The Crew

Eneida P. Alcalde

Eneida immigrated to the United States as a child, transplanting her Chilean-Puerto Rican roots into Pennsylvanian soil. A Pushcart Prize-nominated writer and a finalist for the Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize, her poems and hybrid pieces have appeared in literary outlets such as Epiphany, Gulf Stream Magazine, TAB Journal, Poet Lore, and The Best American Poetry Series. She draws inspiration for her writing from her migrant family and ancestors, her young daughter, and the places she has called home—from Valparaíso and Cochabamba to Washington, DC and Singapore. Her debut poetry chapbook, The Wealth We Surrendered, is published by Ethel.

LOLA ANAYA

Lola Anaya is a Puerto Rican poet from East Harlem who explores selfhood and the environment through her writing. She has been published in Ahora Sí, Milk Press, Oyster River Pages, and Same Faces Collective. In addition to being a Brooklyn Poets Fellow in Fall 2025, she was one of the first Brinkley Fellows for the Poetry Society of New York in 2022. Lola has read her work at Unnameable Books in both Brooklyn and Massachusetts, Spoonbill & Sugartown Bookstore, House of YES, Harlem Nights, and the New York City Poetry Festival. You can also read her writing on Substack.

Nidhi Arora

Nidhi is the author of The Lights of Shantinagar, winner of Unbound Firsts 2025, a competition for debut writers of colour. She was born and raised in India, spent a decade in Singapore, now calls London home, but far prefers to inhabit the world of fiction. Her short stories and essays have been featured in journals and anthologies including Best New Singaporean Short Stories, Sonder, Out of Print, The Hooghly Review, The Aleph Review, Cha – An Asian Literary Journal, Quarterly Literary Review of Singapore, Pluto and Tinkle. She offers creative writing workshops for adults and children. To see more of her work, please visit www.nidhi-arora.com

Brian Borchard

Brian (he/him/his) is a reader, writer, swimmer, and antique typewriter collector. In creative nonfiction, he is interested in essays that examine generational impacts on the psyche and highlight marginalized perspectives. Brian joined Oyster River Pages in 2023 following his completion of the Columbia Publishing Course and graduation from Skidmore College with a B.A. in English and psychology. Today, he works as an editorial assistant at Portfolio & Thesis, nonfiction imprints of Penguin Random House. He is a native New Jerseyan who crossed the Hudson and is now based in Manhattan.

Alejandro Concas-Rivas

Los Angeles—based art historian and visual arts editor Alejandro Concas-Rivas recently earned an M.A. in art history from the University of California, Irvine, with a focus on ancient Egyptian art. He has studied art history in Paris, Tokyo, and the Caribbean, experiences that inform his global and interdisciplinary approach to visual culture. In 2025, Alejandro was a publishing fellow with the Los Angeles Review of Books, where he worked across editorial and production workflows, contributing to visual content development and digital publication. Before entering academia, Alejandro was a professional ballet dancer, visual artist, and live video artist. His background in art-making continues to shape his editorial, curatorial, and scholarly practice, blending creative production with critical analysis.

Olivia Delgado

Olivia is a writer based in her home state of South Texas, where she finds inspiration in poetry and memory. Her work has been published in Harness Magazine, Penmen Review, Pearl Press, and Voicemail Poems. Her debut chapbook, Girl Bred from the 90’s, was released in 2022 by Querencia Press. For the past two years, she has served as the poetry editor for Honeyguide Literary Magazine and co-editor for The Field Guide Poetry Mag. Recently, Olivia took on a new role as a literacy tutor, where she shares her passion for reading with children while continuing to pursue a career in publishing.

Alaa El Fadel

Alaa is a world traveller who has spent many years in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing and a Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching & Learning in Higher Education from Kingston University (United Kingdom). Alaa is also a Fellow of The Higher Education Academy. She is a freelance writer and editor in Singapore and is currently writing a fantasy trilogy and science fiction novella series. Alaa is the coordinator of the Singapore Writer’s Network.

PASSANT ELTAREK

Passant is currently a double major in English and Comparative Literature and Marketing at the American University in Cairo. The most magical experience in her life remains having learned how to hold a pen at the age of three. She has never stopped writing since, and her work has lately appeared or is forthcoming in Ligea and The Courtship of Winds, and was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. An avid reader and a language nerd, she's always just a good translated book away from fully indulging in learning a new language.

Jonathan Freeman-Coppadge

In people, as in books, Jonathan (he/him) values those who simultaneously take us out of ourselves and give us permission to be fully ourselves. A graduate of St. John's College and Bread Loaf School of English, he writes and edits on the shores of the Delaware Bay. His work appears or is forthcoming in River Styx, What We Didn’t Expect (Melville House, 2020), Italian Americana, Embark Literary Journal, and Hippocampus Magazine. He is represented by Chris Kepner.

