Resistance, Myths, & The Arts
Rawhead is one of many folkloric bogeymen used to frighten children into obedience. In our numerous and varied myths, monsters emerge from cultural shadows, not only as instruments of fear or control, but also as mirrors of our shared humanity. It’s true that figures like La Llorona, Rawhead, and the Windigo serve as containers for our anxieties, cruelties, and moral compromises. However, they also function as conduits for resilience, truth, and connection. Monsters reveal to us what has been hidden or ignored for far too long. They force us to confront realities that are often far more disturbing than what lurks in the dark.
More than simply evoking fear, myths and folklore prepare us to defend our humanity and confirm that monsters can be destroyed. They serve as lessons on witnessing, enduring, and resisting. They remind us the evils of the past always echo forward and that we must face them to free ourselves from their hauntings.
To name an online journal Rawhead is to acknowledge that the endurance and evolution of great art and literature has always provoked fear in those who would weaponize their power to feed on society. To give this journal a monstrous name is a deliberate act and one that reflects what tyrants, profiteers, and oppressors fear most: a public that is awake, literate, always connected, and unafraid to speak. The arts have always been a threat to the real monsters among us. The work Rawhead publishes is only one of countless forms in which resistance can take.
Masthead
John T. Leonard
Editor-in-Chief & Poetry Editor
John T. Leonard (Rawhead, 42 Miles Press, The Glacier) is a writer, educator, and editor. He holds an M.A. in English from Indiana University. John’s poems have been published in Lunch Ticket, Chiron Review, December Magazine, North Dakota Review, Ethel Zine, Louisiana Literature, Jelly Bucket, Painted Bride Quarterly, Tipton Poetry Journal, Qu Literary Magazine, Hole in The Head Review, Nimrod International Journal, The Indianapolis Review, Two Hawks Quarterly, The Floating Acorn Review, and The Emerson Review, among others. He lives in Elkhart, Indiana with his wife and son. You can connect with him on Instagram @jotyleon. You can follow his other projects here: @theglacierjournal and @42milespress.
Caressa Layne
Art Editor
Caressa is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, and curator, currently serving as Art Gallery Director for Xavier University. Along with her curatorial practice, her poetry, fiction, and visual art explore themes of a cyclical nature—often attempting to nudge the gap between human experience and the natural world. Inspired by existential philosophy, Caressa’s work is a celebration of the stitches that barely separate disgust and delight. From the effervescent quality of laughter and tenderness to sweat and blood, Caressa explores, in every facet of her work, all the things that are woven together in our imperfect, irresistible existence.
Instagram: @caressa_layne_
Website: caressalayne.com
Jessica Knuth
Fiction Editor
Jessica Knuth is the author of Animalia, a novel. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. Her writing has appeared in various literary journals, including Sky Island Journal and The Manifest-Station, with more forthcoming later this year. She currently lives abroad in Istanbul, but will always be a Kentucky girl at heart.
Natascha Holenstein
Nonfiction Editor
Natascha Holenstein is a writer and educator from the California Bay Area who studied English literature and linguistics. In her work, she aims to always dig deeper and unearth both the beautiful and grotesque. She is also a contemporary, ballet, and tap dancer. When she is not writing, you can find her working on an oil painting or tucked away in a coffee shop reading an absurdly long fantasy book.
Instagram: @natascha.h & @nataschas.art
Wafa Shaikh
Director of Community & Operations \ Prose & Poetry Reader
Wafa Shaikh is a Pakistani-American writer and editor residing in Houston, Texas. She holds a Bachelor’s in Writing and was the recipient of the Sandra Brown Excellence in Literary Fiction Scholarship. She is the co-founder of HTX LIT, now Vocable, a literary magazine based at Houston Community College. She was nominated for the 2021 Glascock Poetry Contest. Her writing explores the inevitable carrying of grief and love within womanhood and other tender effects of living. Her work has appeared in Defunkt Magazine and eleven40seven. You can find her at @wafifi_ on X and Instagram.
Vivienne Germain
Copy Chief
Based in New York City, Vivienne Germain is a writer whose work spans creative nonfiction, journalism, and experimental writing. She holds an M.A. in Journalism from New York University and a B.A. in English from Harvard University with a Secondary Field in French. She is a recipient of a 2026 ACES Scholarship (Society for Editing), the Grand Prize Winner of the 2025 Cleaver Emerging Artists Award (Cleaver Magazine), and the recipient of the 2024 Edward Eager Memorial Prize for Creative Writing (Harvard University).
