photo by Hayley Graffunder
(Left to right): First Row (kneeling): Hayley Graffunder, Lauren O’Meally; First Row (standing): Mary Flinn, Katherine Mooney Brooks, Caitlin Wilson, Danielle Kotrla, Ty Phelps, Sonja Livingston; Second Row: Brandie Gray, Melissa Allbrandt, Hope Butler, Tristen Judson, Nicole Milanovic; Third Row: Abby Wolpert, Rachel Rivenbark, Kaitlyn Harrison, Margaret Johnson, Tiffani Neal; Fourth Row: Anthony Ponichtera, Julia Park, Amelia Sellers, Angie Zhao; Fifth Row: Justin Pulver, Colin Bailes, Brandon Young, Justin Wafawanaka;
Sixth Row: Joseph Oetjens, Michael Keller, Mason Robertson, Benjamin Cook, Chase Ober
Lead Associate Editors Caitlin Wilson 2019–2020 Katherine M. Brooks 2018–2019 Brandie Gray 2017–2018 Victoria C. Flanagan 2016–2017 Jake Branigan 2015–2016 Chelsea Gillenwater 2014–2015 Leia Darwish 2013–2014 Lena Moses-Schmitt 2012–2013 Ross Losapio 2011–2012 Emilia Phillips 2010–2011 Grant White 2009–2010 Matthew Baker 2008–2009 Tarfia Faizullah 2007–2008 Kate Beles 2006–2007 Anna Journey 2005–2006 Steven Collis 2004–2005 Maria Hagan 2003–2004 Tara Moyle 2002–2003 Jamye Shelleby 2001–2002 Blackbird, founded in 2001 as a joint venture of the Virginia Commonwealth University Department of English and the former New Virginia Review, Inc., benefits from the contributions of graduate and undergraduate student interns, as well as from MA and MFA Graduate Assistants from the VCU Department of English. Students from the interdisciplinary PhD program in Media, Art, and Text (MATX) have also worked with us in past years, as have community volunteers and MFA alumni. We are grateful for everyone's contributions.
Each year, Blackbird awards the coveted lead associate editor position to a second–year VCU MFA graduate student; to qualify, the student must already have been awarded a graduate fellowship and must have worked as an intern for the journal. The lead associate editor staffs the Blackbird office in the historic Anderson House, and is at the center of all the journal’s activities, working to coordinate communication between literary and production editors, as well as between the editors and contributors.
EDITORS
Mary Flinn, founding editor, began her tenure as the director of the New Virginia Review, Inc. in 1985. She is coeditor, with George Garrett, of Elvis in Oz: New Stories and Poems from the Hollins Creative Writing Program (University of Virginia Press, 1992), and facilitated the editing of The Gazer Within (University of Michigan Press, 2001), a collection of essays by Larry Levis. Flinn served as the poetry and fiction editor of 64 and the editor of the New Virginia Review. She has participated in numerous editors’ panels, served as a judge for literature fellowships from various arts councils, and been a review panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts and the Virginia Commission for the Arts. Flinn won the inaugural Theresa Pollak Award for Words from Richmond Magazine, and Style Weekly recognized her as one of their 2016 Richmond Women in the Arts.
Sonja Livingston, editor, is the author of The Virgin of Prince Street: Expeditions into Devotion (University of Nebraska Press, 2019). She is also the author of the award-winning nonfiction books Ladies Night at the Dreamland (University of Georgia Press, 2016), which was named a best nonfiction book of 2016 by Kirkus; Queen of the Fall (University of Nebraska Press, 2015); and Ghostbread (University of Georgia Press, 2009), winner of the AWP Prize and a Bronze Prize by Foreword. Her essays appear in The Kenyon Review, Salon, Sojourners, and Lithub. Her work is widely anthologized in texts on writing and craft, including in Best of Brevity, Contemporary Creative Nonfiction, Waveform: Twenty-First Century Essays by Women, Poverty & Privilege: A Reader, and many others. She has received fellowships from the New York State Foundation for the Arts, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Deming Fund, as well as awards from Arts & Letters, The Iowa Review, and Ruminate Magazine. Sonja has taught for Writing Workshops Abroad in Edinburgh, San Miguel de Allende, and Cork. Besides being an associate professor in VCU’s Creative Writing Program, Livingston serves as writer-in-residence at the Gap Creek Writers’ Studio and faculty at Vermont College of Fine Art’s Postgraduate Writers’ Conference.
