Who We Are

Bracken is a literary magazine born of the love of the woods and its shadows. Bracken is green and lush, coarse and delicate, drinks from the earth, and spreads underground, more root than frond. Bracken is understory, invades, takes over, shades and protects. We seek poetry, short fiction, and art that will root, tender and tough, in us.


Alina Rios
Founding Editor, Art Editor

Alina dreamt up Bracken while at an Arvon writing course in the Yorkshire woods. (She should’ve been writing!) She’s a published poet and fiction writer. She now writes for stage and film with her plays being produced on both sides of the Atlantic by Slackline Productions, Nylon Fusion, Kibo Productions, and others. Her short film pressed/bluebells premiered in Cannes in 2022 and another short film, Soot Darlings, is currently in consideration with film festivals. She’s a Dramatist Guild Foundation National Fellowship Finalist (2023-2024) and a quarterfinalist in the ScreenCraft Stage Play Competition 2023. She’s been mentored by Kevin Dyer (winner of Best Play, Writers’ Guild of Great Britain) and Stella Duffy. In 2023, after training with Frantic Assembly in London, she started her own physical theatre company Verbooom. In 2024, she wrote for Dragonslayer, an immersive experience produced by AnA Collaborations, which premiered in Seattle. More at alinarios.com.

 

Jed Myers
Editor, Poetry Editor

A Philadelphia native who’s loved poetry since childhood, Jed studied Creative Writing at Tufts University, then trained in medicine and psychiatry, and has maintained a therapy practice in Seattle for many years. He’s author of Watching the Perseids (Sacramento Poetry Center Book Award), The Marriage of Space and Time (MoonPath Press), and out in 2024, Learning to Hold (Wandering Aengus Press Editors’ Award). Poems have won Southern Indiana Review’s Mary C. Mohr Award, the Prime Number Magazine Award, The Southeast Review’s Gearhart Prize, and The Briar Cliff Review’s Annual Poetry Contest. His work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Poetry Northwest, Rattle, The American Journal of Poetry, RHINO, Crab Creek Review, The Greensboro Review, many other journals, and several anthologies. https://www.jedmyers.com/                

 

Kate Deimling
Poetry Editor, Managing Editor

 

A poet, writer, and translator, Kate is a native of New Orleans and a longtime Brooklynite. Her poems have appeared in Slant, Tar River Poetry, Sheila-Na-Gig, Passager, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Twelve Mile Review, and other magazines, and her work has been nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart Prizes. She holds a Ph.D. in French literature and has translated several books from French. In her free time, Kate enjoys cooking, reading, hiking, birding, word puzzles including translation dilemmas, and hanging out with her dog. Her debut poetry collection is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press in 2026. Find her online at www.katedeimling.com.  

 

T. Clear
Associate Poetry Editor

A co-founder of Floating Bridge Press, T. has been writing and publishing her work since the 1970s. She treasures her archive of rejection slips on paper but has not yet given in to the urge to paste them on her bathroom walls. Her work has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including Common Ground Review, Crannog, Poetry Northwest, Raven Chronicles, Sheila-Na-Gig, The American Journal of Poetry, Red Earth Review, Terrain.org, and The Moth. Her book, A House, Undone, is the 2021 winner of the Sally Albiso Award from MoonPath Press.   

 

Ted McMahon
Associate Poetry Editor

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Ted has lived and worked in Seattle since 1972. Recently retired from a career in pediatrics, he devotes his time to writing, metal sculpture, and percussion. His poems have appeared in The Seattle Review, Chrysanthemum, Manzanita Quarterly, The Journal of the American Medical Association, and elsewhere. Ted’s chapbook, First Fire, was published in 1996, and his full-length collection, The Uses of Imperfection, was published in 2003. He is a former editor of Floating Bridge Press. Ted is married to the photographer Rosanne Olson.

 

Morgan Brajkovich
Assistant Poetry Editor

 

Morgan is a poet and writer from Pennsylvania. She is a Kutztown University graduate with a BA in Professional Writing, concentration in Culture and Media, and a Literature minor. She has been published through her university’s literary magazines, including Shoofly and Essence. Her debut poetry chapbook, It’s Only Milk, was published by Finishing Line Press. She enjoys collaging, collecting doilies, and lying down whenever she can.

 
 

Kelli Lage
Assistant Poetry Editor

Kelli is a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominated poet. She is the author of the poetry collection Early Cuts (Kelsay Books), the chapbook I’m Glad We Did This (Prolific Pulse Press), and, out in March 2024, the chapbook Harvest is a Chapel (MOONLOVE Press). Her work has appeared in Maudlin House, The Lumiere Review, Welter Journal, Orange Blossom Review, and elsewhere. Her website: www.KelliLage.com.

 

Jayne Marek
Assistant Poetry Editor

Jayne’s seventh poetry collection will be Dusk-Voiced (Tebot Bach, 2024). Her writings and photos appear in Rattle, Terrain, Spillway, The New York Times, Bloodroot, Catamaran, One, Salamander, Gulf Stream, Calyx, and elsewhere. She has twice won the Bill Holm Witness Poetry award and has been nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart Prizes. Find more at www.pw.org/content/jayne_marek .    

 

Mitchell Nobis
Assistant Poetry Editor

Mitchell is a writer and K-12 teacher in Metro Detroit where he lives with his family and dog. His poetry collection Beginning to Sense is forthcoming (ELJ Editions) in 2025 while two other manuscripts continue making the rounds, and he is nearly done writing a basketball novel. He facilitates the Teachers as Poets group for the National Writing Project, hosts the Wednesday Night Sessions reading series, and co-founded the NAWP reading series. Find him at @MitchNobis (various platforms) or mitchnobis.com.    

 

Lyn Coffin
Consulting Editor

More than thirty of Lyn’s books have been published by Doubleday, Ithaca House, and others. Her latest poetry collection (sestinas and villanelles) is Artwork on the Backs of Gargoyles (Transcendent Zero Press). Her novel, The Aftermath, was published last year by Adelaide Books. Her poetry and fiction have won awards. One of her fictions was in the Best American Short Stories (edition edited by Joyce Carol Oates). She translated Shota Rustaveli’s 12th century poetic epic, The Knight in the Panther Skin, and won (the country of) Georgia’s SABA prize. Her plays have been performed in Malaysia, Singapore, Boston, Detroit, Off-off-Broadway, and Seattle. She is delighted and honored to be part of the Bracken team.

 

Cicely Gill
Consulting Editor

Cicely lives on the Isle of Arran in the west of Scotland. She writes poems, plays, and novels, and has self-published two novels and a book of her poems. Her play about World War I on Arran was performed on Arran in 2014, and four of her short plays have been performed in Glasgow and Edinburgh. For 8 years, Cicely co-organised the McLellan Poetry Competition, which draws entries from over 35 countries. She has a jungly garden and she loves trees.


Founders
Alina Rios and Piper Robert

Past Staff
Jessica Bixel (poetry reader), Charlotte d'Huart (fiction editor, anthology editor), Andrew Gordon (poetry reader), Kimberly Huebner (fiction reader/newsletter writer/graphic designer), Amy Lee Lillard (fiction editor), Disko Praphanchith (managing editor), Erin Slomski-Pritz (assistant poetry editor), V. Wesley (fiction reader, cover design, consultation), Lea Aschkenas (poetry reader), Natalie Marino (poetry reader), Bridget Houlihan (managing editor), Hunter Casperson (web editor), Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach (special series co-editor), Kelly Gray (outreach editor, social media editor), Rhienna Renée Guedry (managing editor)


Special thanks to our friends and supporters at Duotrope and The (Submission) Grinder.