Graduate Student Profiles

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	Bekah Broussard Bekah Broussard is a fiction writer from South Louisiana. She earned her MFA at Old Dominion University and is pursuing a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Southern Mississippi. She enjoys writing about Cajun culture, cooking, faith, and gardening.
	Caitlyn Burns Caitlyn Burns is a poet from smalltown Wesson, Mississippi. She is studying creative writing at The University of Southern Mississippi where she was the 2026 recipient of the Garth A. Avant Memorial Scholarship. Her work will appear in a forthcoming issue of Valley Voices.
	Rheagan Case Rheagan Case is a Ph. D. student in the Creative Writing Poetry program. She received her M.A. in English in 2024 from Mississippi State University. At Mississippi State, she was an editor for the Jabberwock Review and The Streetcar. Since being at USM, Rheagan was the editor-in-chief for Product's 39th issue and EGO's Creative Writing Day Coordinator. She recently presented her paper titled "Revising the Self Under Siege: Baldwin's If Beale Street Could Talk as Act of Renewal" at The Society for the Student of Southern Literature conference at Fisk University. She will also start as USM's Writing Center Coordinator and EGO's vice president in the fall 2026 semester. Rheagan has interned with the Mississippi Humanities Council and the Mitchell Memorial Library at Mississippi State University. She enjoys studying gender studies, race and ethnic studies, digital humanities, and disability studies, and form.
	Kira Compton Kira Compton is a Ph.D. student at the USM Center for Writers. She received her MFA from Boise State University, where she served as associate editor of the Idaho Review. Publications and other oddities can be found at kiracompton.com.
	Caryn Dreibelbis Caryn Dreibelbis is a poet and PhD candidate in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing at The University of Southern Mississippi.  Her research focuses on documental poetics, specifically she investigates the various techniques poets use to incorporate their chosen archive into the work itself. Her work has appeared in Cul-de-sac of Blood, which is a horror poetics journal, and is forthcoming with Valley Voices.
	Sadie Gormanous Sadie Gormanous is a fiction writer from Louisiana currently pursuing her Master’s at USM. She’s been published four times in her undergraduate literary journal, The Quatrain, and presented at USM’s own EGO conference. Her critical interests include medieval literature, and her creative interests include modern and contemporary speculative fiction.
	Madison Hankins Madison Hankins received her Bachelor's degree in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing at the Mississippi University for Women. She recently received her Master's degree in English Creative Writing at USM, where she is now pursuing her PhD in English Creative Writing. Her fiction generally centers around human dynamics and the relationship we have with our environment, though she enjoys simply experimenting with writing. Her work has appeared in NonBinary Review, Alphanumeric, Bright Flash Literary Review, and in Drift & Dribble Miscellany.
	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).
	Curtis Lankston Curtis Lankston is a MA creative writing student at the University of Southern Mississippi from Yazoo City, MS. He is currently the President of USM karate club (Chop To The Top) and a member of Sigma Tau Delta. His works revolve around exploring the dark side of humanity and stigmas of masculinity.
	Isabelle McGill Isabelle McGill was born and raised in a small town in the middle of nowhere in Indiana. She received her bachelor’s degree in English from Ball State University and her MFA in Popular Fiction and Publishing from Emerson College. Currently, she teaches and works in the Writing Center at the University of Southern Mississippi while pursuing her doctorate in creative writing.  She is the recipient of the 2025 Joan Johnson Writing Award in Fiction, the 2025 USM Emerging Artist Award, and the 2026 Garth A. Avant Memorial Endowment. Her debut novel, Princess and the Pauper (Wild Ink Publishing), was released on May 13, 2025. Her interests include young adult literature; writing about mental health, queerness, and familial relationships; and the representation of women in literature both new and old.
	Kathryn McKenzie Kathryn McKenzie received her MFA at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Southern Mississippi where she won the Stanley Hauer Award for Teaching. Kathryn was selected as the runner up of BOOTH's 2025 Flash/Flesh Prize for her poem, "Mummies of St. Michan's Church" judged by Kim Addonizio. She has been nominated for Best New Poets and Best of the Net. Her poetry can be found in Denver Quarterly, The McNeese Review, BOOTH, Gulf Coast, and elsewhere.
	Tristan Roberson Tristan Roberson is a Master's Student in Fiction Writing at the University of Southern Mississippi. His work mainly depicts queer, southern characters, and his scholarship focus is on that of Marxist and Queer studies.
	Hannah Smart Hannah Smart’s short stories and essays have appeared in (or are forthcoming in) the Los Angeles Review of Books, West Branch, The Boston Globe, the Cleveland Review of Books, SmokeLong Quarterly, X-R-A-Y, Berkeley Fiction Review, and more. Her work has been shortlisted in The Masters Review Chapbook Open, nominated for two Pushcart Prizes, and discussed in The New Yorker. She is the founder and editor in chief of experimental journal The Militant Grammarian. Her debut novel Meat Puppets is forthcoming from Apocalypse Confidential in May 2026.
	Maya Wood Maya Wood is a fiction writer from the Mississippi Gulf Coast. She interned as a journalist for Seaside Social News while earning her BA at USM. She is the 2026 recipient of the Dr. Jeremy Lespi Memorial English Scholarship and is pursuing her MA from USM, where she is currently working on a short story collection that explores southern gothic and supernaturally charged themes relating to queer identity, feminism, and “the other” while set in a historical Mississippi landscape.