Our Staff

Samiya Bashir (she/her) is a poet, artist, writer, performer, educator, and advocate. A long-time communications professional focused on editorial, arts, and social justice movement building, Samiya was a founding organizer and longtime Board member of Fire & Ink, a nonprofit devoted to increasing the understanding, visibility, and awareness of the works of LGBTQ+ writers of African descent and heritage. Samiya is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Field Theories, winner of the 2018 Oregon Book Award’s Stafford/Hall Award for Poetry. Her first book, was published by Third World Press, the oldest independent publisher of Black literature. With Where the Apple Falls (LAMMY finalist 2005) she was among the first poets published by RedBone Press where publisher Lisa C. Moore has been dedicated to raising the voices of Black LGBTQ+ authors for 25 years. Samiya herself is also a two-time Lambda Literary Awards finalist. Samiya’s honors include the Rome Prize in Literature, the Pushcart Prize, Oregon’s Arts & Culture Council Individual Artist Fellowship in Literature, and two of the University of Michigan’s Hopwood Poetry Awards among numerous other awards, grants, fellowships, and residencies. In addition to her books, Samiya has served as editor to national magazines and anthologies of literature and artwork. Bashir lives in Harlem.

Read more about Samiya Bashir.

Monica Carter (she/her) is a writer, poet and reviewer. She was a PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellow, a Lambda Literary Foundation LGBT Emerging Voices Fellow and a fiction graduate of the prestigious PEN Center’s MARK program. Her fiction has appeared in literary journals including The Rattling Wall, Black Clock, Cactus Heart, Bloom and the anthology Strange Cargo. Her nonfiction has appeared in publications including Black Clock, World Literature Today and Foreword Reviews. She served as a judge for the Best Translated Book Award in poetry and fiction from 2008-2015. Monica currently manages Lambda Literary’s LGBTQ Writers in Schools. She is currently finishing her first novel.

Chloe Feffer (she/they) is an educator, poet, and writer based in Brooklyn, NY. Their poetry and fiction have appeared in or is forthcoming in The B’K, Sledgehammer Literary, Stone Fruit, FEED Literary Magazine, JADEN, and elsewhere. Prior to joining Lambda Literary, Chloe worked as an educator, as an educational program coordinator, and as a facilitator for memoir writing workshops with incarcerated women. She holds a BA from Stonybrook University and an MA in Education from CUNY Hunter.

Jada Foster (she/they) is an education coordinator born and raised in Birmingham, AL. Their professional and personal goal is to cultivate arts-educated environments that acknowledge and celebrate those in marginalized communities. Before joining Lambda Literary, Jada was an Assistant Coordinator for the Alabama African American Civil Rights Heritage Sites Consortium, introducing Alabama’s African American history to high school students using various forms of Art History that centers the African diaspora. Utilizing their experience navigating performing arts spaces, Jada aims to instill social awareness amongst youth and artistic communities. Also, they are a self-proclaimed astrology enthusiast.

Iyana Gallen (she/her) is an advocate, educator, and book enthusiast born and raised in Stamford, CT. Her life objective is to help construct a safe space for marginalized groups to be uplifted and brought to the forefront of conversations. She attended Sacred Heart University, where she majored in Psychology and had a minor in Music. Prior to joining Lambda Literary, Iyana worked as a corporate paralegal, and an early childhood educator. She currently runs an Etsy shop – CosmicallyAdorned. Iyana can be seen pulling tarot cards or reading astrological birth charts.

Suzi F. Garcia is the author of the chapbook, A Homegrown Fairytale, Bone Bouquet 2020. She is a co-publisher at Noemi Press and a Poetry Editor for Haymarket Books. Suzi is a Macondonista, a CantoMundo fellow, and a Lambda Literary fellow. Her writing has been featured or is forthcoming from POETRY Magazine, The Offing, Vinyl, Fence Magazine, and more. She has presented at PCA/ACA, AWP, and Console-ing Passions, among other national conferences.
Find her on Twitter at @SuziG or at www.suzifgarcia.com.

Emmanuel Henderson (he/him) is a writer born and raised in Chicago, IL and Outreach Director for the Speculative Literature Foundation. You can find him blissfully unaware of certain trends, wondering whether he should have a second bagel, forgetting commas (mhm), or playing VALORANT.

L.D. Lewis (she/her) is an editor, publisher, and Shirley Jackson award-nominated writer of speculative fiction. She serves as a founding creator and Project Manager for the World Fantasy and Hugo Award-winning FIYAH Literary Magazine. Other hats include Founding Director of the Hugo-nominated FIYAHCON, Researcher for the (also award-winning) LeVar Burton Reads podcast, Chair of the 56th Annual Nebulas Conference, and concurrently, the Awards Manager for Lambda Literary. She is the author of A Ruin of Shadows as well as a number of pieces of lauded and long-listed short fiction and poetry. She lives in Atlanta with two cats, her coffee habit, and an impressive LEGO build collection.

Mai Tran is a genderqueer Vietnamese American writer and communications strategist based in New York. Their work has appeared in Apogee, Vox, i-D, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. They previously served as a nonfiction coordinator for MFA App Review, increasing underrepresented writers’ access to fully-funded MFA programs, and as the Poetry Coalition Fellow for Lambda Literary.

Parrish Turner is a queer essayist and editor who hails from Georgia. His writing focuses on gender, sexuality, spirituality, regionality and more. Turner’s work has been featured on Buzzfeed, Slate, Culture Trip, Gertrude Press, and The Rumpus. With his fellow playwrights, he was honored with the Metro Atlanta Theater award for his work on the musical By Wheel and By Wing. Turner was a 2014 Lambda Literary Fellow and received his MFA from The New School in 2017.  He currently freelances out of Brooklyn. He is always on the lookout for a great cup of tea.

Harper Zacharias (they/them) is a mission-centric fundraiser, driven by a dedication to economic, racial, and gender justice. Harper believes resource mobilization and advocacy are inseparable. This means the best fundraisers view themselves first and foremost as educators, storytellers, and organizers working to ethically redistribute resources and build relationships. Zacharias has experience advocating for sex workers’ rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and the value of literary arts. As the Director of Development at the Sex Workers Project of the Urban Justice Center, they transformed the organization’s relationship to philanthropy by implementing a three-year strategic plan, increasing and diversifying revenue, and streamlining project management.  At PEN America, Zacharias helped grow programs that uplifted the voices of marginalized and emerging writers and was integral in securing over $3.5m in revenue. At Trans Student Educational Resources, a national nonprofit dedicated to improving the educational environment for transgender youth, Harper supported programs at more than 500 schools, quadrupled the size of the organization, and raised over $500,000 for transgender youth. Zacharias received their BA in political studies with a focus on international relations and political theory at Bard College. Zacharias also received the prestigious Point Foundation Scholarship and was named a Hannah Arendt Scholar and Ralph Ellison Scholar.