Website: viviennegermain.com
E.A. Noble
Acquisitions Editor & Prose Reader
E.A. Noble is a queer, neurodivergent, disabled author and poet who studied creative writing at Jackson State University. Her debut novel, When Blood Meets Earth, won a 2025 Indie Literary Award. She serves as an acquiring editor for FIYAH Lit Mag and as Marketing Chair for WisCon, a feminist, inclusive science fiction and fantasy convention. Noble’s work centers womanhood, power, resistance, and reclamation within speculative fiction. She champions marginalized voices and stories that challenge oppressive systems. More information can be found at theeajournal.me
Shrutidhora P Mohor
Prose Reader
Shrutidhora P Mohor combines her disciplinary training in Political Science with her literary journey to read, write, think. Two of her most well-known novellas are Twenty Three Summers and The Last Gift. Her most recent publication is a collection of short stories titled A Moon-Measure Of All Things. She is a champion of unfulfilled love and longing, and her empathy is always for the defeated, the overlooked, the marginalized. A social recluse at heart, the odd person out everywhere, Mohor is currently redesigning her life to make more time and space for reading and writing. She is terrified of the current world and its technocratic ways, intensely political, and a lover of tea, coffee, dog reels and cats.
Preet Bhela
Poetry Reader
Preet Bhela is a Punjabi-American poet who has been published in Little Patuxent Review and Pangyrus Review. His work inspects the self as a site of interruption and how language can embody such breaks and disruptions through a diasporic lens. He recently received his MFA from the University of Maryland and now lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Rachel Davey
Prose Reader
Originally from California, Rachel Davey is currently in Dublin studying for her M.Phil in Creative Writing at Trinity College. Her prose work can be found in About Place Journal, A Courtship of Winds Magazine, and on her personal Substack. Though her work spans various genres and themes, she is drawn to the uncanny and wants her readers to always leave feeling just a bit haunted.
Natalia Lopez
Prose Reader & Copy Editor
Natalia M. Lopez is a Texas-based Mexican-American speculative and science fiction writer whose work has been published in Quirk, Beyond Thought, and ShortVine. She earned her B.A. in English with a double minor in Creative Writing and Business Administration from the University of the Incarnate Word. Natalia’s writing revolves around the complexities of deep-rooted love and loyalty, human connections, and the art of being misunderstood. Having grown up in a blend of two opposite cultures, Natalia’s pursuit of creativity and expression is her way of breaking generational cycles. Outside of writing, she’s a floral designer who enjoys working with snapdragons, carnations, and hydrangeas the most. Follow her here: Natalia M. Lopez on LinkedIn
Natasha Somji
Prose Reader
Natasha Somji (she/her) is a 2025 Voices of Our Nations Arts (VONA) Foundation Fellow, and a Prose Reader at Rawhead. Her writing is driven by characters who are made up of both light and darkness, not as opposing forces, but two sides of the same coin, destined to co-exist, richer for doing so. She believes much of human behavior can be explained by loss; as such, her stories center around the infinite minuscule and enormous ways we are grieving the selves we could not become and how this both breaks us and forces us to reshape ourselves. Having grown up in Tanzania, of South Asian descent, and currently residing in Washington DC, she subscribes to multiple identities and ideologies, which she infuses into her writing. A few years ago, she left a career in international development to become a full-time writer. You can follow her journey on natsomji.substack.com or on Instagram at @soliloquy.somji.
Kaitlin Neal
Poetry Reader
Kaitlin Neal is a Canadian queer poet with a B.A. in Psychology. Their work explores experiences of identity, belonging, connection, and mental illness. Kaitlin’s poetry has been featured in several magazines, including Shadow and Sax, Feral, and Rawhead. More of their work can be found on Instagram: @kaitlinnneal.
Evgeniya Dineva
Poetry Reader
Evgeniya Dineva is a poet from Bulgaria. Her work appears in Oxford Poetry Library, The Hong Kong Review, Ethel, Asian Cha, and others. She is the author of a poetry book and a short story collection. Evgeniya is a fellow of the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation for Creative Writing and a recipient of the Traduki Writer Grant, Tirana. In poetry and writing in general she is particularly interested in what remains unsaid.
Instagram: @evjita
Facebook: facebook.com/evgenia.dineva.1
Cecil Fenn
Prose Reader & Copy Editor
Cecil Fenn is a writer, designer, and former funeral professional. Originally from New York, he toured in alternative bands and apprenticed in embalming before moving across the Atlantic and retraining in theatre design. He lives in England now, with two cats and a small record collection. His work still centres grief and the body. You can find out more about Cecil’s work, including his upcoming novel The Restorative Artist, at cecilfenn.com.
Kaitie Dilán
Poetry Reader & Social Media Assistant
Dilán is an award-winning writer and filmmaker from Connecticut. They are a Sarah Lawrence College Alum, a two-time Stowe Story Lab Alum, and a Tin House Alum. Dilán was a member of the 2025 Boston Poetry Slam Team. Their work has appeared in the Connecticut Writing Project, The Quinobequin Review, 13tracks, and with Trident Poetry Collective. They approach writing as an act of preservation of both their Borikén and Irish cultures. They were a finalist for the 2026 Prima Materia First Chapbook Award with First Matter Press. When not writing and creating they can be found haunting local coffee shops and enjoying the sunshine.
