LAURA MAYLENE WALTEREDITOR-IN-CHIEFLaura Maylene Walter's debut novel, Body of Stars, is forthcoming from Dutton in March 2021. Her writing has appeared in Kenyon Review, Poets & Writers, The Sun, The Masters Review, Ninth Letter, and elsewhere. She was a Yaddo Fellow, a Tin House Writers’ Workshop Scholar, and the recipient of the Ohioana Walter Rumsey Marvin Grant. Laura teaches workshops for Literary Cleveland, blogs for the Kenyon Review, and works for Cleveland Public Library.
Writing Laura admires: I am equally enamored with the contemplative realism of Tessa Hadley or Alice Munro as I am compelled by the magic of Carmen Maria Machado or Lesley Nneka Arimah. Lucy Corin’s apocalypses, Danielle Evans' "Why Won't Women Just Say What They Want," and Wendy Oleson’s “How I Liked the Avocados” are just a few examples of short fiction that catches my eye. For nonfiction, I’m drawn to a gorgeous essay like Jaquira Diaz’s “Beach City,” but I also love work that blends the personal with research. I welcome writing that takes risks, whether in terms of structure, content, or language. |
JASON HARRISPOETRY EDITORJason Harris is an American writer. His interests include listening to true crime podcasts, practicing negative visualization, revision, and finding associative links between disparate ideas. He is a Graduate Poetry Fellow of The Watering Hole. He is also the 2021 Barbara Smith Writer-in-Residence at Twelve Literary Arts. His first poetry collection is forthcoming. To read more of Jason's work, you may visit his website: jasonharriswriter.com.
Writing Jason admires: Poetry that I admire is poetry that reveals the hidden networks that bind us to one another; poetry that complicates the origins of single-storied narratives; and poetry that opens a window unto humanity's grotesque ways of being alive in the world. A few individual poems that I admire include "Consider the Hands that Write this Letter" by Aracelis Girmay, "There Are Birds Here" by Jamaal May, and "What's Left Behind After a Hawk Has Seized a Smaller Bird Midair" by Justin Phillip Reed. |
NARDINE TALEBPROSE EDITORNardine Taleb is an Egyptian-American writer and speech therapist. She has performed her prose and poetry at Philadelphia’s Writers’ Conference, has received multiple writerships, has work forthcoming in Emerge Literary Journal, and is a current Brooklyn Poets fellow. Her passion is mentoring others in writing and helping them share their work with the world. She is a Cleveland native and doesn’t plan on leaving anytime soon: the people and the coffee are too great.
Writing Nardine admires: I admire prose that is raw and honest, with insightful moments and surprises. My favorite writers include Junot Diaz, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Zadie Smith, and Ocean Vuong – writers whose prose has beautiful language and reflects unique human experiences. I also love writers who can play with fiction beyond our wild imagination, often borderline strange (Haruki Murakami, Gabriel García Márquez, and Isabel Allende). On the other hand, writers who are able to take human experiences - like love, loss, and coming-of-age stories – and make it their own also draw me. Work I admire in past GSR issues include “The Apocalypse in Stages or Your First Kiss” by Miranda Williams and “Thirty” by Amy Stuber. Above all, I love writing that is true. |