The English Department

Fatima Jamal Alharthi is pursuing her Ph.D. in Fiction. She received her master's degree from the University of Sydney in 2012, and earned her B.A. in English from Taibah University, Saudi Arabia in 2008. Her fiction can be found on Smokelong Quarterly, Every Day Fiction, Flyleaf Journal, Garfield Lake Review and Santa Ana River Review, among others.

Tacey M. Atsitty is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in Creative Writing-Poetry. She holds bachelor’s degrees from Brigham Young University and the Institute of American Indian Arts, and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Cornell University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in POETRY; EPOCH; Kenyon Review Online; Leavings; When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry; and other publications. Her first book is Rain Scald (University of New Mexico Press, 2018), and she is the winner of the Wisconsin Brittingham Prize for Poetry with her second book (At) Wrist, which is forthcoming November 2023.  taceymatsitty.com 

Ifeoluwa Ayandele is from Tede, Nigeria. He is an M.F.A. candidate in Poetry and he has received an M.A. in English Literature from the University of Lagos, Nigeria. His poetry has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize and the Best of the Net.  His work is published or forthcoming in The Los Angeles Review, Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, Another Chicago Magazine, West Trade Review, The South Carolina Review, Moon City Review, The McNeese Review, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Cider Press Review, Rattle, Verse Daily and elsewhere. He presently lives in Tallahassee, Florida. 

Laura Biagi is a Ph.D. student in Fiction. Her work has been published in TriQuarterly and Anthropology & Humanism, and her chapbook The Fair Day is forthcoming from ELJ Editions in 2024. She is the recipient of a Kentucky Emerging Artist Award, has served as Editor-in-Chief of FSU’s graduate-run literary magazine Southeast Review, and is a former literary agent of New York Times bestselling titles. 

Mason Boyles published his debut novel, Bark On, through Driftwood Press in February 2023. He's more recently written a dystopian fantasy trilogy featuring sentient fungus, cyberpunk tech, radioresistant mutants and telepathic witches, and is shopping around for an agent that believes in it. He has his M.F.A. from UC-Irvine, and is in the fourth and final year of his Ph.D.

Oliver Brooks is a first-year M.F.A. student in Poetry. They hold a B.A. in English-Creative Writing from Florida State University. Their work appears in Honey Literary, Full House Literary, Spellbinder, Antithesis Journal, and elsewhere.

Sarah Destin is a Ph.D. student in Fiction. She received her M.F.A. from the University of Washington and her B.A. from Hamilton College. Her work has appeared in Bennington Review, The Pinch, Hobart, and other journals. She is originally from the San Francisco Bay Area.

Gemma English is a first-year M.F.A. student in Fiction. She graduated from Columbia University in 2019 with a degree in Creative Writing. In her work, she is interested in exploring the intersect between genre and literary fiction.

Alyssa Freeman-Moser is a first-year M.F.A. student studying Fiction. She recently graduated with an M.A. in English from Kansas State University where she taught first-year composition. Before K-State, Alyssa worked a sales job in Washington, D.C. and earned an M.A. in political communication from The Johns Hopkins University. Check out her story “The Bugman” in Dartmouth’s Meetinghouse.

Camille Louise Goering is a French-American multi-genre writer and former public school teacher pursuing an M.F.A. in Non-Fiction writing. Her work has appeared in such publications as Big Easy Magazine, Sixfold, Decaf Magazine, Strange Horizons, and more.  She holds a bachelor's degree in International Relations from Pomona College and a Master of Science in Education from Johns Hopkins University. Previously, she worked as an AP Language and Composition teacher in the 9th Ward of New Orleans and as a community organizer in her hometown of Manhattan. She enjoys music, flow arts, nature, painting, and learning new things. 

Nicholas Goodly earned their M.F.A. from Columbia University. Their chapbook Black Swim won the 2017 Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship. They were runner-up for the 2019 Cave Canem Poetry Prize and finalist for the 2020 Jake Adam York Prize. Goodly is writing editor of WUSSY. They live in Atlanta.

Samuel Granoff is a first-year Ph.D. student in Fiction. He holds degrees from Columbia University, Duke University, and the University of San Francisco. He has taught classes on The Beatles, Westerns, and baseball, and pitched professionally in Europe this past summer. He is currently working on a novel about the game.

Liesel Hamilton is a Ph.D. candidate in nonfiction writing and holds an M.F.A. from George Mason University. She is the author of Wild South Carolina (Hub City Press, 2016) and has been published in Catapult, The Normal School, and Audubon, among other publications. She has received fellowships from George Mason University and the Alan Cheuse International Writers Center.

