Editorial Staff - The Metaworker Literary Magazine

Image of Elena L. Perez, former managing editor and current editor-in-chief. She has long dark brown hair worn in a bun and is smiling with teeth. She wears dangly teal leaf earrings, a green saguaro necklace, and a hot pink short-sleeved collared blouse. The background is pale green vertical stripes.

Elena Lucia Perez

^{Co-founder & Editor in chief}

Elena Lucia Perez is a Mexican-American storyteller who divides her time between writing, film, and theatre. She earned her BA in writing from the University of California, Riverside and has worked as an editor or managing editor of several literary magazines, including The Metaworker and Chapman University’s Calliope. She lives in Los Angeles where she works as a video editor and spends her free time curled up with a good book, craft-making, or photographing nature. Other things she likes are: fruit pies, NASA, dragons, the artwork of Kandinsky, and puns.

Read Elena’s work here.

Melissa Reynolds

^Editor

Melissa Reynolds is an English Major at West Virginia University and a lifelong writer. She is an active member of Morgantown Writers Group and has a few stories published here and there. She is a former editor at Everydayfiction.com and has beta read more stories for her friends than she’d care to admit. Her kids accuse her of being a crazy plant lady, but she vehemently denies any such thing as she waters her twentieth African Violet. They also accuse her of being a nerd, but finds she can’t argue the finer points in her own defense. When the weather is just right, she likes to hang out by bodies of water and stack cairns.

Read Mel’s work here.

Cerid Jones

^Editor

Cerid Jones, a lover of folk tales and myth, hails from Aotearoa (New Zealand). A creature with a lifelong passion for literature, she reads anything that transports her elsewhere or delves deep into the psyche of human nature.

An historical addiction to youth theatre (Shelia Winn Shakespeare award winner; Trinity Speech and Drama certifications), her creative practice evolved into visual arts (Honours Diploma in Art and Creativity – The Learning Connexion) and her academic endeavours (Te Herenga Waka -Victoria University of Wellington and, Massey University) resulted (finally) in a double BA in Cultural Anthropology and English Literature (including creative writing, of course).

Read/see Cerid’s work here.

Current Volunteers

Grace McGuire
Slush Reader

Grace McGuire is a nonbinary poet, editor, and essayist born and raised in San Diego, California. They began performing spoken word poetry at age sixteen and carried their passion for the English language into adulthood, centering their work on the exploration of gender identity and the trials of growing up in the digital age. Their Substack, Dog-Fearing Man, features bi-weekly essays about the ways online subcultures impact our real-life relationships. Grace’s work has appeared in Advintage Press, The Ana, and Compass Rose Literary Journal.

M.R. Lehman Wiens
Slush Reader

M.R. Lehman Wiens is a Pushcart-nominated writer and stay-at-home dad living in Minnesota. His work has previously appeared, or is upcoming in, F(r)iction, Short Édition, Consequence, The Wild Umbrella Literary Journal, and others. He can be found at lehmanwienswrites.com.

Read M.R.’s work here.

Julia C Gaytan
Slush Reader

Julia C Gaytan is a self-proclaimed math geek who spends her weekdays teaching high school math and her weeknights battling her inner demons with poetry and short stories through the sword of the pen(cil). It is in this space that she embraces her truth while also exploring different identities and realities, all the while clothing her pieces in mathematical and scientific garments. Julia grew up in the Nickerson Gardens, a housing project of Watts, and attended inner city k-12 schools until attending UCLA as an undergraduate and then graduate student. It is there where she learned the importance of acknowledging her roots and identity as a Chicana poet. Recently, her work was published in The Waiting Ro o m, an anthology by Nervous Ghost Press. She currently lives with her two children in southern California.

Aedan has shoulder-length brown hair and blue-gray eyes. They are wearing a light gray cardigan over a black tshirt and they are standing in front of a brick wall.

Aedan Ferrara
Slush Reader

Aedan Ferrara is a writer and performer who grew up in California’s Inland Empire, caught between the High Desert and the high seas. Their work (and everything else about them) trends toward the experimental and absurd. When they’re not writing (or trying their best) they can be found baking dessert, caring for their houseplants, or moonlighting as a ghost hunter.

Caitlin O’Halloran
Slush Reader

Caitlin O’Halloran is a biracial Filipino-American writer living in Rochester, New York. Her poetry and fiction have been published in literary magazines, including Frozen Sea, The Prose Poem, Lost Balloon, Gone Lawn, and Twin Bird Review. She has a BA in Philosophy and History from Boston University. In her free time, she enjoys reading novels about parallel universes and time travel. She is also a big fan of epistolary and found fiction. www.caitlinohalloran.com

Read Caitlin’s work here.

Lena Bramsen
Contributing Writer, former: Social Media Intern, Slush Reader

Lena Bramsen recently graduated from The New School with a degree in Creative Writing and was a member of the Writing and Democracy Honors Program. She explores the odd and nostalgic through words, digital art, and miniature dioramas—inspired by themes such as Americana, womanhood, and the eerie grandeur of haunted houses. Find her on Instagram @rococoraven.

Read Lena’s work here.

Amita Basu
Contributing Writer,
former: Slush Reader

Amita Basu’s fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in over sixty magazines and anthologies including The Penn Review, Bamboo Ridge, Another Chicago Magazine, The Dalhousie Review, and Funicular. She is a submissions reader and review board member at Bewildering Stories, contributing editor at Fairfield Scribes Microfiction, interviews editor and sustainable living columnist at Mean Pepper Vine, and slush reader at The Metaworker. She lives in Bangalore, has a PhD in cognitive science, works in sustainable behaviour, and blogs at http://amitabasu.com/

Read Amita’s work here.

Ne’Vaeh Dudley
Podcast Intern

Ne’Vaeh Dudley is a media, journalism, and film major community development and African American studies minor at Howard University. She is actively pursuing her passion for media production, storytelling, and community impact through all her endeavors. With a strong background in podcasting, film projects, and social media management, Ne’Vaeh thrives on crafting compelling narratives and engaging content. She brings experience from internships with Cinema St. Louis and Deux Magazine, where she honed skills in content creation, marketing, and analysis. A driven advocate for social change, Ne’Vaeh combines her communication expertise and creative vision to make meaningful contributions to every project she undertakes.

Lissa Muir
Podcast Transcription Editor

Lissa Muir writes short fiction and non-fiction from Toronto, some of which she posts on her Substack, Middle Aged Neophyte. Periodically, she wrestles with the YA novel that has been lurking in her files since 2015. When not writing, she listens to podcasts while going on increasingly slow walks with her fourteen-year-old Newfoundland dog, Molly.