Editor-in-Chief

Lena Kinder emerged from the mudflats of Alaska as an oddity. She has an MA in creative writing from the University of Southern Mississippi and is pursuing her MFA in creative writing at Hollins University. She has worked on the Mississippi Review and Product Magazine but found herself longing to be amongst fellow weirdos, so she decided to create Folklore Review as an outlet for mud-people like her. If you wish, you can find Lena’s works in Crow and Cross Keys, the Quarter(ly), Product Magazine, and forthcoming in Pinch and Flash Frog—but be warned: you may want to avert your eyes.

Fiction Editor

A former beatnik mime, Hannah Rovska-Strider has worked on the Mississippi Review, the Southampton Review, Questlog, and Product, before settling down at Folklore Review, where she refuses to leave the broom closet, no matter how much Lena begs her. She’s been published in Harpur Palate, Product, Crows & Crosskeys, and a menagerie of other journals under various names that weren’t as cool as the one she’s using now. She is represented by LGR Literary, and you can find her on Bluesky under @HRStrider, Instagram under @HannahRovskaStrider, or on the glistening streets of Broadway where she has kept the role of “Old Deuteronomy” in Cats™️ for forty-five years.

Poetry Editor

Matthew Gustafson is a graduate of Lafayette College and Stony Brook University’s MFA program in Creative Writing and Literature. He’s been published in Long River Review, the Shore, and Eunoia Review. He’s currently trying to befriend the fox in his backyard by leaving out raspberries, and is hoping that you'll invite him to your next Annual Boogie Boarding Competition, so he can show off his real talent. For boogie board related inquires, his Twitter handle is @mgustafsonwords.

Flash Editor

Gideon Simons has spent much of his life oscillating between the always damp lands of Virginia and the sometimes-frozen ones of Colorado, only to somehow end up in Mississippi. Beyond graduating from Virginia Tech with an MFA, this eccentric orbit has seen him working as technical writer, journalist for The Sentry, editor at the minnesota review, and independent game developer. From these varied semi-professions, Gideon has assembled an idiosyncratic writing style with which to explore the artistic possibilities unique to fiction. He hopes to investigate the inherent oddity and malleability of prose while pursuing a PhD at the University of Southern Mississippi and reading for Folklore Review and The Militant Grammarian.

Nonfiction Editor

Feared by most but beloved by many, G.W. Wallace is a nonsense writer and native of the Florida Panhandle. His work explores the quiet, tired burdens impressed upon those who come of age in the American South. He often considers selling out, but has yet to find any buyers.

Wallace earned his M.A. in fiction writing from the University of Southern Mississippi’s Center for Writers. Currently, he works as a contributing reporter for the Mississippi Free Press and an academic administrator at his Alma Mater’s School of Performing and Visual Arts. He is published in Sky Island Journal, West trade Review, and perhaps even elsewhere (but he’ll never tell).

Wallace is also currently selling his car— a 2017 Ford Fiesta with ~116,000 miles. He would leave a line for car-related inquiries, but you really don’t want it.

Art Editor

Julia Thaggard is a student at the University of Southern Mississippi, currently studying visual design with an emphasis in drawing and painting. With a deep appreciation for vintage illustration, she dabbled in far too many mediums for her own good and enjoys creating and illustrative work and wood-burning art.

Fiction

Grace Huang is not under your bed. She does not have three ghastly, wormy, possibly haunted bisque dolls from about 1900, and she does not convince herself that whenever she doesn't write a page before bed, they'll knock on her bedroom door at night holding an unwashed butter knife… Which isn't dangerous, per se, but is still enough to motivate her. This way, she can live to write and write to live. This is not a warning.

Fiction

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 the University of Southern Mississippi and is now pursuing her PhD at USM. She has been writing her entire life, but only recently been trying to get her stories published. Her work has appeared in Zoetic Press's NonBinary Review and Alphanumeric. She’s just a girl that likes to write and teach.

Fiction

Kailyn Kausen is a writer from the California Central Valley with an MFA in Creative Writing and Literature from Stony Brook University. Farming is in her family’s blood, and she finds herself writing again and again about what farming might look like in the future. Previously, she was the Editor-in-Chief of the Spectrum literary journal and has been published in Disturbed Digest, The Writing Disorder, and The Bitter Oleander. Her academic work has been featured in Peer Undergraduate Research and Mentoring. She was also a reader for the Southampton Review Short Fiction Prize. Someday she’ll use the money from a book deal to purchase a small farm where she can live with no fewer than five dogs, ten chickens, and a garden arch covered in cucumber vines.

Fiction

Haley Wheat is a graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi's MA program in creative writing. She has previously worked as an editor for Product Magazine and The Southern Quarterly, and has been published in The Beacon, Riveted Literary, and Fiction Attic Press. She spends most of her days consuming unruly vampire media and contemplating the virtues of rats. 

Flash

M. Caroline McCaulay is a writer who has only ever lived in states with four syllable names. She earned her MFA in Fiction at Indiana University and her PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Southern Mississippi. Her stories have appeared in New Limestone Review, Portland Review, and Boudin, the online home of The McNeese Review.