PRESIDENT

By day, Danny Cherry, Jr. is a Customer Service Representative and caffeine-addled office-drone, but by night, he writes political and personal essays, op-eds, novels, and short stories. He’s written for Buzzfeed News, The Daily Beast, Truly*Adventurous, Transformation Magazine, X- ray Lit Mag, Fiyah Lit Mag, Ploughshares, Antigravity Magazine, Apex Magazine, as well as a few dozen blog posts on Medium.com. He also has a story forthcoming in Hexagon Magazine. Find him on Twitter @Deecherrywriter.

VICE-PRESIDENT • DIR. OF PROGRAMMING

Michelle Kelleher (she/her) is a speculative fiction/ horror writer and theater artist currently living in New Orleans, LA. With fifteen years of experience helping to tell stories as a Stage Manager and Lighting Designer in New York (where she’s from) and New Orleans (where she lives with her wife), Michelle is new to publication, but you can find her work in Cosmic Horror Monthly under M. Kelleher. You can follow Michelle on Twitter at @mizkelle.

TREASURER

Chanèl Etienne (she/her) earned her MFA from the University of New Orleans. She won first place in the graduate category of the Gulf Coast Association of Creative Writing Teachers’ student competition in 2020 and was nominated for the AWP Intro Journals Project the following year. She received her bachelor’s degree from Washington University in St. Louis, where she studied English Language and Literature.

SECRETARY

Elizabeth Prats is a Cuban-American writer, illustrator, and marketing pro. A former literary agency reader and book publicist turned Senior Account Director at an award-winning communications agency, she writes middle grade and young adult fiction featuring epic adventures and fierce Latina heroines. Based in New Orleans with her two cats, Elizabeth finds inspiration strolling the French Quarter with an iced latte or savoring jamón ibérico on Spain’s coast. Find her at @artlizified on Instagram, and @lizified on BlueSky.

DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY OUTREACH

Daphne Armbruster is an emerging writer native to New Orleans. Her work revolves around girlhood and gayhood—the glamour, grit, guilt, and joy of queer life. Along with writing, she is an actress involved in the local theatre and film scenes. Find her on Instagram @dapheyduck.

DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT

BarbaraLynn Cantone is an artist, author, and MFA student based in New Orleans. She has been writing, editing, and brand building for over four decades in various roles, including: digging up and documenting ancient Roman remains for the Museum of the City of London; producing, styling, and editing several national magazines in NYC, including Victoria and Country Living; writing and executing proposals and campaigns that secured millions of dollars in funding for arts programs such as The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards; and, serving as a curator and museum educator for a liberal arts university. She is currently working on her first full-length novel, The Trials of St. Christina, a witchy murder mystery set in historic New York and New Orleans.

BOARD MEMBER

Marguerite Sheffer’s debut short story collection, The Man in the Banana Trees, won the 2024 Iowa Short Fiction Award. Her stories appear in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Epiphany, The Adroit Journal, The Offing, Smokelong Quarterly, and The Cosmic Background, among other magazines. You can find her online @mlensheffer and at www.margueritesheffer.com.

BOARD MEMBER

Erin Donovan is a documentary film producer based in New Orleans. She is currently writing a horror novel about the film industry.