Tamara Burross Grisanti
Founder / Editor-in-Chief
Tamara Burross Grisanti is a writer, editor, and two-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Her poetry and fiction appear or are forthcoming in New World Writing, Eunoia Review, Chicago Literati, Former Cactus, Corvus Review, Pussy Magic Heals, The New Mexico Review, and The Literary Hatchet, among others. She adores flowers, plants, & gardening, drawing comics, playing acoustic guitar, & making TikToks. Her literary interests include the Gothic, poetry, Greek & creation myths, and anything having to do with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. She is almost finished writing her debut novel under the pen name Sophia Thorne. You can follow her on Instagram @coffinbelljournal, @tamaraburrossgrisanti & @sophiathorneauthor, on Twitter as @TamaraGrisanti & @coffin_bell, and on Tiktok as @sophiathorneauthor, @coffinbelljournal, and @sophiathornebsides.
Ray Ball
Senior Editor
Ray Ball grew up in a house full of snakes. She has a PhD in European history and is currently working on an MFA. She lives in Alaska, where she works as a college professor. Ray is the author of a chapbook of history-themed poems entitled Tithe of Salt (Louisiana Literature Press, 2019). Her creative work has recently been published in descant, Gingerbread House, Rivet, Louisiana Literature, Psaltery & Lyre, and SWWIM Every Day. Ray has received multiple nominations for Best of the Net and Pushcart. When she’s not in the classroom, Ray can be found researching in the archives, running on Alaska’s trails, or drinking bitter beverages.
Hannah Emadian
Associate Editor
Sarah Saint
Associate Editor, Social Media Editor & Query Director
Sarah Saint is a writer, reader, and dark literature enthusiast. She loves to write poetry, flash fiction, and short stories, has been blogging for 15 years, and is currently at work on a novel. Her love affair with the spooky side was kindled when she viewed Robert Wise’s adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House as a child, and accelerated when she read The Shining at age 12. When she isn’t writing, she can usually be found curled up on her patio with a book, playing with TikTok, or spending time in her happy place: the kitchen. You can follow her on Twitter @sarahvsaint, on Instagram as @sarahvsaint, and on Tiktok as @sarahvsaint.
Desmond White
Assistant Editor
Desmond White teaches rhetoric and writes when his students aren’t looking. His speculative fiction has appeared in HeartWood, Kasma, The Tishman Review, Literally Stories, Rue Scribe, Ghost Parachute, and Z Publishing’s America’s Emerging Writers. Be wary of his blog www.desmondwrite.com and steer away from mindless tweets @desmondwrite.
Jessica Drake-Thomas
Poetry Editor
Jessica Drake-Thomas is a horror poet and fiction writer. She is the author of a poetry collection, Burials. She also runs a poetry book review blog, This Week, I Read. Her work has been featured in Grimoire Magazine, Three Drops from a Cauldron, Coffin Bell, Ploughshares, and others. Her interests include Gothic Horror, Dark Romanticism, tarot, occultism and cupcakes.
Juliana Motoki
Short Story Editor
Juliana Motoki is a former English teacher and current library assistant who earned her BA in Literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Since gifted with a copy of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary in the 6th grade, she has been addicted to everything relating to cats, horror, and the weird. She is currently the Strange Editor for Rune Bear, an online literary journal devoted to speculative flash fiction. You can find her lurking in Colorado where she lives with her husband and their cat children.
A. A. de Levine
Short Story Editor
A.A. de Levine is a Los Angeles-based writer. Her short fiction has been published in New Gothic Review and her essays have appeared on BuzzFeed, Gossamer, Medium, and Good Night, Sweet Prince. She has developed several social media-based immersive stories and has ghost-written for a robot pop star, as one does.
Katy Barlow
Short Story Editor
Katy Barlow is a transplant to Columbus, MS following her graduation from the Mississippi University for Women. Her fascination with Gothic and dark literature started with a raven and developed with a doctor’s monster and a deadly masque. When she’s not at work, you can find her in the kitchen, in the garden, or on the couch with a cup of tea, a good book, and her cat.
Kyle Shrader
Creative Nonfiction / Short Criticism Editor
Kyle James Shrader is a writer of poetry and nonfiction, an educator, and a professional reader who, like so many WNYers, has boomeranged back to Buffalo after years away. He has taught writing at colleges and universities in Florida, Texas, and New York. He has edited for Florida Review, The Dr. T. J. Eckleburg Review, and now Coffin Bell. His own work has appeared in Crack the Spine, The Chaffey Review, The Dr. T. J. Eckleburg Review, Carcinogenic Poetry, and others. When not drinking coffee (or wine) and grading papers, he can be found hiking in the woods with his young daughter and his old dog.