Loft Spotlights

Rachel Eve Moulton earned her MFA from Emerson College. Her work has appeared in Beacon Street Review, Bellowing Ark, Chicago Quarterly Review, Cream City Review, and Bryant Literary Review. Her debut novel—Tinfoil Butterfly—was long-listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize.

Aegor Ray is a writer, interdisciplinary artist, and organizer with the Sex Workers Organizing Project (SWOP-Minneapolis). He was shortlisted for the 2018 Cosmonauts Ave Poetry Prize and was a 2018-2019 Loft Mentor Series Fellow in poetry.

Kristi Romo is a high school English/Reading teacher. She has her MFA in creative writing for children and young adults from Hamline University. She loves to paint for fun, cook delicious meals, and write funny stories that will get you right in the heart.

Jeff Pfeiffer is a playwright, screenwriter, and television writer with over 10 years experience in entertainment and writing. Pfeiffer’s credits include dramatic television, documentary, produced stage, and games. He holds an MFA in playwriting and is a member of the Writers Guild of America.

Halee Kirkwood is a descendant of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe and earned their MFA from Hamline University. Formerly a corporate mascot, janitor, and small-town library assistant, their work has been published in Up The Staircase Quarterly, Muzzle Magazine, and ctrl+v, among others.

Nicola Koh is a Malaysian Eurasian twelve years in the American Midwest, a Christian apostate with degrees from a Calvinist seminary, and a minor god of Tetris. They hold an MFA from Hamline University and were a 2018 VONA/Voices fellow in fiction.

Leah Christianson’s work has appeared in TriQuarterly, River Teeth, Storm Cellar Quarterly, and other publications. She earned an MFA at Miami University, where she was editor-in-chief of Oxford Magazine, received the Jordan Goodman Award in fiction, and taught composition and creative writing.

Evan Roxanna Ramzipoor is a writer based in California. She has given talks on underground literature at the GLBT Museum, Ohlone College, and USC and has taught writing at UC Berkeley and Hugo House. Her work has been featured in McSweeney’s and Salon. The Ventriloquists is her first novel.

Mishka Hoosen is a writer and teacher currently based in Cape Town, South Africa. He graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy in the US and received a masters in creative writing from Rhodes University in South Africa. His debut novel, Call it a Difficult Night, was published by Deep South Books.

Rachel Werner is faculty for Hugo House and The Loft Literary Center, a We Need Diverse Books program volunteer, and a book reviewer for Shelf Awareness. She is also the founder of The Little BookProject WI, a community arts and nonprofit biannual collaboration.

When she isn't writing, Christine Ma-Kellams teaches at San Jose State University. As a social psychologist whose empirical work deals with understanding the psychological motives behind individuals' behaviors, Ma-Kellams pairs the art of fiction with the science of what makes people ticks.

Chris Stedman is a Minneapolis-based writer, speaker, and community organizer. He is the author of IRL: Finding Realness, Meaning, and Belonging in Our Digital Lives (2020) and Faitheist: How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious (2012).