Meet the Staff

Cassidy Fontaine-Warunek - Managing Editor, Prose Editor, Webmaster, and Copy Editor: Cassidy is a senior at Lewis University, majoring in English with a concentration in Writing, as well as minoring in Computer Science. She is also a writing tutor at the university’s Writing Center and president of Sigma Tau Delta. Outside of Lewis, Cassidy participates in writing groups with the Community Writing Project. In her free time, she enjoys cooking, working out, reading, and writing. Some of her favorite authors are: Gillian Flynn, Terry Tempest Williams, and Michelle Alexander. Her work has appeared in Windows Magazine.
Alexciana Castaneda - Asst. Managing Editor & Prose Editor: Alexciana is a Junior at Lewis University, majoring in Public Policy with a minor in Sociology. She is also a tutor and English - Language Learner Specialist in the university's Writing Center. At Lewis, Alexciana has experience as a Community Engaged Learning Facilitator and as the Secretary for Pi Sigma Alpha. She has joined the Jet Fuel Review team in hopes of expanding her knowledge about editing and publishing as well as to help others find their voice. Alexciana has presented twice at Celebration of Scholarship, with her most recent work, “Who Asked the Children? The American Welfare State and the Initial COVID-19 Response” presented in Spring 2021. Some of her favorite writers include bell hooks, Carla Shedd, and Susan Wendell. After graduation, Alexciana plans to pursue her Masters of Public Health degree with a focus in Health Policy and Administration. Her co-authored work has appeared in the Journal on Policy and Complex Systems. 

