the blueshift journal

Poetry Readers

Alex Arbeitel is currently a sophomore at Rutgers University. She serves as Co-President of the School of Arts and Sciences Honors Program (SASHP) Artists’ Collective, writes for the SASHP blog, and edits for The Anthologist, Rutgers’ oldest literary magazine. She has studied poetry at Iowa Young Writers’ Studio and Monmouth County Arts High School. There are few things she loves more than her three ukuleles, Gertrude Stein, and Lisa Frank stickers.

 

Claire August is a senior in high school who lives in Boston. She has been published for non-fiction and poetry in places like ACURE Mag, Inky Writers Mag, and Crybaby Zine. She edits the arts section of her high school newspaper and writes for her personal blog here. In addition, she likes to draw and see live music. One time, she won $5 on a scratch ticket. 

 

Kate Busatto is a senior at Sewickley Academy. Her poetry has been published in journals such as The Minetta Review and University of Chicago's Memoryhouse. This year, she was honored by Scholastic Art and Writing Awards as a National American Voice Award Winner. She can't resist time with her sister, a dessert table, or a dance floor.

 

E Yeon Chang is a freshman at New York University from Seoul, Korea. She has attended workshops at the University of Virginia, Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English, Kenyon College and University of Iowa. The National YoungArts Foundation named E Yeon a 2015 Finalist in Writing and ultimately a Semi-Finalist for the U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts. She wastes poems on Facebook captions and wants to be the kind of girl Childish raps about.

 

Narisa Devakula is a senior at the Hotchkiss School from Bangkok, Thailand. A regional silver key recipient from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards and a graduate of the Iowa Young Writers' Workshop, she currently runs her school's literary magazine, The Writing Block. Her writing and artwork has been published or are forthcoming in Textploit, Polyphony H.S, and several high school literary magazines. 

 

Lindsay Emi is seventeen years old and a senior at Viewpoint School, CA. She has been recognized for her writing by the U.S. Presidential Scholars in the Arts Program, the National YoungArts Foundation, Sierra Nevada College, and the National Council of Teachers of English, among other organizations. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Sierra Nevada Review, Winter Tangerine Review, National Poetry Quarterly, and elsewhere. When not writing, she enjoys playing piano and studying classics.

 

Jen Frantz is a high school senior from Hudson, Ohio, where she works at an independent bookstore and periodically re-enacts the Civil War. Some of her life goals include: owning a claw-foot bathtub, tasting a golden raspberry, and opening a gourmet PB&J shop. She prefers her toast burnt, thanks.

 

Erica Guo is a senior at Canyon Crest Academy. Currently, she is a genre editor for Polyphony HS and edits poetry for Transcendence Magazine. Aside from receiving two national gold medals in poetry, she has been published in several journals, including Polyphony HS.

 

Katia Kozachok's writing has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and Sierra Nevada College's High School Writing Contest. She's been published in Words Dance Magazine, The Riveter Review, and The Cadaverine, among others. She's a genre editor for Polyphony HS and a poetry reader for The Blueshift Journal.

 

Oriana Ullman is a junior at the United Nations International School in New York City. Her work, generally poetry and creative non-fiction, has been recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. She is the managing editor of her school newspaper, UNISVerse, and she has studied poetry at the UVA Young Writers' Workshop. In her free time, Oriana lurks in the Latin American literature section of her favorite bookstore, captains her basketball team, and watches too many cringe comedy shows on television.

 

Smriti Verma's poetry and fiction have appeared in Word Riot, Open Road Review, The DoveTales anthology, Canvas and Yellow Chair Review. Further work is forthcoming in Alexandria Quarterly, Textpoit, Inklette and Eunoia Review. She is the recipient of the Save The Earth Poetry Prize 2015 and enjoys working as a First Reader for Polyphony HS and Junior Editor at Siblini Journal.

 

Rona Wang is a seventeen-year-old high school senior from Portland, Oregon, USA. She has been nationally recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, the Sierra Nevada Review, and the Adroit Prizes. Currently, she serves as a poetry reader for The Blueshift Journal, youth poet ambassador for her city, and editor for her school magazine. Her writing can be found in The Best Teen Writing of 2014, Sierra Nevada Review, Textploit, and other publications. When not writing, she’s working out a math problem or getting lost in downtown.
 

