Photo by Hayley Graffunder
(Left to right) Top Row: Joy Luong, Hayley Graffunder, B. Luke Wilson, M.A. Keller, Melissa Allbrandt; Second Row: Elliott Martin, Mary Flinn, Sara Swallow, Danielle Kotrla, Rebecca Poynor; Third Row: Brandon Young, Caitlin Wilson, Kayleigh Dumont, Pao Cordero, Frank Garcia Marquez; Fourth Row: Destiny Price, Rachel Keys, Cameron Simmons
Managing Editors
“Lead Associates” prior to 2021
Hayley Graffunder 2020–2021 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 2002 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 managing editor position, previously titled lead associate editor until the 2020–2021 academic year, 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 managing 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.
Staff listings are by categories.
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.
Clint McCown, editor, is the author of the novels Haints (New Rivers Press, 2012), The Weatherman (Graywolf Press, 2004), War Memorials (Graywolf Press, 2000), and The Member-Guest (Doubleday, 1995), as well as the poetry collections The Dictionary of Unspellable Noises: New & Selected Poems, 1975–2018 (Press 53, 2019), Total Balance Farm (Press 53, 2017), Dead Languages (Anhinga Press, 2008), Wind over Water (Northwoods Press, 1984), and Sidetracks (Jackpine Press, 1977). He has worked as a screenwriter for Warner Bros. and as a Creative Consultant for HBO Television, and had several plays produced. As a broadcast journalist he received an Associated Press Award for Documentary Excellence for his investigations of organized crime and political corruption. He twice won the American Fiction Prize and has received the S. Mariella Gable Prize, the Midwest Book Award, the Society of Midland Authors Award, the Germaine Breé Book Award, a Distinction in Literature citation from the Wisconsin Library Association, an NEA grant, an Academy of American Poets Prize, and a Discover Great New Writers designation from Barnes & Noble. He has twice received Notable Essay citations in the Best American Essays series. His stories, essays, and poems have appeared in over seventy-five national journals and magazines. He has been a contributing editor to a dozen literary magazines and was the founding editor of the Beloit Fiction Journal, which he edited for twenty years. His story collection, Music for Hard Times, is being released in April 2021, to accompany his induction into the Writers Hall of Fame at Wake Forest University. He teaches in the MFA program in creative writing at Virginia Commonwealth University.
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.
Hayley Graffunder, managing editor, is a second-year MFA student in poetry at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in RHINO, Salt Hill, Occulum, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the 2020 Catherine and Joan Byrne Poetry Prize, sponsored by the Academy of American Poets. 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 and was the recipient of the 2018 Lon Otto Prize for poetry.
Caitlin Wilson, managing editor emerita, is a third-year MFA student in poetry at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in ENTROPY, Iron Horse Literary Review, The McNeese Review, RHINO, and Rogue Agent. 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.
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
Melissa Allbrandt, assistant literary editor and copy editor, is an MA student in English at Virginia Commonwealth University, set to graduate in May 2021. She holds BAs in English and public relations with minors in business and creative writing from Virginia Commonwealth University. 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. Currently, she works with the Mighty Pen Project to curate and archive veteran stories.
Danielle Kotrla, lead pagebuilder, is a second-year MFA student in poetry at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her work can be found in The Pinch, Moon City Review, and elsewhere. She holds a BA in English creative writing and a BA in philosophy from the University of North Texas.
Christina McBride, literary intern and pagebuilder, is a first-year fiction student in Virginia Commonwealth University’s MFA program. She graduated from William & Mary with a BA in English and a minor in creative writing.
Rebecca Poynor, literary intern, assistant copy editor, and lead social media editor, is a first-year MFA student in poetry at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Rogue Agent and Chestnut Review. She holds a BA in English from Mississippi State University with minors in creative writing and linguistics.
Brandon Young, lead copy editor, is a second-year MFA student in poetry at Virginia Commonwealth University. His work is forthcoming in RHINO. He holds a BA in English and creative writing from Indiana University, where he won the Bertolt Clever Poetry Writing Prize.
INTERNS
Pao Cordero, literary intern and copy editor, is a senior undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University. This is their second semester working at Blackbird. They have worked as a poetry editor and copy editor for plain china. They have served as president of spoken word group, Good Clear Sound, since 2018. They will graduate in the spring of 2021 with a BA in English with minors in gender, sexuality, and women’s studies, and creative writing.
