FLARE JOURNAL
EDITORIAL BOARD
Claire Benevento is a queer writer from Kirksville, Missouri, where she attended Truman State University, majoring in creative writing and Spanish and serving as the poetry editor of Windfall, Truman's student literary magazine. Now she's an MFA student in University of Missouri-Kansas City's Creative Writing and Media Arts program, studying poetry. She also teaches composition at UMKC. Her poetry appears in Steam Ticket, Backchannels, and Number One Magazine.
Claire Benevento
Poetry Editor
Michelle Qiao
Editor-in-Chief
Michelle Qiao is a writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is a seven-time national YoungArts winner, a three-time Scholastic Gold and American Voices Medalist, and a California Arts Scholar. In performance, she is the CHSSA state and NSDA national champion in spoken word poetry. Her stage play was produced at a festival previously funded by the David Letterman Foundation; her work has been recognized by the Lincoln Center for the Arts, published in over a dozen anthologies, staged at the San Jose Museum of Art, and featured on PBS, the New York Times, Hueman Group Media, and Broadway World. Michelle has been named a 2021 National Kindness Fellow for her grant-funded project Stories to Heal combating AAPI hate with storytelling as well as a Stanford SPICE China Scholar. She is very passionately involved in social work at Writopia lab and as an intern at the California AEA, and serves as the Santa Clara County Vice Youth Poet Laureate.
Chidiebere Udeokechukwu is an Igbo Nigerian lawyer who has worked as an editor for Cicero's Brief (A student Literary periodical). He is a poetry reader for Carve Magazine and Sepia Quarterly, a review writer for Writers Space Africa and a poetry editor for The Crusaders Magazine. He is a recipient of an NYSC commendation award for meritorious contributions towards national development. You can find his music content on YouTube and music streaming platforms like Audiomack under the name "Geo Lawrence".
His poems have appeared in Irawo Poetry Anthology, Writers Space Africa Magazine, Small Leaf Press (Jaden) Magazine and Poetic Africa.
Chidiebere Udeokechukwu
Poetry Editor and Outreach
Beck Anson (he/they) is a queer and trans writer whose work appears in Rattle, RHINO, Humana Obscura, and others. His poem “I Admit Myself to the Psych Ward in a Pandemic” was a finalist for the 2020 Rattle Poetry Prize. Their work features themes of mental health, gender, sexuality, family, permanent loss, and spirituality. A botanist by education, Beck often uses the natural landscape of his surroundings as a backdrop to much of his writing. Beck was co-editor-in-chief of their high school’s literary magazine,The Aviary. They live with their cat Freddie in Northampton, MA where they are working on a PhD in plant biology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Find him on Instagram @beckansonpoet and read more of their work at their website.
Beck Anson
Poetry & Prose Editor and Grant Funding Lead
Hannah Deatherage (she/her) schedules meetings by daylight and writes speculative fiction by moonlight. She is a graduate of Ohio University with a BA in English, completed an editorial internship at Dzanc Books, and has been a freelance editor for five years before coming to Flare. She loves cats, geese, pigeons, Final Fantasy, and a good cup of tea.
Hannah Deatherage
Poetry & Prose Editor and Social Media Manager
Veronica Marshall received her Master’s in Fine Arts from Otis College of Art and Design in 2021. Marshall is a painter of abstract and figurative and is constantly inspired by different perspectives, and is a reader for Clepsydra Literary and Art Magazine as well as Ariel Publishing LLC.
Veronica Marshall
Art Editor
Hope has a BA in Creative Writing as well as a MA in Library Science and is currently working as a Library Assistant. She has published work in Cherry Magazine Denver, Youtini Book Box, and received an Honorable Mention from L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future. When she isn’t reading or writing, Hope can usually be found watching a movie or playing with her one-year-old, Gabe.
Hope Barajas
Prose Editor and Outreach
Sam Capps (he/him) is a software engineer by trade who moonlights as a poet and an electronic music producer. He likes dogs, trees, Pokémon, and coffee. You can find his video and music content on YouTube and music streaming services like Spotify under the name Winifred The American.
SAM CAPPSd
Prose Editor
Meg Peters is an artist and poet currently based in Portugal, the United States, and Australia. Graduating with a degree in International Relations, she has written and spoke on topics from human rights to environmental concerns. Her current literary work blends together personal experiences and the living environment, in effect an effort to capture a modern human experience in poetry, prose, and art pieces. With works published from a range of art and literature journals, Meg has turned to combine various art forms and writing styles to seek creativity and the possibility of literary styles.
Meg Peters
Poetry & Prose Editor
Claire Benevento is a queer writer from Kirksville, Missouri, where she attended Truman State University, majoring in creative writing and Spanish and serving as the poetry editor of Windfall, Truman's student literary magazine. Now she's an MFA student in University of Missouri-Kansas City's Creative Writing and Media Arts program, studying poetry. She also teaches composition at UMKC. Her poetry appears in Steam Ticket, Backchannels, and Number One Magazine.