M.A. Keller, online editor, is a technologist, web coordinator, and writing instructor for Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of English. His poetry has appeared in the New Virginia Review, Runes, and The Southern Review, among others. Keller is the author of a chapter, “Meghan Sapnar’s ‘Car Wash’ as a New Media Sonnet,” in RAW (Reading and Writing) New Media (Hampton Press, 2010). His work centers on electronic writing; issues of materiality and multimodal writing; and how to define, support, and teach online publishing and new media. He has taught poetry and advanced writing workshops as well as courses in hypertext and new media. He publishes the visual blog Abaculi and is the editor of The Abaculi Project. Keller earned his MFA in creative writing from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Gregory Donovan, founding editor, is the author of the poetry collections Torn from the Sun (Red Hen Press, 2015), long-listed for the Julie Suk Award, and Calling His Children Home (University of Missouri Press, 1993), which won the Devins Award for Poetry, as well as the co-editor (with Michele Poulos) of Prismatics: Larry Levis & Contemporary American Poetry (Diode Editions, 2020). His poetry, essays, translations, and fiction have been published in The Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, New England Review, TriQuarterly, diode, Crazyhorse, Gulf Coast, Copper Nickel, and many other journals. His work has also appeared in several anthologies, including Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets of Virginia (University of Virginia Press, 2003). Among other awards for his writing, he is the recipient of the Robert Penn Warren Award from New England Writers as well as grants from the Virginia Commission for the Arts and fellowships from the Ucross Foundation and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Donovan has served as a visiting writer and guest faculty for a number of summer conferences and low-residency programs, such as the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Chautauqua Institution Writers’ Center, the River Pretty Writers Retreat, the VCFA Postgraduate Writers’ Conference, and the University of Tampa MFA program. With the writer/director Michele Poulos, he is a producer of A Late Style of Fire, the feature-length documentary on the life and work of the late Larry Levis. Donovan is a founding faculty member of Virginia Commonwealth University’s graduate creative writing program.
Caitlin Wilson, lead associate editor, is a second-year MFA student in poetry at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in ENTROPY, Rogue Agent, Iron Horse Literary Review, and RHINO. She is the recipient of Virginia Commonwealth University’s 2020 Graduate Poetry Award. She is also the winner of a 2019 Association of Writers & Writing Programs Intro Journals Project award in poetry. She earned a BA in English with a minor in creative writing from the University of Maryland, College Park, where she was the recipient of the 2018 Henrietta Spiegel Creative Writing Award and a Jiménez-Porter Literary Prize for Poetry, and served as the 2017–2018 editor in chief of the literary journal Stylus.
Katherine Mooney Brooks, lead associate editor emerita, is a third-year MFA student in poetry and nonfiction at Virginia Commonwealth University. She was twice the recipient of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Graduate Nonfiction Award. Brooks holds a BA in English and art history with a minor in gender, sexuality, and women’s studies from Fairfield University, where she served as the 2015–2016 managing editor of Dogwood. She is a recipient of the 2019 Sewanee Writers’ Conference MFA scholarship in poetry. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Blackbird, Image, and The Tusculum Review.
Brandie Gray, associate editor and lead pagebuilder, holds an MFA in poetry from Virginia Commonwealth University. She is a featured Blackbird editor in an online interview with The Review Review, and her work has appeared in Atticus Review, Appalachian Heritage, and The Boiler. She teaches expository writing at Virginia Commonwealth University and English dual enrollment courses at Reynolds Community College.
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
Colin Bailes, lead copy editor, is a second-year MFA student in poetry at Virginia Commonwealth University. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Boiler, The Cortland Review, Meridian, Missouri Review, and Zone 3, among other journals. He holds a BA in English from the University of Central Florida.
Hayley Graffunder, lead photo editor and co-lead social media editor, is a first-year MFA student in poetry at Virginia Commonwealth University. She earned a BA in English with minors in creative writing and linguistics from the University of St. Thomas, where she served as co-editor of the Summit Avenue Review. She was the recipient of the 2018 Lon Otto Prize for poetry.
Danielle Kotrla, assistant lead pagebuilder, is a first-year MFA student in poetry at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her work can be found in The Pinch, Moon City Review, After the Pause, and elsewhere. She holds a BA in English creative writing and a BA in philosophy from the University of North Texas.
Ty Phelps, assistant copy editor, is a first-year MFA student in fiction at Virginia Commonwealth University. He won The Gravity of the Thing’s Six Word Story Contest in 2016 and VCU’s annual Catherine and Joan Byrne Poetry Prize in 2019. His work appears in Writespace, The Clackamas Literary Review, and Scribble, among others. He holds a BA in English from Carleton College and an MA in teaching from Lewis and Clark College.
Justin Wafawanaka, assistant editor, is a first-year MFA student in fiction at Virginia Commonwealth University. He holds a BA in English from Virginia Union University.
Brandon Young, assistant copy editor and co-lead social media editor, is a first-year MFA student in poetry at Virginia Commonwealth University. He holds a BA in English and creative writing from Indiana University, where he won the Bertolt Clever Poetry Writing Prize.
INTERNS
Melissa Allbrandt, literary intern and copy editor, is a first-year MA student in English at Virginia Commonwealth University. She earned BAs in English and public relations with minors in business and creative writing from VCU. She served as Humanities Section Editor for Auctus Publishers from 2017–2018. Her work has appeared in Grimmer Fairy Tales and Horroscopes from Spectral Visions Press in Sunderland, England, where she worked as an editing intern during the spring of 2018.