Rachel Keys, literary intern, social media intern, and pagebuilder, is a sophomore undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University. She will graduate in the spring of 2023 with a BFA in kinetic imaging and a minor in creative writing.
Joy Luong, literary intern and copy editor, is a junior undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University. She will be graduating in the spring of 2022 with a BA in mass communications for strategic advertising and a minor in real estate.
Elliott Martin, literary intern and copy editor, is a senior undergraduate history major and creative writing minor at Virginia Commonwealth University. He is a research fellow with the Virginia Commonwealth University Department of History, and his writing has appeared in Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History and his poetry in Amendment. He will graduate with a BA in the summer of 2021 and is active with several Richmond-area writers and historical associations.
Frank Garcia Marquez, literary intern and copy editor, is a sophomore undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University. He will graduate in spring of 2023 with a BS in biology.
Destiny Price, literary intern and copy editor, is a sophomore undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University. She will graduate in the spring of 2023 with a BA in English and a BS in psychology.
Hannah Torma, literary intern and copy editor, is a sophomore undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University. She participated in a creative writing critique group with published author Sallie Lowenstein for seven years, and formerly worked as a copy editor and designer for the Washington-Liberty literary magazine Penman. She will graduate in 2023 with a BA in English and political science.
Cameron Simmons, literary intern and copy editor, is in his fourth year of studies in Virginia Commonwealth University’s English major program. He is also undertaking a mentorship program with the Richmond Theater Critics Circle (RTCC) to further explore writing as a professional prospect.
Sara Swallow, literary intern, social media intern, and copy editor, is a senior undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University. She will graduate in the spring of 2021 with a BA in English and a minor in creative writing.
B. Luke Wilson, literary intern and copy editor, is a senior undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University. He will graduate in the fall of 2021 with a BA in English and a minor in creative writing. He won the Blue Ridge Writers Blue Nib Award for Fiction in August 2020.
VOLUNTEERS
Kayleigh Dumont, volunteer reader and copy editor, is a second-year MA English student at Virginia Commonwealth University. She graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University in the spring of 2017 with a BA in English and minors in creative writing and psychology.
Justin Pulver, volunteer pagebuilder, is a recent graduate from Virginia Commonwealth University. They graduated in the fall of 2020 with a BA in English and gender, sexuality, and women’s studies, with a minor in creative writing.
Rachel Rivenbark, volunteer reader and copy editor, is a senior undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University. She will graduate in the fall of 2021 with a BA in English. She has worked as a nonfiction writer for Quail Bell Magazine and is employed as copy editor for The Commonwealth Times.
& MANY THANKS
to all the editors, staff members, interns, and volunteers who made Blackbird, volume 20, number 1 possible.
Special thanks to Hayley Graffunder, our managing 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 Caitlin Wilson for her efforts as managing editor emerita, for leading our reading group with direction and grace, and for always pitching in when odds and ends begin to stack up.
Thanks to Brandon Young and Danielle Kotrla for hard work and generosity at a monumental level. To Brandon Young for running the virtual copyediting room with flexibility, thoroughness, and much-needed levity. To Danielle Kotrla for leading the pagebuilding team, always bringing humor, and dedicating much time and energy to building this volume.
Thanks to Rebecca Poynor for masterminding and executing much of Blackbird’s social media, editing bios, and being Brandon’s right-hand.
Thanks to Rebecca E. Jones for her additional social media efforts.
Thanks to Mary Flinn for her many years of commitment to the literary community, continued support of our editorial staff, and substantial contributions to in-house copy.
Thanks to M.A. Keller for supporting our quality and efficacy, and for his extensive effort on Blackbird’s gallery and features.
Thanks to Clint McCown for championing Blackbird.
Thanks to the browse menu team, Melissa Allbrandt, Pao Cordero, and Elliott Martin, for assisting with the task of creating a thematically engaging reading order for the issue’s content. Additional thanks to Melissa Allbrandt for her above-and-beyond work in manuscript assessment.
Thanks to Gregory Kimbrell and VCU Cabell Library for providing captioned videos from the Cabell First Novelist reading event.
And to all others—manuscript readers, pagebuilders, transcribers, and copy editors—our sincere appreciation. Your dedication, ingenuity, and good spirits make it all possible. 
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