Co-Editor-in-Chief & Art Editor, Kristin Emanuel
Kristin Emanuel holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Kansas. She is currently a PhD student in English and Comparative Literature at Washington University. Her latest poems, comics, and essays have appeared in journals such as Ecotone, Shenandoah, and Blackbird.
Co-Editor-in-Chief, Monmita Chakrabarti
Monmita Chakrabarti is a writer from Dublin, Ohio by way of Bengal
Nonfiction Co-Editor, Fernando Sanjenís Gutiérrez
Fernando Sanjenís Gutiérrez is a Puerto Rican / Cuban writer and translator.
Nonfiction Co-Editor, Jeanette Mrozinski
Jeanette Mrozinski is a nonfiction MFA candidate at Washington University in St. Louis. Based in Chicago and Nashville, Mrozinski writes about sex and religion, work and class issues, and our intrinsic value as humans.
Poetry Editor, Tola Sylvan
Tola Sylvan is a poet from Massachusetts. Her poems and translations have appeared in Ploughshares, Poetry Northwest, POETRY, the Adroit Journal, and elsewhere.
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.
Claire Boyer is an MFA student in the Creative Nonfiction Program at Washington University in St. Louis.
Gabriel Ridout is a Filipinx-American poet-scholar, currently a PhD student in English and American Literature at Washington University in St. Louis. The winner of a 2020 Academy of American Poets University Prize, Ridout has been published on poets.org, in Nightboat Books’s Permanent Record anthology, and elsewhere.
Apollo Chastain (ze/hir) is a trans, disabled 23-year-old. The recipient of an Academy of American Poets College Prize and nominee for a Pushcart Prize, Apollo’s creative and academic work has been supported by the Smithsonian Institution and PEN America and appears or is forthcoming in journals including Poets.org, The Michigan Quarterly Review, Meridian, Ninth Letter, The Arkansas International, and RHINO, among others. Ze is a first-year MFA candidate in poetry at Washington University in St. Louis. Pay hir a visit at apollopoet.wordpress.com, or on Instagram @apollo.chastain
Jeron Riley Hicks: strange, odd. Those sorts of things.
Marc-Anthony Valle is a mixed-black poet from the Pacific Northwest. He is an MFA Candidate in poetry (‘25) at Washington University in St. Louis. Marc-Anthony was selected as the runner-up by Monica Ferrell for Tupelo Press’ 2024 Snowbound Chapbook Award, and was a finalist for the 2024 Frontier Debut Chapbook prize. His work has been published or is forthcoming in Frozen Sea, petrichor, and Bat City Review.
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.
Faculty Advisor
Heather McPherson
Advisory Board
Mark Longden
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.