Us
Bear Review People
July 2026
Editors-in-Chief
Quinn Franzen
Quinn Franzen is a Brooklyn-based actor, poet, and educator. His poetry has been featured on The Slowdown podcast and can be read in POETRY, Pleiades, The Adroit Journal, Copper Nickel, Split Lip, Barrelhouse, and elsewhere. He received his MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars, and is the recipient of fellowships and support from the Saltonstall Foundation, Community of Writers, and Brooklyn Poets. Quinn was born and raised on O'ahu.
Claressinka Anderson
Claressinka Anderson is a Los Angeles–based poet, writer, and librettist. Born to Czech and American parents, Anderson was raised in London, England. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in publications including Best New Poets, Oxford Poetry, Poetry London, Los Angeles Review of Books, ONLY POEMS, North American Review, Boulevard, Pleiades, Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles (Carla), and elsewhere. Anderson is the winner of the Bear Review’s 2022 Michelle Boisseau Poetry Prize selected by Traci Brimhall. A finalist for the Leonard Cohen Poetry Prize and Oxford Poetry Prize, her work engages the interstitial spaces of contemporary art, literature, and music.
Managing Editor
Nico Amador
Nico Amador is a writer and educator from San Diego, currently based in Vermont. Informed by his involvement in movements for social change, his poetry is interested in acts of radical imagination, place, and belonging. He holds an MFA from Bennington College and has been supported by the Lambda Literary Foundation, the Outpost Vermont Fellowship, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. He’s the author of the chapbook Flower Wars and a recent recipient of the Blue Mesa Review Poetry Prize, the Breakout Poetry Prize, and the Gregory Djanikian Scholars in Poetry Prize.
Senior Editor
Mason Wray
Mason Wray is a poet from Georgia. His poems appear in Best New Poets, West Branch, Kenyon Review, Ploughshares and elsewhere. He is a graduate of he MFA program at Ole Miss and has received support from orgnizations including Bread Loaf, The Hambidge Center and the Mount, Edith Wharton's Home. He lives in Atlanta.
Poetry Editors
Nikki Ummel
Nikki Ummel is a queer artist, editor, and educator in New Orleans. She has been published or has work forthcoming with Gulf Coast, The Georgia Review, Texas Review Press, Black Lawrence Press, and others. Her debut poetry collection, Swamp Elegies, is the 2025 winner of the New American Poetry Award and will be published in late 2026. Nikki is the Executive Director and co-founder of LMNL, an arts organization focused on providing free and accessible workshops, readings, community events, and more. She has two poetry chapbooks, Hush (Belle Point Press, 2022) and Bayou Sonata (NOJHF, 2023), funded by the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation.
Maggie Warren
Margaret Kathryn Warren (Maggie) is a queer and disabled poet who writes about love and toads. They work as an adjunct English instructor. They earned their Master’s Degree of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and Media Arts in 2024 at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Their work has appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Half Mystic Journal, Bear Review, and others, and their poem “To the Cane Toad” was a finalist for the 2025 Patty Friedmann Writing Contest. You can find more of their work toadpoetmaggs
James King
James King is a poet and editor from New Hampshire. His work has appeared in The Shore, Passages North, Exposition Review, and others. He holds an MFA and Certificate in Publishing from the University of North Carolina Wilmington. He is the 2020 recipient of the Academy of American Poets Prize from Dartmouth College, a finalist in the 2023 NC State Poetry Competition, and has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize. Instagram @jamn_king.
Poetry Book Review Editor
Gabriel Costello
Gabriel Costello is in the final year of his MFA in poetry at the University of Virginia. He is originally from the far south side of Chicago. His poems have appeared in Gulf Coast, Quarterly West, New Letters, Salt Hill, and elsewhere. He has published book reviews in Meridian where he also served as poetry editor for Meridian #48. He is not only a fan of poems but a great fan of thinking with and writing about poems.
Founders
Former Editors & Readers
Haines Eason / Web Editor
Ruth Williams / Poetry Editor
Barbara Varanka / Poetry Editor
Callie Smith / Poetry & Art Editor
Andrew Reeves / Poetry Editor
John Elizabeth Stintzi / Poetry Editor
M. Cynthia Cheung / Poetry Editor
Anthony Procopio Ross / Poetry Editor
Alex Tretbar / Poetry Editor
Katherine Kallas / Art Editor
Mason D. Hochstatter / Web Editor
Jay Aja / Book Review Editor
