Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, Cofounder/Executive Director, is the daughter of Mexican immigrants and the author of Posada: Offerings of Witness and Refuge (Sundress Publications 2016). A former Steinbeck Fellow, Poets & Writers California Writers Exchange winner, and Barbara Deming Memorial Fund grantee, she’s received residencies from Hedgebrook, Ragdale, National Parks Arts Foundation, and Poetry Foundation. She has work published in Acentos Review, CALYX, crazyhorse, [Pank], and American Poetry Review among others. Most recently her poem, “Battlegrounds” featured at The Academy of American Poets, Poem-A-Day. She’s coordinated workshops and panels with artworxLA, Latina Writers Conference, and #dignidadliteraria. Learn more at her website.
Contact: admin@womenwhosubmitlit.org
Alyss Dixson, Cofounder/Advisor, grew up in Portland, Oregon. She received the 2015 Joseph Henry Jackson Award in fiction from the San Francisco Foundation and is writing a collection entitled Fukuoka Woman. She has publications in The Callaloo Journal, Day One, and The Atlantic. She studied at Yale, Columbia, and earned an MFA in fiction from San Francisco State University. She is a graduate Fellow of Cave Canem Foundation, a Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, Poetry Fellow, and a Visiting Scholar-Artist in Residence at The Ohio State University. She is the creator of the WWS “submission party.” She also makes movies.
Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera, Anthology Advisor, is a Chicana Feminist and former Rodeo Queen. She writes so the desert landscape of her childhood can be heard as loudly as the urban chaos of her adulthood. She is obsessed with food. She is a Macondista and has been an editor for Border Senses Literary and Art Journal, VIDA Review, and Ricochet Editions. A former high school teacher, she earned an MFA at Antioch University Los Angeles and is a PhD candidate at the University of Southern California where she is an Annenberg Fellow. Her YA novel, Breaking Pattern, is forthcoming with Inlandia Books. Her play Blind Thrust Fault was featured in Center Theater Group Writers’ Workshop Festival. Her flash fiction was included in Best Small Fictions 2022. You can read some of her published work on her website.
Contact: anthology@womenwhosubmitlit.org
Lauren Eggert-Crowe, Special Events Coordinator, is the author of three poetry chapbooks: The Exhibit, In the Songbird Laboratory, and Rungs (co-authored with Margaret Bashaar). She is the Reviews Editor of Terrain.org and her work has appeared in Witch Craft Magazine, Angels Flight Literary West, Horse Less Review, The Rumpus, Salon, and The Millions, among others. She has an MFA in Poetry from The University of Arizona. Learn more at laureneggertcrowe.com.
Contact: events@womenwhosubmitlit.org
Lucy Rodriguez-Hanley, Chapters Director & WWS-Long Beach Chapter Lead, a creative non-fiction writer, filmmaker, and mom. She creates engaging stories for and about bilingual, bicultural brown girls and women. Her writing is featured in The Latinx Project at NYU, Gathering: A Women Who Submit Anthology, Made in LA Volume 4: Beyond the Precipice and HarperVia’s Somewhere We Are Human edited by Reyna Grande and Sonia Guiñansaca. She is the drama editor of Transformation: A Women Who Submit Anthology. She has been awarded fellowships from Tin House, Macondo and VONA. Her film, The Big Deal, won the Imagen Award for Best Theatrical Short and screened at festivals throughout the US. A Dominicana via Washington Heights, she lives in Long Beach, CA with her husband and two children. Her films and writing samples can be found at https://www.
Thea Pueschel, Chapters Liaison, resides one inch behind the Orange Curtain and has more hyphens than a merry-go-round and is sometimes referred to as a Renaissance person whose mother’s favorite way to introduce them is, “This my daughter Thea. Who isn’t a doctor yet.” The psychosocial aspect of human development draws Thea to paint, write, direct and create. Whether the work is floating along the ethere through the binary code searing blue light into your retinas, in paperback or hardback form, on stage or flickering dancing light, or through bodies forming shapes or minds going on journeys, it is Thea’s hope that you feel more connected, grounded and seen after you interact or experience the work. Thea is a repeated Dorland Mountain Arts Resident and has had artwork exhibited at the Center in Orange and Fullerton Museum, directed plays for Short + Sweet Hollywood, and has had written work published in the Made in L.A. Anthology Vol 5. Vantage Points, and Short Editíon among others. www.theapueschel.com
Ashton Cynthia Clarke, Social Media Manager, is a Los Angeles-based writer and storyteller. She performs true, personal stories throughout the L.A. area and New York City, as well as virtually. Since joining Women Who Submit, her work has appeared in publications including The Storytelling Bistro; Olney Magazine; and These Black Bodies Are . . . (A Blacklandia Anthology). Born in NYC and of African American/Caribbean heritage, much of her work references that ancestry. She developed an animated short based on a family member’s life in Jamaica, “Titta and the Mango,” which you may enjoy on her YouTube channel: : https://youtube.com/ashtoncynthiaclarke
Contact: socialmedia@womenwhosubmitlit.org
Shipra Agarwal, Website Manager, is a doctor-turned-author who studied creative writing at Harvard. A Pushcart nominee, Shipra writes about the small towns of India, similar to the one she grew up in. Stories from Shipra’s in-progress linked collection have been published in Witness, nominated for the PEN/Dau Prize, shortlisted for the First Pages Prize, and been a semifinalist at the IHLR Long Story Contest. She has been supported by the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, Sundress Academy for the Arts, GrubStreet, and Women’s National Book Association. Shipra can be found hiking and kayaking in Arizona, and at www.shipraagarwal.com.
Contact: website@womenwhosubmitlit.org
Daria E. Topousis, Open Mic Host, is a fiction and creative nonfiction writer whose work explores the intersection of culture, history, and the moments that change us. She grew up in Minnesota, and lived in Spain, Honduras, and various parts of the West before settling down in Altadena with her two dogs and two cats. She received a Master’s degree from the University of Southern California’s Master of Professional Writing Program. Her work has appeared in Inlandia: A Literary Journey, The Book Club of California Quarterly Newsletter, and the Altadena Historical Society Echo.
Contact: openmic@womenwhosubmitlit.org
Lily Caraballo, Saturday Check In Contact, is a writer based in Los Angeles. Her work has been featured in The Rumpus and Black Girl Nerds. While a committee of WWS members manage the online Saturday Check In, you can email Lily for questions, links, or to request being included in reminders. Check In meetings are at 10am on Zoom on the first and third Saturday’s of the month.