Meet the Editors

Staff Notes

Joe Aguilar

Joe Aguilar teaches at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He’s the author of Half Out Where and has work in The Iowa Review, DIAGRAM, Tin House, and The Threepenny Review. He also serves as an instructor for Bard College’s Clemente Course in the Humanities.

Therese Gleason

Therese Gleason is author of two chapbooks: Libation (2006), selected by Kwame Dawes as co-winner of the South Carolina Poetry Initiative chapbook competition, and Matrilineal (Finishing Line, 2021). A Pushcart and Best-of-the-Net nominee, her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Rattle, America, New Ohio Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, San Pedro River Review, The Worcester Review, Halfway Down the Stairs, Psaltery & Lyre, Literary Mama, SWWIM, Mass Poetry’s Hard Work of Hope, Painted Bride Quarterly, and elsewhere. A dyslexia therapist and literacy teacher for children with learning differences, she lives in Worcester, MA with her spouse and three children. Therese is a reader for The Worcester Review, and has an MFA in Poetry from Pacific University. Find her at theresegleason.com

Mandy Gutmann-Gonzalez

Mandy Gutmann-Gonzalez is a Chilean poet, novelist, translator, and text-based artist. They are the author of the novel La Pava, published by the Chilean press Ediciones Inubicalistas. Their poetry chapbook A/An, a documentary poetics project on the Salem Witch trials, is forthcoming from End of the Line Press. They hold an MFA in Poetry from Cornell University, won the Boulevard Emerging Poets Prize, and are the recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship. They teach creative writing at Clark University, where they founded and run the Clark Poets and Writers Reading Series. You can read their work on their website: mandygutmanngonzalez.com.

Cheryl Collins Isaac

Cheryl Collins Isaac is a Liberian-American writer and a 2022 Edith Wharton Straw Dog Writer-in-Residence. A recipient of the 2020 James Baldwin Fellowship at MacDowell, her work has been anthologized in South Writ Large: Stories from the Global South. She has been published in Chicago Quarterly Review, The Common, Ocean State Review, Hawaii Pacific Review, and more. She earned her MFA from The University of Tampa. A newcomer to Massachusetts, Cheryl enjoys exploring Worcester’s downtown restaurants with her husband.

Hope Jordan

Hope Jordan’s work appears most recently in Hole in the Head Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Stone Canoe, and Blue Mountain Review. She grew up in Chittenango, NY, and holds a dual BA from Syracuse & an MFA in Creative Writing from UMass Boston. She lives in New Hampshire, where she was the state’s first official poetry slam master. Her chapbook is The Day She Decided to Feed Crows.

Tianli Kilpatrick

Tianli holds a Master’s in Writing with a concentration in Creative Nonfiction from Northern Michigan University, where she served as a nonfiction editor for the literary journal Passages North. She received her Bachelor’s in English from Allegheny College, with a minor in psychology. She is an Asian-American writer with a keen interest in trauma theory, jellyfish, and white space. When she’s not writing, she’s horseback riding or boxing. She lives in Marlborough, Massachusetts, and can be reached at www.tianlikilpatrick.com.

Rachel Lloyd

Rachel Lloyd is a writer of short stories and flash fiction. Since graduating from Clark University in 2020, her work has appeared in Moon City Review, The Capra Review, Vassar Review, Thimble Lit Mag, and others. Her flash fiction piece, “Unraveling,” won Honorable Mention in Pigeon Pages’ 2022 Flash Fiction Contest. You can find her work on her website at rachellloydwrites.com.

Heather Long

Heather Long is a writer and editor of fiction and essays. After a BA in English Literature at Tulane University, she obtained an MFA in Writing at Emerson College. Most recently, her essays have appeared in Gather Journal, where she is also a contributing editor. During the warm months, she is a landscaper and garden designer with a small female-run gardening firm. She lives in Boston with her family.

Rodger Martin

Rodger Martin’s The Battlefield Guide (Hobblebush, 2010) is his third book of poetry. He is the recipient of two National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships, a Council for Basic Education Fellowship, a New Hampshire State Council on the Arts Fellowship in fiction, and the Appalachia Prize for poetry. His poetry, fiction, and criticism have been published throughout the United States and in China, where he has been anthologized in Selected Poems of Contemporary American and European Poets. While Rodger was managing editor, The Worcester Review received both a National Endowment for the Arts grant and a number of Pushcart nominations. Martin also is the New Hampshire State Director of Poetry Out Loud and teaches journalism at Keene State College. Rodger, now editor emeritus, was managing editor for 27 years.