Prose Readers

Luke Henter is a high school senior from Charlottesville, Virginia. A proud graduate of the Iowa Young Writers Studio and Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop, his work has been published in Textploit, Phosphene Journal, and Inklette. Both his poetry and prose have been recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. He likes dark chocolate and warm sunny days, harbors dreams of becoming a professional world traveler, and has an intense fear of spiders. His most prized possession is a rubber poison dart frog named Penelope.

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Jennifer Lee is a rising senior at Hunter College High School, in New York City. A Scholastic Art and Writing Awards national gold medalist in short story and memoir, her work has appeared at Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Nuyorican Cafe. Mostly, she thinks about coding, Emily Dickinson, and Dictée.

 

Brianna McNish is a freshman at the University of Connecticut. In 2015, she attended Juniper Institute for Young Writers, Yale University's Summer Journalism Program, and participated in Adroit Journal's Summer Mentorship program for fiction. Her writing has appeared in Juked, Unbroken, and Crashtest Mag, among others. When not writing, she obsesses over the latest Broadway musicals, tea, and tries to teach herself French.

 

Paloma Ruiz is a junior at York School in California. Her poetry has been published in Eunoia Review and Polyphony H.S., as well as in several anthologies, and she currently serves as a poetry reader for The Adroit Journal. Along with receiving Gold and Silver Medals from the National Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, she was a semi-finalist for the National Student Poet Commendation, and recently attended the Iowa Young Writers' Studio. When she's not volunteering at her local hospital, she spends most of her time watching old surgical videos for inspiration. 

 

Shannon Sommers is a high school sophomore in New York City. She is an editor at Parallel Ink, senior editorial intern at The Prospect, and a business associate & blog consultant with The Adroit Journal. In addition to being a Scholastic Writing Awards national gold medalist, she is the founding editor of her school newspaper, The Current, the captain of her school's policy debate team, a yearbook writing staff member, and previously served as as a guest editor for the Fall 2015 issue of Five [Quarterly]. Last summer, Shannon took classes with the Gotham Writers Workshop and was a prose mentee under The Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program, before joining their staff. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Teen Ink, Inside of Me Anthology: American High School Poets, New Voices Young Writers 2015, and Eloquence: The America Library of Poetry.

 

Meilan Steimle is a high school junior at the Harker School, hailing from the programmer's utopia of San Jose, California. As an only child with two working parents and no friends, she started writing to amuse herself and has continued doing so for the past twelve years. In that period, she has been recognized nationally by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and Colombia College Young Author's contest. She is an alumna of the 2015 Iowa Young Writer's Studio and Kenyon Review Young Writer's Workshop. In her free time, she enjoys science puns and the pseudo-scientific diversions of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. 

 

Erica Wachs is currently a sophomore at Yale University from Bryn Mawr Pennsylvania. Erica has been recognized as an award-winning playwright from Philadelphia Young Playwrights, for her pieces “Junk” and “Grey”. In addition, Erica has published an interfaith dialogue facilitation manual through the American Society for Muslim Advancement, and worked as an artistic and literary intern at the Public Theater, where she worked on the world premiere of "Manahatta." At Yale, Erica works as an undergraduate O'Neill Playwriting Mentor, and serves as a student coordinator and moderator of the Windham-Campbell Prize, Yale’s annual literary prize and festival.
 

Alice Xu is a high school senior in New Jersey who adores Jane Austen and her novels. She currently serves as a Co-Editor in Chief for her high school’s literary magazine, a Genre Editor for Polyphony H.S., and an Editorial Intern for The Blueshift Journal. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Textploit, Phosphene Literary Journal, The Riveter Review, and elsewhere.

 

Jessica Zhang is a high school senior from Boston. The recipient of a Silver Medal with Distinction from the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, her work appears or is forthcoming in SOFTBLOW, Alexandria Quarterly, The Tulane Review, and elsewhere.

 

Publicity Manager

Abhishaike Mahajan is a freshman at University of Texas of Dallas, where he studies Neuroscience as a part of the honors program. He has attended the Iowa Young Writers Workshop and has been published in a multitude of anthologies and journals, including Tincture Journal, Corner Club Press, and others. He has also been recognized by Scholastic Writing Awards for prose, and has received several state and district awards for essays. He is currently working as a writer for Odyssey Online and has, in the past, been a reader for Polyphony HS. In his free time, he works in a behavioral neuroscience lab about Vagal Nerve Stimulation and reads books about neat things.

