Who We Are

Co-Founder

David Duhr has written for Publishing Perspectives, the Dallas Morning News, the Iowa Review, Electric Lit, Gulf Coast, and others. He’s been fiction and/or books editor at the Texas Observer, Fringe Magazine (RIP), and ChamberFour (RIP), and was a member of the Yak Babies books podcast (RIP) and Canon Fodder (RIP). His novel is ten (and counting) years in the making.

Book Coaches & Manuscript Consultants

Alex Myers is Director of the Mountain School of Milton Academy and a graduate of Harvard University, where he earned degrees in Near Eastern Languages and Religious Studies. Alex has published novels with Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Severn House, and more, and a nonfiction book, Supporting Transgender Students. His essays have appeared in The Guardian, Newsweek, and Slate, with three essays named as “notable” in Best American Essays.

Arielle K. Jones is a Black and queer writer from California’s Central Valley. They earned their BA from San Francisco State University, and their MFA from Fresno State University. She is a Tin House Summer Workshop alumna and Best of the Net Finalist with pieces in The Rumpus, Alternating Current Press, Blood Tree Lit, and others. Her work tends to portray intimacy and underrepresented identities through taboos and fairytales.

David Bushman is the author of five books, including, most recently, Murder at Teal’s Pond: Hazel Drew and the Mystery That Inspired Twin Peaks (Thomas & Mercer, January 2022) and Forget It, Jake, It’s Schenectady. He spent twenty-five years as a TV curator at The Paley Center for Media, two years as program director at TV Land, and four years as a television editor and critic at Variety. He is on the board of the New York chapter of the Mystery Writers of America and runs Fayetteville Mafia Press and Tucker DS Press.

Joanna Acevedo is a writer, educator, and editor from New York City. She was nominated for a Pushcart in 2021 for her poem “self portrait if the girl is on fire” and is the author of three books and chapbooks, including Unsaid Things (Flexible Press, 2021) and List of Demands (Bottlecap Press, 2022). Her work can be found in Apogee, Hobart, and the Rumpus, among others. She received her MFA in Fiction from New York University in 2021 and is supported by Creatives Rebuild New York: Guaranteed Income For Artists.

JoAnna Novak’s debut memoir, Contradiction Days, was published by Catapult in 2023. She is the author of the novel I Must Have You and Meaningful Work: Stories, as well as five books of poetry. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Paris Review, The New Yorker, and elsewhere.

Jules Vasquez’s first novel, Plague City, won the Kenneth Patchen Award for the Innovative Novel (2019). Their chapbooks include Fallout, Saints and Dirty Pictures (little m press, 2009) and Yet Wave (the Lune, 2017). They also coauthored The Smoke Bar (2022) and Waiting for Samuel Beckett (2022) with Leslie D. Soule. They’ve been published widely, but don’t like to name drop or brag. They enjoy noise/drone music, cheap takeout, B-rated gangster/sci-fi flicks, and long walks off short piers.

mónica teresa ortiz (they, them) was born and raised in the Texas Panhandle, and is the author of “muted blood” and “autobiography of a semi-romantic anarchist.” They have facilitated writing workshops for women factory workers in Mexico, The Operating System based in NYC, as well as for the Central American collective and multimedia production house, Tierra Narrative. ortiz is also currently a Freedomways journalist in residence.

Resa Alboher is a founding editor of the St. Petersburg Review, teaches creative writing at LA Writer’s Group, and has been a lecturer in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia. Her work appears in Roads & Kingdoms, Cosmonauts Avenue, Rattle, Sundance TV, AMC TV, and others, and she’s been a staff writer for Mango Salute and Rewire Me. She holds an MFA in creative writing from University of Tampa, spent two decades working, traveling, writing and daydreaming in Russia, and now lives in the City of Angels.

Tariq Shah is the author of Whiteout Conditions (Two Dollar Radio). A Best of the Net award nominee, his work has appeared in Pleiades Magazine, The Indianapolis Review, Electric Literature, Joyland Magazine, Prelude, Diagram, jubilat, Diode Poetry Journal, and New Moons: Contemporary Writing by North American Muslims Anthology, edited by Kazim Ali (Red Hen Press). A former peace corps volunteer in Mozambique, Tariq was born in Illinois and now lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Tom Andes is the author of the detective novel Wait There Till You Hear from Me (Crescent City Books). His stories have appeared in dozens of publications including Best American Mystery Stories and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. He works as a freelance editor and writing coach, teaches, picks up catering shifts, pet sits, and moonlights as a country singer. Two critically acclaimed EPs of original songs was be released on vinyl by Southern Crescent Recording in 2025.

Editorial Staff

Brad Tyer is editor of Montana Free Press. He’s worked twice as managing editor of the Texas Observer (where he oversaw literary coverage), and twice as editor of the now defunct alt-weekly Missoula (Montana) Independent. He’s been awarded a Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellowship and a Fund for Investigative Journalism grant. His nonfiction book, Opportunity, Montana: Big Copper, Bad Water, and the Burial of an American Landscape (Beacon Press) earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly.

Elizabeth Merck is a writer, editor, blogger, amateur concert photographer, and poet. For more than twenty years, she worked in the nonprofit sector, using storytelling to raise money for a variety of causes. Before joining WriteByNight, Liz spent several years as a deputy editor at Write My Wrongs Co. In January 2002, she opened her own freelance editing business. She has a BA in psychology from Marymount University and an MBA in nonprofit management from Walden University.

John Sibley Williams is the author of six collections, including The Drowning House (Elixir Press Poetry Award), As One Fire Consumes Another (Orison Poetry Prize), Skin Memory (Backwaters Prize), and Summon (JuxtaProse Chapbook Prize). A 19-time Pushcart nominee, John is editor of The Inflectionist Review, teaches for Literary Arts, and works as a literary agent. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Rivier and an MA in Book Publishing from Portland State.