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Mateusz Czubiński - Prose Editor & Assistant Social Media Editor: Mateusz is a senior at Lewis University, majoring in English with a concentration in Writing with a minor in History. He is an aspiring technical writer, with experience working as a blog writer and Writing Center tutor. In his free time, he enjoys spending time with friends and family, as well as traveling at any given opportunity. If he isn’t with friends and family, he is most likely binging any of his favorite shows - Psych, Scrubs, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and New Girl. 
Haley Leon - Art/Design Editor & Asst. Prose Editor: Haley is a junior at Lewis University majoring in Aviation Administration, with a minor in Dispatch and a Technical Writing Non-degree Certificate. While her main goal is to become a future pilot, she wants to pursue a writing career when she is not soaring in the clouds. Haley enjoys writing short stories, listening to music from other cultures, exploring new cultures, and learning new languages. She hopes to use her newfound knowledge in her future works and in her career as she plans to travel the world. Some of her favorite writers include Mindy McGinnis, Langston Hughes, and Victoria Aveyard.
Lauren Lotarski – Poetry Editor & Copy Editor: Lauren is a sophomore at Lewis University majoring in Psychology and English with a concentration in Literature and Language. She is also employed at the university library. In her free time, she likes to read, draw, knit, and consuming general popular media like movies, TV shows, and video games. Some of her favorite authors are Leigh Bardugo, Charles Dickens, and Neil Gaiman. She hopes to improve upon her writing and knowledge of literature during her time at Lewis and applying it to her future endeavors. 
Sam McFerron - Blog Editor, Asst. Prose & Asst. Poetry Editor: ​Sam is a Sophomore at Lewis University. They are an English Major with a concentration in literature and hopes to procure a minor in Philosophy. They aspire to become a professor of literature and spend most of their free time reading and writing music. They hope to improve upon their writing skills as well as their literary analysis skills during their time here at Lewis and are seeking publication within this time frame. Some authors they recommend are David Foster
Wallace, MIlan Kundera, William S. Burroughs, and Kate Chopin.
Brandon Peck - Asst Blog Editor, Prose Editor, and Layout Editor: Brandon is a Senior at Lewis University. He holds a great interest in painting miniatures and writing stories in his spare time. In addition, he enjoys many different kinds of media, ranging from movies to anime to video games, always keeping up to date with the latest trends of the time. Some of Brandon’s favorite pieces of writing include Devastation of Baal, Baneblade, Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse, and Fallout: New Vegas.
Sylvia Szewczyk - Asst Blog Editor: Sylvia graduated in May of 2021 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Human Resource Management and Psychology, as well as with a minor in Polish Language and Culture. While at Lewis, Sylvia was a Community Engaged Learning Facilitator, a founder for Lewis’s Habitat for Humanity Chapter, as well as a LUMINATE Volunteer leader. She currently works full-time as an HR Generalist and joined Jet Fuel Review in hopes of following one of her lifelong passions - writing. Her favorite genres to read are historical fiction, sci-fi, and mystery. In her free time, she likes to paint, do puzzles, play the piano, read, rock climb, and hike. She loves to travel and does it spontaneously, but wishes she could do it more often. After getting her Master’s, she plans on moving to Poland for a few years to experience work and life there.
Jason Ludtke – Prose Editor and Asst. Blog Editor: Jason is a Junior at Lewis University majoring in Business Administration. His free time is filled with various hobbies, as he likes to read, listen to
music, go to concerts, play various video games, go on runs, and watch all kinds of tv shows and films. Some of his favorite writers include Christopher Paolini, Edgar Allen Poe, and J.R.R. Tolkien.
Selena Tomas - Asst Poetry Editor: Selena is a Junior at Lewis University, majoring in English and Secondary Education. She is also a writing tutor at the Lewis University Writing Center, as well as the Vice President of Sigma Tau Delta. She aspires to become a high school English teacher after graduation. Outside of Lewis, Selena enjoys reading, writing, playing video games, and spending time with her baby brother. Some authors that she recommends are Kate Chopin and Rupi Kaur.
Alecea Cardillo - Asst Poetry Editor and Layout Editor: Alecea is an English Studies major. She was First-Team All-American in the long jump and Second-Team All-American in the triple jump during Indoor Track season. She was also Field Athlete of the Year for the GLVC and was awarded the honor of "Lewis University's Woman Student-Athlete of the Year."
Patricia Damocles - Editor at Large, Consultant: Patricia graduated from Lewis University majoring in English Language & Literature with a minor in Creative Writing. She is a former editor for Jet Fuel Review and a 2019 Wolny Writing Residency fellow. As the former managing editor for Jet Fuel, she tried to give passionate, aspiring writers a platform to express themselves--especially for the voices of marginalized communities. Some of her favorite writers include Barbara Jane Reyes, Maya Angelou, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Langston Hughes. In her free time, she enjoys reading poetry and short stories, and also making memories with her friends, family, and cats. Currently, she is a reader for Memorious.
Christian Mietus - Consultant:​ Christian is a senior at Lewis University who is an English major and a minor in Film Studies and Russian Language and Culture. In 2019, he received the “Dr. Stephany Schlachter Excellence in Undergraduate Scholarship Award” for his collaborative piece “Assimilation through Sound."  And, in 2020, he received a Wolny Writing Residency fellowship. Additionally, his poem "The Japanese Photography is Covered in Dust" is forthcoming from City Brink Magazine. His main priority is to develop himself as an individual and film connoisseur, which is his current purpose in life. In his free time, he appreciates and dissects cinema as well as consistently rating and reviewing it. Some of his favorite directors are Andrei Tarkovsky, John Cassavettes, Ingmar Bergman, Kenji Mitzoguchi, Bela Tar, Carl Th. Dreyer, Wim Wenders, Andrzej Wajda, and Yasujiro Ozu. He also appreciates different art forms, such as music and literature. Some of his favorite artists are Tom Waits, Can, Aphex Twin, and Quasimoto. Christian hopes to continue expanding his skills as a writer and to encourage others to do so as well. He writes about film for the JFR blog, so check out Christian’s Cinematic Syntax.
​​Mary Egan - Founder: Mary founded the Jet Fuel Review during her senior year at Lewis University. Since graduating, she has ventured into the publishing world. Mary currently works at Goodheart-Willcox Publisher, where she is an Associate Editor in the Health and Health Sciences department. On a typical day, Mary spends at least six hours fiddling with and correcting other people's words, and that's the way she likes it. She still helps to maintain and edit the Jet Fuel Review's blog.  This is Mary's sixth year with the Jet Fuel Review and she is proud of the team managing the journal now. When she's not at work, Mary enjoys whittling down the numbers of unread books on her shelves, participating in National Novel Writing Month, watching Gilmore Girls over and over, and enjoying the time-suck that is the internet.

