THE SPEAKEASY PROJECT

Tyler Tsay is the co-founder of The Blueshift Journal. His work, both past and upcoming, has been or will be published in The Offing, The Margins: Asian American Writers Workshop, DIAGRAM, Vinyl Poetry and others. He is the recipient of the Bullock Poetry Prize, awarded by the Academy of American Poets and judged by Camille Rankine, and is a current staff member at BOAAT Press.

Eve Nixen grew up in Vancouver and completed her BA at McGill University in Montreal. She received a provincial grant from Quebec and self-published her debut chapbook, a collection of short stories titled Day Dreams of A Dull Girl. She discovered Speakeasy through the all-ages workshops and was a participant last summer. 

She is now living in Vancouver and working on a collection of poetry to release in the winter.  Her writing incorporates fragments from everyday life woven in with blatant lies and exaggerations.

Isabelle Jia is a writer from the San Francisco Bay Area, CA. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Alexandria Quarterly, Rising Phoenix Review, The Blueshift Journal and many more. Jia has attended the Iowa Young Writer’s Studio and the California State Summer School of Arts. She has also been recognized as a California Arts Scholar, by the Walt Whitman National Poetry Foundation, and the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. Currently, she also works for Tinderbox Poetry Journal, The Ellis Review and Bitter Melon Magazine. For more on her work, go to http://isabellejia.weebly.com/

Sarah Foil is a writer, editor & media manager with a graduate degree from the Mountainview MFA program with a concentration in Fiction and a passion for the fantastic. She has her undergraduate degree in Creative Writing, Psychology and Spanish from Salem College. Sarah has three years of literary magazine experience under her belt and multiple internships from online magazines to social media management. In college, Sarah had the opportunity to work for the literary magazine, Incunabula , as an assistant editor for a year and two years as the head editor. Her work can be found in the 2013, 2014 & 2015 editions. As a graduate student, Sarah worked one-on-one with several published, acclaimed authors and was able to complete a manuscript for the first book in her Literary Fantasy series. Sarah also writes and has published short stories, nonfiction essays and poetry. 

Kristine Esser Slentz is originally from northwest Indiana and the Chicagoland area, or what’s lovingly called “The Region.”  Kristine is a Purdue University alum who studied English literature and creative writing. After college, she began working in the digital marketing field to marry her experience in both writing and advertising. She started in search engine optimization (SEO) and soon transitioned into content marketing. During this time, she also wrote pieces for publication like HuffPost, Pattern, and NUVO. Currently, Kristine is earning her MFA in creative writing (poetry) at City College of New York. She is also the Assistant Editor for the online poetry publication Unfold Magazine, and the Features Manager for the poet's community The Harbor through The Speakeasy Project. Her poetry has appeared in Sweater Weather Magazine, The Unprecedented Review, and then Flying Island Journal when she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Shereen Lee is a student from Taipei, Taiwan. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in Adroit Journal, Alyss, Juked, and the Ploughshares blog. She also serves as managing editor for TRACK//FOUR, a literary journal for people of color.

Devanshi Khetarpal is a sophomore at New York University, majoring in Comparative Literature with a minor in Creative Writing. She is the editor-in-chief and founder of Inklette Magazine and served as a poetry reader for The Blueshift Journal and a staff writer for Washington Square News. Her work has been recognized by Hollins University, Columbia College Chicago and Gigantic Sequins. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Transom, Indian Literature, Aainanagar, Vayavya, TRACK//FOUR and Souvenir among others. Her poetry collection, “Small Talk,” is forthcoming from Writers Workshop India this year. Website: www.devanshikhetarpal.co. 

Erin Jin Mei O'Malley is the Co-Editor of Sooth Swarm Journal, and her work appears or is forthcoming in The Ellis Review, Dialogist, Rust + Moth, and others. You can find her at www.explorationsoferin.com.

suiyi lives in the scopophilic corridor. she is a comparative literature and american studies double major at williams college. on hiatus, in favor of an untwisted bildungsroman (not to be made into an independent film) and an archive of ballpoints and lingerie. a gallery of her current projects, guarded by the death drive, may be found at legitimizedinprint.com

Claire S. Lee is a student from Southern California. Her writing has been recognized by Tinderbox Journal, Ringling College, and the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, and can be found or is forthcoming in A-Minor Magazine, Inklette, Rising Phoenix Review, and *82 Review, among others. She is the Co-Editor-in-Chief of COUNTERCLOCK Journal and an editorial intern for The Blueshift Journal. She is currently working on her debut novel.

Syd Westley (she/her/hers) is a queer and biracial Asian American poet, currently studying English and Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity at Stanford University. Syd enjoys California poppies, clouds, and her 94 year old grandmother. Her greatest hope is that one day she will learn how best to articulate the trans-generational voices and silences that are sitting in her throat. 

Grace Li is Chinese American photographer and designer born and raised in the New England area. A current student at Milton Academy, she is the layout editor for multiple student publications. She also writes for the student newspaper and art publication. Grace is also enrolled in an advanced photography and digital imaging course. A practicing photographer, shooting mainly portraits and fashion photography, Grace also partners with local businesses to create promotional content.

Kara Goughnour is a queer writer and documentarian currently unpacked in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She is the 2018 winner of the Gerald Stern Poetry Award and has work published or forthcoming in Third Point Press, Riggwelter Journal, Terror House Magazine, and others. Follow her on Twitter @kara_goughnour or read her collected and exclusive works at karagoughnour.com. 

Aldric Ulep lives and writes in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, where he was born and raised.  His poetry and fiction can be found in or is forthcoming from TAYO Literary Mag, Rambutan Literary, and daCunha. 

Nicholas (Writer/Photographer) is based in Brooklyn, NY. They are an intersectional nerd and obsessed with talking/thinking/writing about all things creative and human. Their artistic approach to all disciplines "..asks us to turn our attention but the intermediate, the space between one image and another where we might observe the mechanics of seeing at work." Their most recent ongoing photography project is called "My Black Is...". The project attempts to interrogate Blackness from the vantage of it not being monolithic institution, but rather a rich tapestry of complex textures. Their hopes for the project is a multi-media experience open to the public as a free resource by which the preconceived notions of blackness are challenged. Currently Nicholas serves as a chair for the National Black Writers Committee and The Watering Hole Poetry Organization. Also, Nicholas is a freelance writer who publishes poems, essays, criticism/reviews. Their work has been published on several platforms including The Offing, Wildness Magazine, and more.

Smriti Verma grew up in Delhi, India, where she studies English Literature at the University of Delhi. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in The Adroit Journal, Coldnoon, B O D Y, Cleaver Magazine, Word Riot, Open Road Review, Alexandria Quarterly, Yellow Chair Review, and The Four Quarters Magazine. She is the recipient of the 2015 Save The Earth Poetry Prize and enjoys working as a Poetry Editor for Inklette, Copy Editor for The Brown Orient and Poetry  Reader for The Blueshift Journal. Her interests include film, literature and creative writing.

Joyce Zhou attends Neuqua Valley High School in Naperville, Illinois. Her work has been nationally recognized by The Poetry Society, National Poetry Quarterly, Penguin Random House, Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, and The Blueshift Journal among others. She currently serves as a genre editor for Polyphony HS and senior editor-in-chief of her school’s literary magazine The Essence.