Meet the Staff
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Stephanie Karas - Managing Editor: Stephanie Karas is a senior double majoring in Psychology and English with a concentration in creative writing at Lewis University. She has worked as one of the school's Communication Technicians and enjoys spending her free time reading, listening to music, or writing. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in 30 N, The American Library of Poetry, Disquiet Arts, and Creative Communications.
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Jordyn Spangler - Asst Managing Editor, Art & Design Editor: Jo Spangler is a senior at Lewis University, majoring in English Literature and Language with a minor in Creative Writing. They are a writing tutor in the Lewis Writing Center and 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.
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Patricia Damocles - Editor at Large, Consultant: Patricia Damocles 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.
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Christian Mietus - Fiction & Creative Nonfiction Editor, Blog Editor: 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.
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Cassidy Fontaine-Warunek - Layout Editor, Fiction & Creative Nonfiction Editor, Asst Poetry Editor, Social Media Editor, Webmaster, and Copy Editor: Cassidy Fontaine-Warunek is a junior 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 an employee at her local park district. 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.
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Salvador Martinez - Poetry Editor, Book Review Editor, and Copy Editor: Salvador Martinez is a senior double majoring in Political Science and English Writing at Lewis University. He has a completed Associate’s Degree in Arts at Joliet Junior College with the intent of eventually attending law school. He also participates in writing groups held on Sundays by the Community Writing Project, based out of Chicago. He enjoys reading poetry, fantasy, science fiction, classical works, and political theory while listening to music on his phonograph, playing one of his guitars, or simply writing prose or poetry. Check out his book review of Greg Santos' Rabbit Punch!
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Madeline Brzeczek - Art & Design Editor, Fiction & Creative Nonfiction Editor, Asst Layout Editor, Asst Webmaster, and Copy Editor: Madeline Brzeczek is a senior at Lewis University, majoring in English Studies with minors in Creative Writing and Art with the goal of becoming an author. They are also a tutor at the Lewis Writing Center. Madeline spends most their time knitting scarves and marathoning bad horror movies with friends, usually at the same time. They collect antique goblets and are a proud parent to many house plants. Their favorite book is Reckless by Cornelia Funke, Madeline’s favorite author and inspiration to start writing. Their favorite genres are fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Madeline enjoys writing short stories and poetry, recently having been published in Lewis Voices and Disquiet Arts literary magazine.
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Brittany Crosse - Fiction and Creative Nonfiction Editor and Copy Editor: Brittany Crosse is a senior at Lewis University who has previously attended Moraine Valley Community College. She is majoring in English with a concentration in Creative Writing, and hopes to one day make a career out of writing short stories, which has been a goal of hers ever since she was little. In addition to writing, she also plans to teach fiction writing at the university level. Her interests outside of writing include TV shows, anime, music, video games, and books, her favorite authors being Neal Shusterman, Stephen King, and Haruki Murakami. Brittany spends most of her time with her dog Cordelia, a.k.a. “Cordy.”
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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, 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
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Consultants
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Jackie K. White - Faculty 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.
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Miguel Soto - Consultant: Miguel earned his Bachelor’s of Arts in English Literature and Language from Lewis University based in Romeoville, IL. In the summer of 2019, he was the recipient of the Wolny Writing Residency. 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 look him up at www.miguelasoto.com
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Kasia Wolny - Consultant: Kasia has recently 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.
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Zakiya Cowan - Consultant: Zakiya Cowan recently 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.
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Previous Editors
Bianca Apato, Ryan Arciero, Lauren Barnes, Liz Baudler, Jordan Benes, Brittany Bishop, Katelyn Bittke, Joseph Block, Lucas Boelter, Gianna Capperino, Jillian Carlberg, Melissa Carrington, Mary Carroll, Ashley Castillo, Kayla Chambers, Angela Ciarlette, Caitlin Connelly, Melissa Cortez, Michael Cotter, Zakiya Cowan, Amber Curl, Sean Darke, Patricia Damocles, Dominique Dusek, Mike Egan, Henrietta Eghan, Payton Emond, Katie Esposito, Daniel Fiorio, Tim Fitzpatrick, Sarah Ford, Sam Gennett, Mandy Gieseler, Miguel Gonzalez, Audrey Heiberger, Andrea Holm, Kammeran Hughes, Mark Jacobs Sanders, Jake Johnson, Jess Jordan, Jeff Jurinek, Jakob Kagay, 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, Grant Mazan, Ashley McCann, Deirdre McCormick, Symone McCoy, China McDonald, Tina McKee, Zachary Meredith, Samantha Moffett, Gabby Muir, Dina Nashed, Jacqueline Nelson, 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