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​Faculty Advisor
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Simone Muench - Chief Faculty Editor & Advisor: Simone Muench is the author of six full-length books including Lampblack & Ash (Winner of the Kathryn A. Morton Prize; Sarabande, 2005), Orange Crush (Sarabande, 2010), Wolf Centos (Sarabande, 2014), and Suture, a collaborative book of sonnets written with Dean Rader, (Black Lawrence Press, 2017). Her chapbook Trace received the Black River Award (Black Lawrence Press, 2014). Some of her honors include a 2013 NEA fellowship, two Illinois Arts Council fellowships, the Marianne Moore Prize for Poetry, and residency fellowships to Yaddo, Artsmith, and Vermont Studio Center, where she also served as a Visiting Writer in 2016. In 2014, she was awarded the Meier Foundation for the Arts Achievement Award, which recognizes artists for innovation, achievements and community contributions. She received her Ph.D from the University of Illinois and is Professor of English at Lewis University where she teaches creative writing and film studies. Currently, she serves as chief faculty advisor for Jet Fuel Review, as a poetry editor for Tupelo Quarterly, as the poetry editor for JackLeg Press, and as the founder and host of the HB Sunday Reading Series.​ A vegetarian and life-long horror film fan, you can find her at www.simonemuench.com
Carrie McGath - Former Faculty Editor & Advisor: Carrie McGath is the author of a full-length poetry collection, Small Murders, as well as several handmade, limited-edition poetry chapbooks including Dollface, So Sorry to See You Go, Ward Eighty-One, Ohio Lonely, and The Chase. She is currently at work on her second full-length poetry collection, The Luck of Anhedonia. Her poems have appeared in The Tahoma Literary Review, The Chariton Review, The Hiram Poetry Review, Barrow Street, and others and she has worked as an art critic in the city of Chicago since 2009. Her art criticism has appeared in Brut Force, Chicagoist, Newcity, and Third Coast Review and she is the Art Editor for Lovers Eye Press. Carrie is listed on VIDA’ s ‘anti-list’ of Under-Acknowledged Women Writers where author, Monica Drake writes: “…McGath reimagines a world that opens to grand possibility while simultaneously remaining painfully claustrophobic, and therefore married to a new kind of truth.”

Carrie is a Doctoral Candidate at the University of Illinois at Chicago where she teaches
composition and creative writing. Before working toward her doctorate, Carrie received
her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (poetry) from Western Michigan University
before moving to Chicago to earn a Masters in New Arts Journalism and Art History
from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Carrie lives in the Logan Square
neighborhood of Chicago with her sassy tuxedo cat, Sophie.

Consultants
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Jackie K. White - Reader & Consultant: Jackie K. White is an Associate Professor at Lewis where she regularly teaches Introduction to Poetry; Early U.S. Literature; Latino, Latin American, Native American Literature; and Teaching Young Adult Lit. She has a Ph.D. in English from the University of Illinois at Chicago where she specialized in Creative Writing (Poetry) with concentrations in Hemispheric-American Studies and Women’s Studies. A former editor of the literary journal RHINO for nine years, Dr. White also has published numerous poems and translations in such journals as ACM, Bayou, Fifth Wednesday, Spoon River Poetry Review, Third Coast, and online at seven bridges, shadowbox, and prosepoem. com. Her first chapbook, Bestiary Charming won the 2007 Anabiosis Award and her second chapbook, Petal-Tearing & Variations, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2008. A third chapbook of poems, Come Clearing, was published by Dancing Girl Press in March, 2012. Dr. White is also the co-translator of Cesar Miguel Rondon’s History of Salsa and is currently working on a translation of Sherezada Vicioso’s Algo que decir: Essays on Feminist Caribbean Literature.
Jordyn Spangler - Reader & Consultant: Jo recently graduated with a Bachelor's of Arts in English Literature and Language with a minor in Creative Writing from Lewis University. They are a Youth Enrichment Aide for the YMCA. In their free time, Jo enjoys reading, writing, listening to music, and watching movies. Two of these things, reading and watching movies, Jo combines for her film adaption blog, Spangler's From Sentence to Screen. They have been to 10 countries outside the United States, including England, Italy, Turkey, and Austria. One of Jo's favorite book series is The All Souls Trilogy, by Deborah Harkness, because of how she mixes the supernatural with history and the focus on character development. In the future, Jo hopes to go into the publishing industry to help find new and exciting books for people to read. ​
Miguel Soto - Reader & Consultant: Miguel graduated with a Bachelor’s of Arts in English Literature and Language from Lewis University. He is a Wolny Writing Residency fellow. He is also the Founder of Not Another Lit Mag and Poetry Reader for Split Lip Magazine. His writings can be found in [PANK} Magazine, Kissing Dynamite Poetry, 30 N, The Ekphrastic Review, Rogue Agent, and elsewhere. Check out his book reviews published under Jet Fuel Review for a sense of what he loves to read. You can find him at www.miguelasoto.com 
Kasia Wolny - Consultant: Kasia graduated from Lewis University with a B.A. in English, Literature and Language Concentration, and a creative writing minor. Kasia loves to read literature from around the world and across genres; some of her favorites are Toni Morrison, Khaled Hosseini, Wojciech Kuczok, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Diana Gabaldon. In her writing, she likes to focus on short story and essay composition, and on Polish-English translation. Kasia is a mom of two teenagers who, being bilingual, regularly poke fun at her for mispronouncing English words. In her free time, she likes to hike, cook, tend to her garden, visit art museums, and drink tea with friends.  Kasia is the recipient of a 2019 Abraham Lincoln Civic Engagement Award, thus becoming a Student Laureate of The Lincoln Academy of Illinois. She's currently getting her graduate degree in English at UIC-Chicago and is the founder of the Wolny Writing Residency.
Zakiya Cowan - Consultant: Zakiya Cowan graduated from Lewis University with her B.A. in English & Spanish Language and Culture. She is a former editor for Jet Fuel Review, a 2019 Wolny Writing Residency fellow, and a 2020 Brooklyn Poets Fellowship recipient. Her work is published or forthcoming in Hobart, Split Lip Magazine, Windows Fine Arts Magazine, Spoon River Poetry Review, and You Flower/You Feast: A Harry Styles Anthology. Some of her favorite writers include Toni Morrison, Roxane Gay, Eve Ewing, and Safia Elhillo. In her free time, she enjoys listening to crime podcasts, writing, and discovering new bookstores and restaurants to visit in her hometown of Chicago. She is a reader for Memorious, an intern for Sundress Publications, and the interview editor for the new BIWOC run Honey Lit.

