Our Mission
Haymaker is the graduate literary journal for Kent State University. We seek to showcase the art and writing of local, national, and international creators while also providing editorial experience to graduate English students at Kent State University.
Editorial Staff
THOMAS MOCARSKI | EDITOR IN CHIEF
Tom is a poet whose work lives within the realms of isolation, atmospheric dissonance, and distant silver linings. He is currently working as a graduate teaching fellow studying literature at Kent State University and has taught first-year Composition and Advanced poetry at the University of Akron. He has worked previously as Editor-in-Chief and Prose Editor for Rubbertop Review. Tom’s research interests deal with the life and works of Thomas Hardy, Victorian Realism, and Queer Theory.
ANNE GARWIG LUCAS | MANAGING EDITOR
Anne is a graduate teaching fellow in literature in the English Department at Kent State University and also teaches poetry workshops and first-year writing at Youngstown State University. Their poetry has been published in Cleaver, Timber, Jenny, and the Mojave River Review, among other venues; and their peer-reviewed scholarship on illustrated memoir in the First World War appeared recently in Assay: a Journal of Nonfiction Studies. Anne’s dissertation research seeks to join recent trends in new formalist thinking to the enduring legacy of the queer in modernism.
SHAYNA SHARPE | NONFICTION EDITOR
After running a national media company for a number of years, Shayna walked away from the corporate world to pursue her true passion of writing. After earning an MFA in Creative Nonfiction through the NEOMFA program, she is currently a doctoral student in the LRSP program.
Shayna teaches at Kent State and the Cleveland Institute of Art. She volunteers teaching local poetry workshops, as well as with Master Gardeners of Cuyahoga County and 4H doing youth and community education. She and her husband live near Chagrin Falls with their cats, flock of chickens, and backyard homestead.
MAHAM KHAN | POETRY CO-EDITOR
Maham Khan is a poet and a Fulbright scholar at Kent State University. Her work can be found in The Aleph Review, The Missing Slate, and Jaggery Lit, among other places.
ANNA VAUGHN | POETRY CO-EDITOR
Anna Vaughn is a poet and graduate student at Kent State University working towards her MA degree in Literature and Writing. She aims to receive an MFA degree in Creative Writing in the future. Her writing has appeared in various issues of the student magazine The Lakelander.
ALEXANDRA SALATA | FICTION EDITOR
Alexandra Salata is a fiction writer and MFA candidate living in Cleveland as she works toward a degree through the Northeast Ohio MFA program. She often writes her way back to the warmth of her home state of Arizona, as she finds the western landscape ripe with thematic potential. She has an MA in literature from John Carroll University and works helping young people find their voices through writing. Her work has been published in Timber Journal, The Rectangle, and The Carroll Review.
Administrative Staff
MATT BREIT | Administrative Support
MIKE SCHUPSKA | Secretary
Readers
Lindsay Collier
Bronte Davies-Billings
Haleigh Ketler
Mischa Klenovich
Jordan Rimpela