Narrative Northeast is a literary and arts magazine dedicated to supporting diverse voices and visions and the environment. With NN’s editorial picks, we’re hoping to help to mitigate the insistent voices of mono-culture, prejudice and patriarchy. We’re looking for diverse, playful, edgy, socially & environmentally aware voices, feminist, LBGTQ+ and straight. However, any topic or theme is acceptable, as we see the arts in general as a powerful catalyst for change. NN supports Northeastern artists and writers, and especially those from New Jersey, but we will gladly go global (and of course national) for our art and lit. picks.
Founding and contributing editor Pamela Hughes’ full length collection of poems, Meadowland Take My Hand, was published by Three Mile Harbor Press (www.3MileHarborPress). Her second collection, Femistry, is forthcoming in 2024. Her work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Canary, Literary Mama, Thema, The Paterson Literary Review, The Red Wheelbarrow, The Minnesota Review, PANK; The Brooklyn Review and elsewhere. She has been nominated for three Pushcart Awards and has an MFA in Creative Writing from Brooklyn College.
Paul LaTorre will guest co-editor for Issue Eleven. He is a poet, activist and educator who teaches at Bloomfield College in New Jersey. Blending pop culture with advocacy for various forms of trauma including abuse, disorder, and mental health issues, his aim is to create dark poems with a sense of levity. His book of poems, Disappearing Boy was published in 2020 by 3 Mile Harbor Press. His work has been published in Zeitgeist, Drunk Monkeys, Narrative Northeast, BLINK and has been featured on the DREAM Act’s ‘voices’ portal.
Safia Elhillo is NN’s guest co-editor for Issue Five. Her first full length collection,The January Children, was released by University of Nebraska Press in March 2017.Sudanese by way of Washington, DC, she received a BA from NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study and an MFA in poetry at the New School. Safia is a Pushcart Prize nominee, co-winner of the 2015 Brunel University African Poetry Prize, and winner of the 2016 Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets. She has received fellowships from Cave Canem, The Conversation, and Crescendo Literary and The Poetry Foundation’s Poetry Incubator. In addition to appearing in several journals and anthologies including “The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop,” her work has been translated into Arabic, Japanese, and Greek. With Fatimah Asghar, she is co-editor of the anthology “Halal If You Hear Me.”
Chen Chen was our guest editor/co-editor for Issue Four. He is the author of When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities, winner of the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize and forthcoming spring 2017 from BOA Editions, Ltd. He has also written two chapbooks, Kissing the Sphinx (Two of Cups Press, 2016) and Set the Garden on Fire (Porkbelly Press, 2015). His poems have recently appeared in The Adroit Journal, Gulf Coast, Indiana Review, The Normal School, and Raleigh Review. He has received fellowships from Kundiman, the Saltonstall Foundation, Lambda Literary and Narrative Northeast. Chen is currently pursuing a PhD in English and Creative Writing at Texas Tech University. Visit him at chenchenwrites.com.
Quassan Castro was guest/co-editor for Issue 3. He has a MFA in Creative Writing from Fairleigh Dickinson University. He is a journalist, columnist, entertainment and culture critic, poet and author. His work ranges from personal essays, fiction, poetry, music and book reviews, celebrity interviews and culture writing. Quassan is social media publicist for Dr. bell hooks. His works have been featured in top national magazines and top online outlets that include Essence Magazine, Essence Magazine Online, Heart and Soul Magazine Online, BET (Black Entertainment Television), Black Enterprise Online, Jet Magazine Online, National Education Association and Huffington Post.
Leah Woolridge was our literary and arts intern for Issue 4 and beyond. She graduated from Bloomfield College, where she studied English with a concentration in Writing. She loves both the written and the spoken word and writes poetry and short plays.
Alexandra Esposito was our art intern. She graduated from William Paterson University with an Art degree with a focus on curatorship.