​​In Memoriam: JFR Editor Steven T. Seum (July 19, 1978 - December 29, 2017)
Visit here for the Tribute Page 
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Picture
​Graduate 
     Dedicated to Steven Seum

If i could make time stop
I'd freeze the moment before you graduated.

Crystal figures in a curio-cabinet metronome 
close to the edge, so i fear they may topple.
I can't catch them, because i run in slow
motion and these soles have no friction.

I slow down time.
I can't stop the confetti
before it ashes in your eye.
But i can watch it, in slower

            and slower



                         and slower motion. 
 
 
 by Rae Powell

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​In Memoriam: JFR Editor Lucas Boelter (Sept 23, 1990-Sept 24, 2015)
Visit here for the Tribute Page

back of my van

the back of my van and the smoke
is ghosts of white, ephemeral flowers
that puff and sink and we're all here
singing Sunday Morning Coming Down
and Lenny with the nose that holds
a white earring shaped into the word
BANG!, exclamation mark and all,
he says he’s joining the navy
after the trip only if they sing
In The Navy when on the boat
and his pops used to beat the shit
out of him and his sister and collie
too and he once told me
I could look into my daddy's
eyes and see two ghosts fightin'
each other and the ghost wit'
the red back always winnin'
but it’s all right now because he’s
with Margaret now and with his friends
and we're in the back of our van
smoking and singing Sunday Morning
Coming Down
 
 
 by Lucas Boelter

Previous Editors

Bianca Apato, Ryan Arciero, Lauren Barnes, Liz Baudler, Jordan Benes, Brittany Bishop, Katelyn Bittke, Joseph Block, Lucas Boelter, Madeline Brzeczek, Gianna Capperino, Jillian Carlberg, Melissa Carrington, Mary Carroll, Ashley Castillo, Kayla Chambers, Angela Ciarlette, Caitlin Connelly, Melissa Cortez, Michael Cotter, Zakiya Cowan, Brittany Crosse, Amber Curl, Sean Darke, Patricia Damocles, Dominique Dusek, Mike Egan, Henrietta Eghan, Payton Emond, Katie Esposito, Daniel Fiorio, Tim Fitzpatrick, Sarah Ford, Emilio Franchini, Sam Gennett, Mandy Gieseler, Miguel Gonzalez, Audrey Heiberger, Andrea Holm, Kammeran Hughes, Mark Jacobs Sanders, Jake Johnson, Jess Jordan, Jeff Jurinek, Jakob Kagay, Stephanie Karas, Zachary Klozik, Joshua Kostecka, Kari Krajniak, Monika Kois, Kyle Kotas, Lydia Kozlowski, Michael Lane, Emily Lif, Stephanie Lipinski, Kelly Lyons, Mike Malan, Theresa Marten, Nicole Martinez Harn, Salvador Martinez, Grant Mazan, Ashley McCann, Deirdre McCormick, Symone McCoy, China McDonald, Tina McKee, Zachary Meredith, Samantha Moffett, Gabby Muir, Dina Nashed, Jacqueline Nelson, Julie Nettles, Caeley O'Connor, Doug Overbeck, Stephen Papesh, Sabrina Parr, Chris J. Patiño, Kyle Paup, Madelyn Pedersen, Chris Pelech, Tonya Peterson, Lauren Pirc, Carrera ‘Rae’ Powell, Caitlyn Quinlan, Olivia Radakovich, Stephanie Raga, Nicole Reidy, Haley Renison, , Andrea Yvette Rodriguez, Donatas Ruzys, Samantha Rydberg, Bree Scott, Christine Sellin, Steven Seum, Lucas Sifuentes, Noah Slowik, Miguel Soto, Michelle Staje, Ashley Stajura, Rachel Steele, Linda K. Strahl, Reno Stramaglia, Quinn Stratton, Eryn Stochelski, Roslyn Summerville, Keanu Taylor, Armon Thurmond, Kasia Wolny, Victoria Vega, Ashley Zizich
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