Claire Benevento
Poetry Editor
Tanvi Jeph is a 14 year old writer and poet. She likes to read books and comics in her free time. She is also currently the editor at the SeaGlass literary magazine, The Affair Magazine, and YSJR. She is the Junior editor at Polyphony lit, and was a guest teen editor at the Inlandia Institute. She also the Movie editor at New Scenes Magazine and a sub-editor at DivWrites Magazine. She also has her own organization, The Dried Review which she opened in April 2022.
Tanvi Jeph
Poetry Editor and Social Media Manager
Jasmin Bajwa
Prose Editor and Media Content Creator
Jasmin Bajwa is a high school senior from Chandigarh, India. She is an ardent lover of psychology and wishes to make great contributions in the field one day. An enthusiast for philosophy, literature and art, she spends a majority of her of time reading and has won several awards at the school and state level in various painting and elocution competitions. She is also passionate about exploring different cultures across the world and can speak four languages- Hindi, English, Urdu, Punjabi and is currently learning French. She has helped several small businesses run successfully through social media during the lockdown and is a member of her school newspaper editorial team. Through the Flare Journal, she wishes to bring about a positive change in this world by joining hands with people from across the world using the most powerful tool of our generation, that is, creativity.
Kei Lim is a first-year at Amherst College looking to study English and perhaps something else, too. They are a submission reader for The Common, and fill as much of their time as possible with reading, writing, and editing. At Amherst, they are Managing Opinion Editor for The Student (the college newspaper), work on The Indicator (a student literary magazine) and are Community Service Coordinator for The Poetry Club. Kei loves teaching, and hopes to inspire in others, a lifelong love for the literary arts.
Kei Lim
Poetry & Prose Editor
Elise Farotto is a writer and the co-founder of a traveling female artists salon. She earned her BA in Cinematic Arts Film & TV Production from USC, her MBA from Pepperdine, and has participated in writing workshops with Fine Arts Work Center, Iowa Summer Writing Festival, and the Women’s Fiction Writers Association. She lives and works in Hollywood.
Elise Farroto
Prose Editor
Blessing Amatemeso is a creative writer whose work have been published in Writers Space Africa Magazine, Touch magazine, Writers Space Nigeria- Anthology and Anthology of Society of Young Nigerian Writers. In 2021, She wa nominated for the African Writers Award in creative non-fiction. Her
Children's story is on the short list for the Wakini Kuria award. She is a lover of art in all forms but most especially written art for it capacity to greatly affect the mind
Blessing is a native of Rivers State in South South Nigeria. Currently an undergraduate, Blessing has served in the editorial team of organizations such as the Christian Medical And Dental Association and the Calabar University Medical Students Association. Whe she is not writing she is studying to become a
doctor.
Blessing Amatemeso
Prose Editor
Jessica is a senior at Austin Peay State University, where she is working towards an English major with a Creative Writing minor. When she isn't working at the Austin Peay Writing Center, she is reading, writing, gardening, baking, collecting Squishmallows, and embroidering. Jessica owns two chihuahuas that squished their way into her heart. Her dream is to work as an editor or a teacher while travelling the world. She recently completed an internship position with Zone 3 Journal.
Jessica White
Prose Editor
Ritwik Chaudhary is a writer and theatre artist. He has a BA in English. His work has been published in literary magazines like decomp journal and OneBlackBoyLikeThat Review. Literature and theatre matter to him because they lead to an understanding of life and the world. For this reason, he chose life as an artist.
Ritwik Chaudhary
Poetry & Prose Editor
Carly Westergaard is a writer, editor, reader, and a lover of all things wacky, weird, and whimsical. She serves her last semester as editor-in-chief of Chapman University's Ouroboros Magazine and expect to complete her undergraduate degrees this spring. She would like to extend a great thank you to the Flare Journal team, artists, and readers, all of whom make the publication possible.
Carly Westergaard
Poetry & Prose Editor
N. Flaherty Kimball is an emerging novelist, poet, and artist from Salt Lake City, Utah. A several time Best of the Net Nominee, her work seeks to invoke passion for change and commonality through language. Nicole loves spending time with family, and is notorious for being a serious night owl.
N. Flaherty Kimball
Poetry & Prose Editor
Kayla Adara Lee (she/zie) is a Hong Kong-based writer of mixed Southeast Asian descent. She graduated in 2021 from the YMCA of Hong Kong Christian College after presiding as Chief Editor over its 2018-2019 yearbooks, and is currently studying English Language & Literature at HKUSpace Community College. Most recently, her words have been featured in literary publications such as Humana Obscura, Daisyworld Magazine, and the upcoming second issue of Wet Love. Common themes and topics of interest in her works include cultural loss, critiques of anthropocentrism, and posthumanism.