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Director of Social Media

Jameka Williams is a graduate of Eastern University with a B.A. in Creative Writing. When she's not writing poetry about Kim Kardashian or existential concerns about loneliness, she's reading about intersectional feminism, eating junk food and wishing she was a portrait artist. Her work is published or forthcoming in Eastern University's The Inklings, Rowan University's Glassworks Magazine, Prelude Magazine, and Gigantic Sequins.

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Blog Manager

Jessica Zhou’s favorite preposition? Amongst. She's a SoCal-based temporary armchair activist, whose early love for people-watching, internet, and diary-ing resulted in an avid interest in journalism, and in the context of the 21st century, digital media as well. She would like to thank the internet for allowing her to be involved with a multifarious assortment of organizations and publications (lately: The Prospect, SILVIA Magazine, Polyphony H.S., Inkling, and now, The Blueshift Journal!), which have inspired her to actively attempt blending civic engagement and journalism, as a yearbook staff writer and technology coordinator for CSF. Otherwise, she may or may not be running downhill, ukulele jamming, enjoying festivities at Grand Park, avidly reading obscure wikipedia articles, attempting to capture moods within playlists, spontaneously bursting into dance, or curling up with dog-eared paperbacks.  Beyond high school, she hopes to be anything but apathetic.

 

Layout & Design

Lily Grossbard is a first-year at the The College of the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois, where she has no idea what she is studying. At her high school, Phillips Academy, Lily was an Editor for the Commentary Section of the school’s weekly newspaper, The Phillipian. Lily has received recognitions from The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, Youth Journalism International, and the Illinois College Press Association. When not busy with school, Lily works as a camp counselor at a wilderness camp for children.

 

Grace Z. Li is a student at Harvard University and Blueshift's curent Media Manager. Outside of Blueshift, Grace is involved with several publications. She's a USA TODAY  College Correspondent and an Arts writer for The Harvard Crimson. She's designed for the Winter Tangerine Review and Tuesday Magazine. She also loves writing fiction. Grace is an Iowa Young Writers' Studio alumnus. Her fiction has been recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards and has been published in The Cadaverine Magazine and The Eunoia Review. 

 

Editorial Interns

Logan Clem is a junior English student at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He lacks any specific literary achievements since most of his time is dedicated to building a spaceship for his canine companion Kazak the space-hound to use to escape his confinement on Earth and return to his home in the stars. He plans to be employed as a speech writer for the first President of the United Martian Republic.

 

Audrey Effenberger is a first year college student at Harvard University studying some kind of science and all kinds of art. She has been honored for her poetry by the National Scholastic Writing Awards, was a runner up for the 2014 Elizabeth Bishop prize, and has published poems in Polyphony H.S. and GREYstone Literary Magazine. Audrey writes for the Harvard Independent, Harvard Science Review, and herself. She enjoys long walks through cities, up mountains, and in places she hasn't been before.

 

Talia Flores is a senior at Eden Prairie High School. She has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and the Texas Book Festival, and her work appears or is forthcoming in National Poetry Quarterly, Words Dance, Wakulla Aeries Review, and more. She is the proud founder of her previous high school’s first literary journal, Combustion.Lit, was a mentee in The Adroit Journal’s Mentorship Program, and works a reader for Polyphony H.S. In addition to writing, she sings in her school’s choir and chamber choir, and teaches as a black belt in Taekwondo.

 

Elaine Tang is a first-year student at the University of Chicago studying economics and English. She attended the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio in 2013, and during high school, she served as a genre editor for Polyphony H.S., read prose for the Winter Tangerine Review, and wrote for various online publications. Besides writer and editor, she identifies as a follower of Christ, pun enthusiast, sock aficionado, wannabe polymath, art history geek, amateur baker, and incorrigible Francophile. If she had to encapsulate herself in three adjectives, they would be “disheveled,” “pensive,” and “sarcastic.” When she has free time, she enjoys reading, browsing Tumblr or Reddit, watching cartoons, volunteering with kids, losing at Catan, and blowing her bangs out of her face (because nobody has time for bobby pins). Her blood contains trace amounts of mango smoothie, and she loves Fair Isle patterns. 

 

Katina Yong is a senior at Gunn High School located in a Palo Alto, a not so sunny part of California. Her work in poetry has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. In school she serves as fundraising director for The Chariot, her school's political magazine. When she isn't doing things regarding words, she goes curling.

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