Hope Butler, literary intern and photo editor, is a sophomore undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University. She will graduate in the spring of 2022 with a BA in English. She is a copy editor on Plain China’s production team at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Benjamin Cook, literary intern and copy editor, is a freshman undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University. He will graduate in the spring of 2023 with a BS in chemistry.
Kaitlyn Harrison, literary intern and copy editor, is a junior undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her work appears in Life in 10 Minutes. She will graduate in the fall of 2021 with a BS in mass communications and a minor in creative writing.
Phillisha Hopson, literary intern and pagebuilder, is a junior undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University. She will graduate in Spring 2021 with a BA in philosophy and a minor in creative writing.
Margaret Johnson, literary intern and lead audio editor, is a senior undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University. She will earn a BA in English in May 2020 with a minor in religion. Her work has appeared under the name Margaret Sue in Pwatem as well as elsewhere under a pen name.
Tristen Judson, literary intern and copy editor, is a senior undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University. They will graduate in the fall of 2020 with a BA in English. They won VCU’s 2017 Focused Inquiry essay contest in the ethical reasoning argument category, and their work was published in focused inquiry textbooks the following semester. Their poetry is forthcoming in Pwatem literary magazine.
Nicole Milanovic, literary intern and copy editor, is a sophomore undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University. She will graduate in the spring of 2022 with a BA in English.
Tiffani Neal, literary intern and photo editor, is a senior undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University. She has worked as a web editor for Plain China. She will graduate in the spring of 2020 with a BA in English literature and a minor in creative writing.
Chase Ober, literary intern and audio editor, is a junior undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University. He will earn a BA in English in May 2021 with a minor in creative writing.
Joseph Oetjens, literary intern and audio editor, is a senior undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University. He will graduate with a BA in English in May 2020.
Lauren O’Meally, literary intern and photo editor, is a senior undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University. She will graduate after the summer of 2020 with a BS in cultural anthropology and minor in psychology. She has worked on photography and editing since 2010.
Julia Park, literary intern and copy editor, is a freshman undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University. She will graduate in the spring of 2023 with a BA in art history and English.
Anthony Ponichtera, literary intern and copy editor, is a junior undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University. He will graduate in the spring of 2021 with a BA in English.
Justin Pulver, literary intern and pagebuilder, is a senior undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University. He will graduate in Fall 2020 with a BA in English and gender, sexuality, and women’s studies with a minor in creative writing. His work has appeared in Crab Fat Literary Magazine, and he self-published a book of poems, Growing Pains, in 2018.
Mason Robertson, literary intern and pagebuilder, is a junior BFA student at Virginia Commonwealth University studying English. He is a consultant for the writing center.
Amelia Sellers, literary intern and copy editor, is a senior undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University. She will graduate in the fall of 2020 with a BA in English and political science.
Abby Wolpert, literary intern and copy editor, is a senior undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University. She will graduate in the winter of 2020 with a BA in English and a minor in creative writing. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Pwatem, and Levee Magazine.
Angie Zhao, literary intern and audio editor, is a senior undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University. She will graduate in the summer of 2020 with a BA in English and minors in creative writing and history. Her work has been published in Pwatem.
VOLUNTEERS
Kayleigh Dumont, former Blackbird literary intern and copy editor, is a first-year MA English student at Virginia Commonwealth University. She graduated from VCU in the spring of 2017 with a BA in English and minors in creative writing and psychology.
Rachel Rivenbark, literary intern and assistant copy editor, is a junior at Virginia Commonwealth University. She will graduate in the spring of 2021 with a BA in English. She has worked as a nonfiction writer for Quail Bell Magazine.
& MANY THANKS
to all the editors, staff members, interns, and volunteers who triumphed over challenging circumstances and made Blackbird, volume 19, number 1 possible.
Special thanks to Caitlin Wilson, our lead associate editor, for keeping us all focused on this big effort, and for bringing the work of the contributors and the Blackbird team to fruition.
Thanks to Katherine Mooney Brooks for her efforts as lead associate editor emerita and leading our reading group.
Thanks to Colin Bailes for running the copyediting room with good spirits and a meticulous eye for detail, and to his diligent assistant copy editors, Ty Phelps and Brandon Young, and assistant editor, Justin Wafawanaka.
Thanks to Brandie Gray and Danielle Kotrla for leading the pagebuilding team, Margaret Johnson for leading our audio team, and Hayley Graffunder for her leadership of our photo team.
Thanks to Rebecca E. Jones for her outstanding PR and social media efforts.
Thanks to Mary Flinn for her continued support for our editorial staff and contributions to in-house copy, M.A. Keller for teaching interns and supporting our quality and efficacy, and Sonja Livingston for leading social media efforts and championing Blackbird
And to all others—manuscript readers, pagebuilders, audio editors, photo editors, transcribers, and copy editors—our sincere appreciation. 
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