Meredith MacLeod Davidson

Meredith MacLeod Davidson is a poet and writer from Virginia, currently based in Scotland. Meredith's poetry is published or forthcoming in The London Magazine, Puerto del Sol, The Boiler, Dialogist, trampset, antiphony, and elsewhere, with critical writing in The Adroit Journal and North American Review. In 2023, Meredith graduated from The University of Glasgow with a Master's in Creative Writing, awarded with distinction. Meredith is the co-founder, -host, and -editor of crisp packet poetry, a Glasgow-based poetry project providing publication opportunities, workshop programming, and a monthly open-mic night oriented toward queer, disabled, neurodivergent, and chronically-ill poets and performers in Glasgow and beyond.

Lillian Martz

Lillian is a lifelong learner and has discovered that as a professor you can get paid to keep learning forever. She spent more than a decade working as a school counselor before completing a PhD in Counselor Education & Supervision and is now a professor at Portland State University training future school counselors. She is passionate about advocacy and service and has served as a member of the board of directors for Montana School Counselor Association and co-chair of the professional development committee. She believes that writing is a form of self-therapy and turns to poetry in times of emotional distress. She lives with her two cats and two rabbits and her husband of fourteen years in an apartment in Portland, OR with a great view of Mount St. Helens and Mt. Hood.

Akash Mattupalli 

Currently working in semiconductors with a mechanical engineering background, Akash started to write at 15 to understand his identity. Now living in the US, he has also lived in India, Singapore, England, Saudi Arabia, and Spain. Through his work, he hopes to reflect on the intersection of the immigrant Indian identity and the environments that he has lived in.

Jack McSweeney

Jack (he/him) is a poet and songwriter living in Brooklyn. He studied creative writing in his home state at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and has attended poetry workshops at Naropa University. His work explores the power of mundane and artificial forms that make up our modern world. Currently serving as a transcriber for the Prison Journalism Project and a content manager for the Mista Pat Project, his commitment to social liberation is at the heart of his passion for the written word.

Fernando Rodriguez

Fernando is a recent graduate of Hunter College with a double Bachelors of Arts in Creative Writing and Political Science. In his writing, he enjoys character work and political intrigue. He was featured inside Pen America's Dreaming Out Loud: Voices of Migrant Writers Volume 4 for a short memoir titled "Lo Que Perdi". He currently works as a Direct Support Professional, loves reading and illustrating, and is finding his footing in the literary world. His illustrations can be found at www.beeboink.com.

Anna Jordan Romanelli

Anna (she/her) spends most of her time in motion—traveling the world, collecting and telling good stories, hiking and camping whenever she can, or connecting friends who really should know each other. A small-town Pennsylvania girl at heart, she has called fifteen places home over forty-two years and carries each one with her.

She now lives outside Dallas with her partner, their two rescue dogs, and their new baby, who is already being gently inducted into a life of curiosity, adventure, and delicious Italian foods.

The founding visual arts editor of Oyster River Pages, Anna served in that role for eight years. By day she's a technology consultant; by night and on weekends, she’s everything else—a traveler, a creator, a connector, and an enthusiastic participant in just about any adventure that comes her way.

Michelle Tanmizi

Michelle is a second-generation Chinese born in Indonesia. She has travelled extensively and lived in the United States, France, Hong Kong and Tanzania. Singapore is currently her home. Respect for self and others is a guiding value in her life, and the human spirit in their various forms is her passion. Michelle has an MA in Creative Writing, achieved with Distinction from Lancaster University (United Kingdom). Her speculative fiction novel, Late Dawn, was an Amazon bestseller. She writes all forms of fiction, including climate fiction, which reflects her concern about the environment and the planet. Her work has appeared in Porch Literary Magazine and Imprint 2023 and 2024 (the annual anthology of Women in Publishing Society of Hong Kong) and Score (Hong Kong Writers Circle Annual Anthology). It is forthcoming in Imprint 2025.

Ranjana Varghese

Ranjana (she/her) is a first-generation South Asian American writer. Her poetry and creative nonfiction have appeared or are forthcoming in Louisville Review, Blackbird, Missouri Review, and elsewhere. She holds a Ph.D in literature and creative writing from the University of Houston and a Master’s in Social Work from Columbia University. She works as a professor and therapist in Houston, where she lives with her partner and their son. 

Carolyn Wilson-Scott 

Carolyn is a Midwesterner by way of the West Coast and Hiroshima, Japan. A former high school creative writing teacher, she now reviews independently-published books and facilitates writing retreats when she’s not immersed in all things ORP. Her work has been recognized by Stanford University's Bocock/Guerard Fiction Prize, and is published in Aquila Review, Valparaiso Fiction Review, Main Street Rag, Valley Voices: A Literary Review, and Foreword Books.