Thanks to all of the readers from across the country who volunteered their time for the 2020 WNBA Writing Contest Reading Committee! Led by their fearless leader, Andrea Auten, the committee read several hundred fiction, nonfiction, flash prose, and poetry submissions.
Contest Chair & Writing Contest Reading Committee Lead Editor: Andrea Auten
Andrea Auten is a cross-genres writer. She holds a Master’s in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles where she is adjunct faculty. An outreach manager for The Nasiona Nonfiction Publishing Organization, she assists in providing a platform for unique, diverse voices. Her writing can be found in Lady/Liberty/Lit, Lunch Ticket, the Antioch Voice, and Made in LA’s third anthology: Art of Transformation. Find Andrea Auten on Twitter and IG: @andreaautenarts and at her website.
WNBA Writing Contest Reading Committee
Fiction Lead Editor
Kori Wood has a BA in English with a focus in literary theory and a Master’s in creative writing. She is a former editor-in-chief of Lunch Ticket, a 2018 Los Angeles Book Review Fellow, a freelance writer, and a current fiction reader for Crave Magazine. Her work has appeared in Grist: A Journal of the Literary Arts, Passages North, The Emerson Review, Tiferet Journal, and Fresh.Ink, among others.
Fiction Lead Assistants
Jahzerah Brooks is a writer and mother who recently earned her MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles. Jahzerah lives in the Midwest and has served as both Fiction Editor and Lead Fiction Editor at Lunch Ticket (2017-2019). She currently serves as assistant fiction editor at The Boiler. Her fiction has been published in Mock Turtle Zine. Jahzerah is working on her first novel.
Adrien Kade Sdao earned their MFA in Creative Writing (Writing for Young People) from Antioch University Los Angeles, where they now teach through the Continuing Education program inspiration2publication. They are a reader and guest editor for Voyage, a young adult literary journal. Their work has appeared in Lady/Liberty/Lit, Drunk Monkeys, K’in, Lunch Ticket, and more. They live in North Hollywood with their cat, Shelly. Find out more on their website.
Gabriella Souza lives and works as a writer and editor in Baltimore. She won the 2020 San Miguel Writers’ Conference Writing Contest and placed second in New South’s 2020 Prose Contest. She received her MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles, where she received an Eloise Klein Healy Scholarship. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in North American Review, New South, BULL, Cosmonauts Avenue, Lunch Ticket, and Litro, among others. She is at work on a novel.
Stephanie Teasley is a freelance writer for Cuisine Noir and the Managing Editor for Soul in Space. She received her MFA in Creative Writing and her B.A. in Liberal Studies from Antioch University in Los Angeles. She worked on the blog, web, community outreach teams for Issues 16 and 17 was the blog and content director on Issue 18 on Lunch Ticket. She volunteers at a nonprofit cat shelter and lives outside of Palm Springs, CA. Find Stephanie at: Stephanie Teasley.
Creative Nonfiction Lead Editor
Diane Gottlieb is a writer and educator whose essays and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in Modern Loss, The Manifest-Station, The VIDA Review, The Rumpus, The Hedgehog Review Blog, Hippocampus Magazine, Brevity’s Nonfiction Blog, and Entropy, among others. She has an MSW, an MEd, and received her MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles where she served as lead editor of creative nonfiction for Lunch Ticket. You can find her bi-weekly musings at WomanPause, her blog for Women Over 50.
Creative Nonfiction Assistant Editors
Kate Carmody is a recipient of a CINTAS Foundations grant supporting artists born in Cuba or of Cuban descent. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Potomac Review, No Contact, Los Angeles Review, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, and Lunch Ticket, among others. She received her MFA from Antioch University in Los Angeles. She teaches writing courses at Antioch and Austin Bat Cave. She lives in Denver, Colorado with her husband and dog. The three of them are in a band called Dadafacer. Find her on Twitter at @KateCarmody8 Instagram: carmo8.
Shaneka Jones Cook lives and works as a writer and editor in Washington, DC. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles and a BA in English from Trinity Washington University in Washington, D.C. She is a licensed realtor in the state of Maryland. She is a former elementary school teacher who writes fiction, poetry, short stories, and creative nonfiction. She has been published in The Record (Trinity Washington University), Trinity Magazine, and most recently Antioch University’s very own Lunch Ticket. She served as an assistant editor, interviewer and guest interviewer of Lunch Ticket. She is currently working on a collection of short stories and launching her website and blog “Literary Lenses.”