Kate McIntyre

Kate McIntyre is an assistant professor of creative writing and literature at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. She came to Worcester from Columbia, Missouri, where she was the managing editor of the Missouri Review. Her fiction and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in journals including Denver Quarterly, the Cincinnati Review, Copper Nickel, and the Cimarron Review. She has a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2014 and Special Mentions in the 2016 and 2019 Pushcart Prize anthologies. She is a graduate of Harvard University, Oregon State University (where she earned her MFA) and the University of Missouri (where she earned her PhD in creative writing and literature). Find her online at katemcintyrewriting.com.

Laurie D. Morrissey

Laurie D. Morrissey lives in Hopkinton, New Hampshire, where she writes articles, essays, and poetry. Her poems have been published in journals including The Worcester Review, Poetry East, Blueline, Appalachia Journal, Common Ground Review, and The Aurorean, as well as Modern Haiku and many other print and online haiku journals in the U.S. and the U.K. Her articles and essays have appeared in magazines such as Northern Woodlands, Connecticut Woodlands, New Hampshire Home, and Kearsarge. Her collection of haiku poetry, the slant of april snow, is published by Red Moon Press (2019).

Carolyn Oliver

Carolyn Oliver is the author of The Alcestis Machine (Acre Books, forthcoming 2024), Inside the Storm I Want to Touch the Tremble (University of Utah Press, 2022; selected by Matthew Olzmann for the Agha Shahid Ali Prize) and three chapbooks: Mirror Factory (Bone & Ink Press, 2022), Dearling (dancing girl press, 2022), and Night Ocean (Seven Kitchens Press, forthcoming 2023). Carolyn’s poems appear in Poetry Daily, The Massachusetts Review, Indiana Review, Cincinnati Review, Shenandoah, Beloit Poetry Journal, 32 Poems, Southern Indiana Review, At Length, and elsewhere; her fiction has appeared in Yalobusha Review, Longleaf Review, Tin House Online, Bayou Magazine, Tahoma Literary Review, SmokeLong Quarterly, Terrain.org, The South Carolina Review, Necessary Fiction, and elsewhere. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net in both fiction and poetry, and she is the winner of the E. E. Cummings Prize from the NEPC, the Goldstein Prize from Michigan Quarterly Review, the Writer’s Block Prize in Poetry, and the Frank O’Hara Prize from The Worcester Review, where she now serves as editor. Find her online: carolynoliver.net.

Sam Paradise

Sam Paradise is a fiction writer. A native of Worcester County, she is involved in the writing programs at WAM and is a founding member of Penlight Writers, established 2008. She was a finalist in the 2012 World’s Best Short-Short Story Contest, and her story “At the Liberty Motor Inn Motel” will be published in the spring issue of the Southeast Review. Her reading interests are broad and include all genres of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. She is a great admirer of the short fiction of Flannery O’Connor, E. B. White, Truman Capote, Richard Brautigan, and Joyce Carol Oates.

Laina Mullin Pruett

Laina Mullin Pruett’s fiction has appeared in the Spring 2012 issue of The Gettysburg Review, the Winter 2014 issue of Prairie Schooner, and in the BU alumni journal, 236. She was in residence at Yaddo during summer 2014, is a recipient of the Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner award, was a 2011 Robert Pinsky Global Fellow, and is a fiction editor at The Worcester Review. She holds an MFA in fiction from Boston University. Laina lives in rural Massachusetts with her husband and young son.

Eve Rifka

Eve Rifkah was co-founder of Poetry Oasis, Inc. (1998-2012), a non-profit poetry association dedicated to education and promoting local poets. She was also the founder and editor of DINER, a literary magazine. The 2021 recipient of the Stanley Kunitz Medal, she is the author of five books (not self-published). A play, Outcasts: The Lepers of Penikese Island, based on her first book, Outcasts: The Penikese Island Leper Hospital, 1905-1921, was performed at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (NY). She lives in Worcester, MA. www.eve-rifkah.com

Karen Elizabeth Sharpe

Karen Elizabeth Sharpe is a poet from Westminster, MA. Her poems have appeared in West Trade Review, Main Street Rag, Catalyst, The Mizmor Anthology, Verse Virtual, Columbia Journal of Arts & Literature, Canary: The Journal of the Environmental Crisis, and The Comstock Review, among others. She been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, has been a member of Marge Piercy’s juried poets group, and is member of the PoemWorks community in the greater Boston area. Her chapbook, Praying Can Be Anything, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in 2023.

David Thoreen

David Thoreen teaches writing and literature at Assumption University in Worcester. His poetry, fiction, and nonfiction has appeared in such magazines as American Literary Review, Great River Review, Minnesota Monthly, Natural Bridge, New Letters, The Seneca Review, Slate, and South Dakota Review.