Sudikshaa Amar
Poetry Reader & Social Media Assistant
Sudikshaa Amar is a poet raised in the Bay Area and a student at UC Berkeley studying neuroscience and history. Her work has been published in LiveWire, Kinpaurak, Wordgathering, and elsewhere. She is a member of the Matwaala South Asian poetry collective. When not writing she likes to crochet and forage for mushrooms along East Bay oak and coast redwoods. Her chapbook Atropa Belladonna Coursing Through My Veins is forthcoming in Dancing Girl Press.
Waverly Vernon
Prose & Poetry Reader
Waverly Vernon (she/they) an interdisciplinary artist from Florida currently studying at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Their work explores politics, religious deprogramming, and trauma, transforming personal experience into connection and dialogue. They are the author of “soft-skinned”, published by Bottlecap Press. Their poetry has also been published by Wildscape Literary Journal, Beyond The Veil Press, Arcana Poetry Press, among others.
Faith Thiebaud
Prose & Poetry Reader | Copy Editor
Faith Thiebaud, 25, she/her lives in a small town in East Texas. She received her BA in English from East Texas Baptist University, and will start graduate school for her MFA in creative writing in the fall. Her poetry chapbook, “I’m Not Hungry,” was recently published by Bottlecap Press. When she is not writing or reading submissions, she is at a coffee shop or thrift store.
Zach Omitowoju
Print Production Assistant | Prose & Poetry Reader
Zach Omitowoju is a writer, creative practitioner and literary advocate whose work spans poetry, creative writing and community engagement.
Omitowoju served as a member of the Youth Advisory Board for Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature from 2021/22, where he worked with peers to support and shape literary programming and opportunities for young creatives in the city. Within this time, he also worked as Research Assistant for the Nottingham Creative Writing Hub, where he chaired a panel featuring an award-winning screenwriter, contributed to discussions on literary history and participated as a judge for the 2022 Nottingham Poetry Festival.
In 2025, he achieved recognition in the NTU Arts Creative Competition, winning the Alumni Creative Writing category for his widely acclaimed piece ‘When the Beat Drops, So Does Our Heritage’. His award-winning work was selected for publication and showcased at the NTU Arts Showcase.
Lindsay Parkoo
Prose & Poetry Reader | Social Media Assistant
Lindsay Parkoo is a lover of literature, a writer, and an artist from the Atlanta area. She uses her journalism degree to write articles that emphasize the importance of reading and writing as well as independent authors and bookstores. In 2024, her writing landed her a spot as a gold winner of the Game Narrative Review Competition hosted by the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. She has a love for folklore and myth and is currently fixated on botanical horror and mythology. You can find her works and other creative endeavors on her website.
Micah Ruelle
Poetry Reader
Micah Ruelle is a queer poet, editor, and educator residing in the Twin Cities. Their first chapbook, Failure to Merge, was published in 2019 by Finishing Line Press. Their second chapbook, Clean Getaway, has been a finalist and semifinalist in 5 competitions and is still looking for a literary home. You can find their work in Chicago Quarterly, About Place, Jet Fuel, and elsewhere. Micah is also the founder of Ruelle Creative Solutions, and launched its first project: “The DRAFT Season: 12 months. 1 Poetry Collection” — a free, online course in which students attempt to write a book of poems in a year. Additionally, Micah is also a youth writing mentor in partnership with Chiwan Choi and Cultural Daily. You can learn more about them and their work at www.micahruelle.com
Nikki Wolin
Prose Reader & Copy Editor
Nikki Wolin is a fiction writer from Arizona who especially loves literary and science fiction. She is currently earning a Master of Fine Arts in Writing at Columbia University, where she writes about dislocation, identity, and belonging. Her work has appeared in Westwind, UCLA’s Journal of the Arts.
Cole McInerney
Poetry Reader
Cole McInerney is a poet from Niagara Falls, Ontario. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Contemporary Verse 2, Columbia Journal, North American Review, South Dakota Review,and elsewhere. He received his MFA from the University of South Carolina and currently lives in Montréal. You can learn more about Cole’s work at colemcinerney.ca and Instagram @colemcinerney.
Sascha Sizemore
Prose Reader
Sascha Sizemore is a queer, deafblind author and poet whose work has appeared in Fractured Literary and elsewhere. His work often explores identity, legacy, monstrousness, and the intersections thereof. After receiving a BFA in creative writing from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, he can be found at work on his debut novel alongside his guide dog Marigold, usually with coffee in hand and music playing.
Grace Melstrand
Poetry Reader
Grace Melstrand is a second year undergraduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, pursuing a double major in Creative Writing and Psychology. Her work explores themes of rurality, the natural world, and overlooked elements of life that often go unrepresented. Outside of writing, she is an artist who enjoys oil painting scenes with thematic elements that are reminiscent of her written work, which she shares on Instagram: @gracemelstrandart.
Spencer Rohloff
Prose Reader & Copy Editor
Spencer Rohloff is a writer from Ann Arbor, Michigan currently living in New York. Their work has been featured in Weird Horror, Punt Volat, and Slash Magazine. Their short story “Flesh Burns Sweetly” was shortlisted for Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year (2023). Instagram: @writtenbyspencer
Featured artwork by David Dodd Lee.
