She is the recipient of the 2019 Bechtel Prize from Teachers and Writers' Magazine. She is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing in the MFA program at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, and has also taught in India, Italy, and Mexico. She's widely published in literary magazines, and was the writer of the petition that led to paid parental leave for all NYC Public school teachers in 2017. Her essays and stories have appeared in The Rumpus, Hunger Mountain, The Bellingham Review, The Southern Humanities Review, The Hindu, and others. *Please email us at if you are interested in getting involved! We are almost always on the lookout for volunteer readers aka the heart that keeps our little journal going. Emily James is a teacher and writer in NYC. Her work has been featured in Bellum, Eunoia Review, Angle Magazine, Deep South Magazine, Unbroken Journal, and elsewhere. She recently earned an MLIS from the University of Southern Mississippi and works as a reference librarian at a public library just north of Chicago, Illinois where she lives with her beloved menagerie. In addition, she has served as the Chief Editorial Assistant for the Society for Applied Anthropology’s Human Organization, Assistant Editor for Negative Capability Press, and Poetry Editor for the Oracle Fine Arts Review. She earned her MFA from George Mason University where she co-founded So To Speak Journal. at the University of South Alabama in 2014 and has experience teaching all ages and levels in both formal and informal educational settings, domestically and abroad. Wigleaf, The Rumpus and The Sun Magazine.

Rachel McMullen has a diverse background in creative writing, literature, English education, editing, and library and archival science. Her memoir Alive Day-about the Iraq war, the opioid crisis, and becoming a widow at the age of 24-is forthcoming. She holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from Oregon State University and has been editing for over five years. Her writing can be found in, The Rumpus, HuffPost, Cosmonauts Avenue, ENTROPY, Medium, Manifest-Station and elsewhere. Karie Fugett lives and writes off-grid in Oregon.

The rumpus masthead