Graduate Student Profiles

Hannah Feustle

Hannah Feustle is a PhD student at the University of Southern Mississippi and a graduate of the University of Memphis’s MFA program in fiction. She is the recipient of the 2019 Deborah L. Talbot Poetry Award from the Academy of American Poets. Her work forthcoming or published in The South Carolina Review, The Worcester Review, Bayou Magazine, LandLocked, The Citron Review, and Chautauqua.

Emily Goldsmith

Emily M. Goldsmith (they/she) is a queer Cajun-Creole poet originally from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. They received their MFA in Poetry and a Graduate Certificate in College Teaching and Learning from the University of Kentucky in 2021. Emily was the 2021 recipient of the Patricia and William Stacy Endowed Fellowship. They are currently the managing editor of Giving Room Mag. Their creative work can be found in The Penn Review, Bullsh*t Mag, Fifth Wheel Press, Pile Press, and elsewhere.

David Greenspan

David Greenspan earned an MFA from UMass Amherst where he won a Best New Poets Prize and served as an editor for Slope Editions. His thesis manuscript, One Person Holds So Much Silence, is forthcoming from Driftwood Press. Recent poems have appeared in DIAGRAM, Protean Magazine, Sleepingfish, Superstition Review, and other journals. 

Brooke Harries

Brooke Harries' work has appeared in Salamander, Sixth Finch, Laurel Review, and elsewhere. She has an MFA from the University of California at Irvine and is a PhD student at the University of Southern Mississippi, where she serves as Associate Editor for Mississippi Review. 

Emilee Kinney

Emilee Kinney (she/her)  is a poet from the small farm-town of Kenockee, Michigan, near one of the Great Lakes: Lake Huron. She received her BA in Creative Writing and History from Albion College in Albion, Michigan, her MFA in poetry at Southern Illinois University Carbondale and is now a PhD student in Creative Writing at USM’s Center for Writers. Her work has been published in The American Journal of Poetry, West Trestle Review, Cider Press Review, SWWIM,and elsewhere. Kinney is a poetry editor for MAYDAY. Her creative interests include the power of place/nature, Irish folklore, magical surrealism, and navigating womanhood and its inheritance (www.emileekinneypoetry.com).

M. Caroline McCaulay

M. Caroline McCaulay is a writer from Carmel, Indiana. She earned her MFA in Fiction at Indiana University and is currently a PhD candidate in Creative Writing. She frequently writes about sisterhood, Hollywood, and mental health – but also about sorority girl werewolves and pregnant cows. 

Andrew McSorley

Andrew McSorley is the author of What Spirits Return (Kelsay Books). A graduate of the MFA program in creative writing at Southern Illinois University, his poetry has previously appeared in journals such as The Minnesota Review, UCity Review, Poet Lore, HAD, and many others. He serves as an Assistant Prose Poetry Editor for Pithead Chapel and is currently a PhD student in English and Creative Writing at the University of Southern Mississippi. 

Keri Miller

Keri Miller is pursuing her PhD in creative writing (fiction) at the University of Southern Mississippi where she was the 2022 recipient of the Dr. Jeremy Lespi Memorial English Scholarship. Her novel-in-progress was a semifinalist for the 2022 Marianne Russo Award from the Key West Literary Seminar. She has work forthcoming in Fiction Southeast.

Marisa Mills

Marisa Mills's fiction has been published by Hydra Publications, Wicked East Press, Ethereal Tales, and Fickle Muses. She earned her BA and MA at the University of South Alabama. Her academic interests include the High and Late Middle Ages, Arthuriana, ecocriticism, and Welsh mythology.

Jennifer Peterson

Lila Robinett

Lila Robinett is a poet from East Texas. She has been published in Ekstasis Magazine, Yes, Poetry, and Five South Journal's The Weekly. She recently received her MFA from Seattle Pacific University and is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Mississippi.