Maisha Hossain is from Dhaka, Bangladesh, and she is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Creative Writing-Fiction. Maisha completed her M.A. in Creative Writing from Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 2018. Her writing has appeared or forthcoming in Another Chicago Magazine, QUB’s Blackbird Anthology of 2018, Panjeree Publications, Poet’s Choice, The Offending Adam, and NPR’s Freshly Picked Prose. Her interest lies in postcolonial literature, South Asian studies, and women’s writing. As a part of her dissertation, she is working on a collection of short stories on Bangladeshi women, for which she was awarded the Adam M. Johnson Fellowship Award 2023 by FSU’s English department.

Stephen Hundley is the author of The Aliens Will Come to Georgia First (University of North Georgia Press, 2023) and Bomb Island (Hub City Press, 2024). His stories and poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Cream City Review, Carve, The Greensboro Review, and elsewhere. He holds an M.A. from Clemson, an M.F.A. from the University of Mississippi, and is currently completing a Ph.D. He is writing a book about the feral horses of Cumberland Island.

Alex Jaros received his M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Columbia College Chicago in 2015, where he was a Follett Fellowship recipient. He earned his B.A. in English from the University of Missouri in 2011. His work can be found in Narrative Magazine, Glimmer Train, Bird’s Thumb, Ghost Proposal, LDOC, Goreyesque, and Epic. He hails from Kansas City, Missouri, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Creative Writing.

Blake Johnson is a first-year M.F.A. student studying fiction. His work has appeared in Story Magazine, Moon City Review, and others.

Max Lasky is a poet from New Jersey, pursuing a PhD in creative writing. His poems have been published by Frontier Poetry and are forthcoming from Painted Bride Quarterly. He is the co-founder of the literary magazine Leavings (leavingslitmag.com). He earned a B.A. from Ramapo College and an MFA from the University of Maryland.

Zuleyha Ozturk Lasky is a poet from Turkey, pursuing an M.F.A. in Poetry. Her poems have appeared in The Adroit Journal, Epiphany, Small Orange, and are forthcoming in Salamander. She was selected as a finalist for the 2022 Gregory Djanikian Scholars Prize. She is the co-founder of the literary magazine Leavings, which can be found at www.leavingslitmag.com, and is an assistant poetry editor at Narrative magazine.

Hikari Leilani Miya is a second-year Ph.D. student with a poetry focus, trying her best to adapt to human life. She has a master's certification in herpetology, which she uses to care for reptiles at the Tallahassee Museum. She received her B.A. from Cornell University and her M.F.A. from the University of San Francisco. 

Melvin Li is a first-year Ph.D. student in Fiction, and he has been awarded a Legacy Fellowship. He received a B.A. in English with a minor in Asian American Studies from Cornell University and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa.

Brandi Nicole Martin’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in the Missouri Review, the Cincinnati Review, Prairie Schooner, Colorado Review, Bennington Review, Crazyhorse, Redivider, and At Length, among others. She is pursuing her PhD in poetry at Florida State University.

Olga Mexina is pursuing a Ph.D. in poetry with a minor in translation and serves as Interviews Editor at Southeast Review. She was born in Leningrad, USSR (presently St. Petersburg, Russia). She has lived, worked, and traveled all over, and her favorite thing about Tallahassee is Spanish moss. Olga lives with her daughter, Elsa, and son, Huckleberry.

Hera Naguib is a Ph.D. candidate in Poetry and holds an M.F.A. from Sarah Lawrence College. Her work is forthcoming or has appeared in Poets.org, The Common, World Literature Today, The Cincinnati Review, Gulf Coast, Prairie Schooner, among others. Raised in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and Toronto, Canada, Hera hails from Lahore, Pakistan. Find her online at heranaguib.com.

Originally from Louisville, Kentucky, Gwen Niekamp (she/her/hers) is pursuing her Ph.D. in Creative Writing-Nonfiction. An alumna of Vassar College, Gwen received her M.F.A. from Washington University in St. Louis in 2019. Upon graduation, she was awarded a Senior Teaching Fellowship to facilitate advanced creative nonfiction workshops and a graduate-level teaching seminar. Gwen’s writing has appeared in Boulevard, Belt Magazine’s Louisville Anthology, Essay Daily, Hippocampus, and Hobart Pulp.

