is not reading, crying over cute puppy videos on the internet, defending the merits of the Oxford comma, or watching reruns of Schitts Creek, she is most likely lip-synching for her life in her bedroom, pretending she is one of the fabulous Drag Race queens.

Jaclyn Morken

Jaclyn is an aspiring writer and editor from Saskatoon, Canada, where she completed an MFA in Writing and BA Hons in English at the University of Saskatchewan. Her work can be found in antilang no. 1, Dually Noted (March 2019), and River Volta Review of Books. Jaclyn writes fantasy and speculative fiction.

C. E. Janecek

C. E. Janecek is the internal newsletter wizard of the Brink team, keeping the staff up to date on happenings, deadlines, and projects each month. C. E. recently got their MFA in poetry at Colorado State University and is now a freelance editor and writer—having work featured in Poetry , Booth , Gulf Coast, and elsewhere. Online at  www.cewritespoems.com. 

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Chase Bailey

Chase Bailey is a baker living in Columbus, OH. He holds a BA in Professional Writing from Miami University and he enjoys learning about the evolution of colloquial language. Chase is a fiend for any book with magic or queer characters—don’t even get him started on queer characters with magic. When he’s not spamming your feed with F(r)iction-related content, Chase enjoys listening to the birds, sharing apples with his dog, and doing yoga. Eventually—eventually—he will put together a chapbook of poetry.

Thomas Chisholm

Thomas Chisholm is a freelance editor, creative writer, and an alumnus of The Evergreen State College. He received a year of formal copyediting training from the University of Washington’s editing certificate program, though he especially enjoys cracking a story open and getting into developmental edits. Originally from suburban Detroit, he’s called Seattle home since 2009. His creative work has appeared in Inkwell, Drizzle Review, and Vanishing Point Magazine.

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Eileen Silverthorn

Eileen is a senior editor at F(r)iction, working on both journal submissions and the occasional review or article for F(r)Log. She loves both fiction and poetry: In fiction, Eileen looks for stories with character-driven narratives blended with detailed writing and speculative genre elements. In poetry, Eileen is drawn to imagery-heavy pieces that are unafraid to experiment with form, line breaks, and language.

Eileen is also a bookseller at the Tattered Cover in Denver, Colorado. She graduated from Colorado State University with a BA in English Creative Writing and minors in History and Women’s Interdisciplinary Studies. Inspired by her work with CSU’s undergraduate literary magazine Greyrock Review, Eileen decided to explore a career in publishing through the Denver Publishing Institute. She enjoys spending her time traveling, editing her friends’ fanfiction, reading ten books at once, spending her whole paycheck at her place of employment, and cuddling her cats whilst writing bios about herself in the third person.

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Sam Gladstone

Sam stopped studying English at the age of sixteen and would never have guessed that he’d end up involved with a storytelling nonprofit! He specializes in the languages of machines, working as a software consultant by day and helping Brink with any tech-related queries and heading up its IT infrastructure in between. He graduated with a Master of Mathematics from the University of East Anglia and now lives in Bristol, UK. In his rare free time, he loves immersive theater, cooking, yoga, and good ol’ political debate. 

Suzie Bartholomew

Suzie Bartholomew hails from Indiana and works for the Indianapolis Public Library. She earned her BA in English from Purdue University North Central (now Northwest) and her MFA in Creative Writing from Butler University. Having fully embraced her inner grandma, she loves to crochet, embroider, and live off of tea while cuddling with her cat. When she’s not working or being crafty, Suzie is focused on writing stories and indulging in serial killer documentaries.

Maribel Leddy

Originally from Buffalo, New York, Maribel now lives in Manhattan with her sister and their two cats, Cleo and Chai. In 2018, when she was getting her BA in Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University, she interned at the Brink Literacy Project and has been volunteering here ever since! Her favorite genres to both write and read are science fiction, fantasy, and magical realism. Maribel enjoys spreading her passion for storytelling, so check out her series about it, Facts of Fiction, on the F(r)iction Log. Outside of writing, Maribel loves running in Central Park, trying new restaurants, and traveling the world. 

Sonya Minner

Sonya Minner is a self-proclaimed writer currently residing in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She successfully graduated from California University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Creative Writing in 2015. Since then, she’s bounced around from place to place. These days, if she’s not writing, she’s probably doomscrolling. One day, she hopes to pay off her student loan debt and publish a best-selling romance novel, just maybe not in that order.