Alexis McCadney earned a BA in English Literature from the University of San Francisco, where she also studied a duel Minor in German and African American Studies. She has worked as an editor and assistant editor for Ignatian Literary Magazine and interned at Litquake’s Bay Area location as a social media intern. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. While attending Antioch, she worked on student-led literary magazine, Lunch Ticket, as a nonfiction assistant editor, assistant blogger, community outreach leader, graphic designer, and research lead.
Sarita Sidhu is a writer and activist in Southern California. She was born in India and grew up in England. Sarita takes our collective work seriously and understands the importance of laughter and fun. Her writing has been published or is forthcoming in 100 Word Story, Riverside Art Museum’s Online Exhibition, and Lunch Ticket. She received her MFA in creative nonfiction writing from Antioch University Los Angeles, and she was honored to be the student commencement speaker in December 2018. You can find her on Instagram @saritaksid.
Flash Prose Lead Editor
Loumarie Ivette Rodriguez is a newspaper reporter in Connecticut and earned her MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles. She was previously the editor-in-chief for the Lunch Ticket literary journal for Winter/Spring Issue 17 and Summer/Fall Issue 18. She is an adjunct professor at Post University and is currently working on her novel along with several short stories. In her spare time, she co-hosts a movie review podcast called Worth a Watch with Loumarie and Steve found streaming on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. You can find her on both Twitter and Instagram at @rloumarie26.
Flash Prose Assistant Editors
E.P. Floyd is a writer and editor who will pursue her PhD in creative writing at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee starting Fall 2021. Her work appears in Electric Literature, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. She earned her bachelor’s in journalism from UW-Madison and an MFA in creative writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. Floyd was Antioch’s commencement speaker in December 2019. She served as blog editor, content manager, flash prose editor, and an assistant interview editor of Lunch Ticket for Issues 13, 14, and 15. Floyd lives and writes in rural Wisconsin, where she helps manage her family’s organic mushroom farm.
Ronni Sandroff is the former health editorial director for Consumer Reports, where she worked for 13 years. Previously, Sandroff was a health columnist for McCall’s and published articles in The New York Times Magazine, Psychology Today, Sports Illustrated, and many other national publications. Sandroff began her career writing fiction, studied under Kurt Vonnegut at the Iowa Writers Workshop, and published two books of fiction with Alfred A. Knopf: Party Party and Girlfriends and Fighting Back. Her short stories have appeared in Redbook, Cosmopolitan, and Prairie Schooner. She is currently working on a volume of flash fiction.
Poetry Lead Editor
Amanda Lopez is a poet and MFA graduate from Antioch University Los Angeles, where she served as the editor-in-chief of the 16th issue of Lunch Ticket. She has served as a management assistant for Write Bloody Publishing and read on the literary journal The Redlands Review as poetry editor during her undergraduate years at the University of Redlands. Her poem “Confession in the Key of Blame” can be found in The Nasiona.
Poetry Assistant Editors
Barbara Fant has represented Columbus, OH in 9 National Poetry Slams and placed 8th out of 96 poets in the 2017 Women of the World Poetry Slam. Her work has been featured by Button Poetry, Def Poetry Jam, TEDx, and published in the Academy of American Poets, Electric Literature, McNeese Review, and The Ohio State University Press. She has received residencies in Havana, Cuba and Senegal, West Africa. She holds an MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles and a Master of Theological Studies from the Methodist Theological School. Her newest poetry collection will be released on Sundress Publications in Fall of 2021.
Erica Charis-Molling is a lesbian poet, educator, and librarian. Her writing has been published in literary journals including Tinderbox, Redivider, Vinyl, and Entropy. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Orison anthology. A Mass Cultural Council Fellow, she’s an alum of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and received her MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University. More of her work can be found on her website.
Cecilia Martinez-Gil has published two full-length poetry collections, “a fix of ink,” the multi-award-winning “Psaltery and Serpentines,” and she co-wrote the award-winning experimental video “Itinerarios.” She publishes poetry and journalism in both Spanish and English, and she is a literary translator, an editor, and a blogger. Cecilia teaches English and Latin American Literatures at Santa Monica College in California and has earned four masters in languages, literatures, creative writing, and sustainability. Visit her website.
Cristina Medina writes and teaches in Los Angeles. She is a graduate of Antioch University Los Angeles MFA program. Her poems and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Los Angeles Review, North American Review, Lunch Ticket, Pidgeonholes, and elsewhere.