Hayden Nielander is a poet from the Florida Heartland pursuing an M.F.A. in Poetry. He earned a B.A. in English from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Esther Ifesinachi Okonkwo is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her works have appeared in Isele Magazine, Catapult, and Guernica. She is a 2021 recipient of the Elizabeth George Foundation Grant. She is currently a first-year Ph.D. student in Creative Writing-Fiction. Home for her is Lagos, Nigeria.

Renee Roberts is an M.F.A. student studying nonfiction. She received her B.A. at Hollins University in 2021. Her work transfigures fantasy, predominantly from folklore and fairy tales, into personal essays and memoir material. Her work has been published in Catfish Creek and The Closed Eye Open, among other publications.

Sarah E. Robinson is a Ph.D. student in Fiction. She has a B.A. in English and Studio Arts from the University of New Mexico and received her M.F.A. from the University of Houston. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Leavings and The Cincinnati Review.

T. Dallas Saylor is a second-year Ph.D. student in Poetry, and he holds an M.F.A .from the University of Houston. His work meditates on the body, especially gender and sexuality, against physical, spiritual, and digital landscapes. His poetry has been featured or is forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, Poetry Northwest, Colorado Review, Christianity & Literature, PRISM international, and elsewhere.

Anastasia Selby graduated from the creative writing program at Syracuse University with an M.F.A. in Fiction. As an undergraduate, they studied English, film theory, and Hindi before graduating summa cum laude, with honors. They were the first in their family to graduate from college. Before pursuing their bachelor's degree, Anastasia worked as a wildland firefighter throughout the western United States for seven years. Currently, Anastasia is pursuing a Ph.D. in Creative Writing-Nonfiction. Anastasia's work has been published in Bellevue Literary Review, The New Ohio Review, Vox, Boulevard, and Bitch. Their narrative nonfiction book, HOTSHOT, is forthcoming in spring 2025, via Grove Press. 

Aimee Seu is a Ph.D. student in Poetry from Charlottesville, Virginia, where she received her M.F.A. in Poetry at the University of Virginia. Her first collection of poetry, Velvet Hounds, won the Akron Poetry Prize in 2020 and was published in February 2022. She is originally from the beautiful, dirty, wretched, delicious city of Philadelphia.

Olivia Sokolowski is from Peachtree City, Georgia, and earned her M.F.A. in Poetry at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington. Her work has been featured in The Paris Review, Gulf Coast, Prelude, Cherry Tree, and elsewhere. You can find Olivia online at oliviasoko.com.

Daniel Sutter is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Fiction and holds an M.F.A. from the University of New Orleans Creative Writing Workshop. His work can be found in The Carolina Quarterly, BOOTH, Fugue, Fiction Southeast, and has been named a finalist for the Iowa Review Award in Fiction, among others. He is from Tampa, Florida.

KT studied narrative medicine & specialized in poetry in the Creative Writing and Writing for Performing Arts M.F.A. at the University of California, Riverside, where she served as poetry editor for Santa Anna River Review. She is currently a second-year Ph.D. student, specializing in Poetry. Her work is included or forthcoming in Peripheries, Foothill Journal, New Limestone Review, Peacock Journal, Southern Women's Review, The McNeese Review, Turtle Island Quarterly & White Stag Journal.

Natalie Louise Tombasco is a poet from Staten Island, NY. Currently, she is a Ph.D. candidate and serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Southeast Review. Recent work can be found in Best New Poets, Verse Daily, Gulf Coast, Black Warrior Review, Diode Poetry Journal, Copper Nickel, and The Cincinnati Review, among others. Her debut collection MILK FOR GALL has been selected as the winner of the 2023 Michael Waters Poetry Prize and will be published in Fall 2024 by Southern Indiana Review. www.natalielouisetombasco.com

Sophia Alise Upshaw is an M.F.A. student studying Poetry. She graduated from Florida State University in 2023 with a B.S. in Media Communication Studies-Creative Writing, earning recognition as an Outstanding Student Scholar. Her poetry has been published in oddball magazine, Tipton Poetry Journal, Mistake House, and elsewhere. 

Chris Watkins is a poet and Ph.D. candidate writing in and about the swamplands, rivers, and other watersheds of North Florida, as well as all things drag. Their poetry has appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Foundry, and Bosque among other journals.

Hugh Wilhelm is a Ph.D. student in Poetry. He earned a B.A. in English from Cornell University and an M.F.A. in poetry from Syracuse University. He recently had a poem published in The Progressive.