Co-Editor-in-Chief, Temperance Aghamohammadi
Temperance Aghamohammadi is an Acolyte of the Exquisite. An MFA candidate in poetry at Washington University in St. Louis, they are a multi-genre writer whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Hopkins Review, The Missouri Review, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Meridian, and elsewhere.
Co-Editor-in-Chief & Art Editor, Kristin Emanuel
Kristin Emanuel holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Kansas where she studied the comics poetry movement. She is currently a PhD student in English and Comparative Literature at Washington University, and a museum educator intern at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation. Her latest poems, comics, and reviews have appeared in journals such as Shenandoah, Colorado Review, and The Indianapolis Review, with new poetry forthcoming in Ecotone. She was also selected as a finalist in Boston Review‘s 2022 Annual Poetry Contest.
Fiction Editor, Kipp De Man
Kipp De Man was born and raised in Rockford, Michigan. He received his BA in Film and Media Studies from Calvin University, and he is currently pursuing an MA in the same discipline. Though his primary academic field is Film Studies, his interest and work in writing has been in close, if not equal, step over the years.
Nonfiction Editor, Monmita Chakrabarti
Monmita Chakrabarti is a writer from Columbus, Ohio, by way of Bengal. Their work can be found in The Audacity, Joyland Magazine, The Columbus Dispatch, and Bending Genres, and is forthcoming in Passages North.
Poetry Editor, David Ehmcke
David Ehmcke is an MFA candidate in poetry at Washington University in St. Louis and a member of the team at Dorothy, a publishing project. His work has appeared in the Black Warrior Review, The Adroit Journal, Poets & Writers, Peripheries, Hobart, and elsewhere. David was selected by Megan Fernandes as the winner of the 2023 Maureen Egen Award from Poets & Writers and was selected by Diane Seuss as the runner-up for the 2022 Black Warrior Review Poetry Prize.
Revue Editor, Anastasia Sorochinsky
Anastasia Sorochinsky is a second-year PhD candidate at Washington University in St. Louis. Her work has appeared in publications such as the Harvard Advocate and Birmingham Poetry Review.
Readers
Amy Peltz is a writer and artist originally from New York. Prior to coming to Washington University in St. Louis, she worked as an editor, mostly of art and art history publications, and made comics and performance art. These experiences and her studies in philosophy now inform her fiction.
Carolyn Liu is a current PhD student at Washington University in St. Louis in the English and American Literature program. They hold an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
Claire Boyer is an MFA student in the Creative Nonfiction Program at Washington University in St. Louis.
Fernando Sanjenís Gutiérrez is a Puerto Rican / Cuban writer and translator. Prior to pursuing an MFA in creative nonfiction at Washington University in St. Louis, he was a bilingual teacher trained in language acquisition, phonics, and translanguaging. Gutiérrez has also moonlighted as a DJ, worked in film and radio, and spent over a decade cooking, serving, and bartending at many renowned and disreputable restaurants. He rents a free little library in a very nice neighborhood.
Gabriel Ridout is a Filipinx-American poet-scholar, currently a PhD student in English and American Literature at Washington University in St. Louis.
Jeron Riley Hicks: strange, odd. Those sorts of things.
Laura Jimenez is a first-year MFA student in Creative Nonfiction Writing program at Washington University in St. Louis.
Maria Kane is a PhD student in English and American literature at Washington University in St. Louis. Her research examines women’s writing, the history of reading practices, and the construction of aesthetic categories. As a writer of short fiction, Kane embraces imaginative approaches to literary scholarship and archival exploration.
Max Carol is a PhD student in the English department at Washington University in St. Louis. His research primarily focuses on British and Irish modernism and postcolonial studies.
Sara Flores Sara Flores is an English PhD student at Washington University in St. Louis. She spends a lot of time reading/writing/ranting about how religion impacts identity formation. When she’s not doing that, she’s probably watching baseball or out for a walk.
Syd Westley is a trans poet and artist from the Bay Area. Their work has been supported and/or published by Lambda Literary, Frontier Poetry, Lantern Review, and others.
Tola Sylvan is a poet from Massachusetts. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry Northwest, Salamander, Vallum, and POETRY. She is an MFA candidate at Washington University in St. Louis.
Faculty Advisor
Heather McPherson
Advisory Board
Rhiannon Amato
David Schuman
Abram Van Engen
Cass Donish, Editor Emeritus
Cass Donish is the author of the poetry collections The Year of the Femme (University of Iowa Press, 2019), winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize, Beautyberry (Slope Editions, 2018), and the forthcoming Your Dazzling Death (Knopf, 2024). Their nonfiction chapbook On the Mezzanine (2019) was selected by Maggie Nelson as winner of the Gold Line Press Chapbook Competition.
Kelly Caldwell (1988-2020), Founding Editor
The Spectacle was founded by trans poet, writer, visual artist, and scholar Kelly Caldwell, who co-edited the magazine with her partner, Cass Donish. She is the author of Letters to Forget (Penguin Random House, 2024) and her writing has appeared in Denver Quarterly, Entropy, Fence, Mississippi Review, The Missouri Review, Seneca Review, The Rumpus, and VICE. Kelly was the winner of the Norma Lowry Memorial Prize and the Cornelison English Award from Washington University in St. Louis, the winner of an Academy of American Poets University Prize, and the winner of the 2019 Greg Grummer Prize, judged by Jos Charles. To learn more about Kelly’s life and work, please read our memorial feature and visit her website.