masthead
se harsha
Founder, Editor-in-chief, & Executive Director
SE Harsha is a writer, visual artist, musician, (comedienne?), and graphic & instructional designer with roots in North Carolina and Minnesota. In May 2019, she graduated with an MFA in Fiction from UNC-Wilmington, where she received the Margaret Shannon Morton Fellowship, and founded Press Pause with 50 posters strewn around campus. You can find her short fiction at Carve Magazine, The Adirondack Review, Terminus, Hobart Pulp, Subnivean, and others.
nathaniel santiago
Poetry Editor
Nathaniel Santiago is a Puerto Rican writer born and raised in Chicago. He often gravitates towards food and music to navigate the world around him. Nathaniel holds a BA in Creative Writing from Columbia College Chicago. When he isn't writing, he can be found slouching over his computer playing video games.
Victoria lilley
Fiction Editor & Internship Program Coordinator
Victoria Lilley, a writer, reader, dancer, artist, and all-round creative from Ontario, Canada, is currently completing a combined Honours BA in Creative Writing and Publishing at Sheridan College. A lover of stories to her core, she is a strong advocate for bookstores, bookmarks, black tea, and alliteration. ;) Her poetry, essays, and other creative works can be found in places like B222 and The Globe and Mail.
laurel jones
Reader
Laurel lives in Wilmington, NC with the love of her life, one dog, one cat, and far too many houseplants. She graduated in 2015 with her MFA in Creative Writing from UNCW. There she acted as the Ecotone poetry editor for two years and taught creative writing classes for six years. She currently works in financial technology, though does her best to remain creative in her daily life.
sewit mesfen
Reader
Sewit Mesfen is a fiction writer, technical writer, and essayist. She spent most of her life in Las Vegas, Nevada before taking the leap to North Carolina. When not writing, she can be found exploring abandoned structures, creating (and subsequently destroying) multimedia art, and finding independent bookstores.
kathryn m. Barber
Editorial Director
Kate Barber grew up and is still based in the south, having called the states of Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, and Mississippi home. She earned degrees at UNC Wilmington (MFA), Mississippi State University (MA), and Carson-Newman University (BA). Previously, she interned for Lookout Books and served in various editorial roles at Ecotone magazine and the Jabberwock Review. She is also currently an associate editor for Southern Humanities Review. Her work appears in The Masters Review, Blue Earth Review, Moon City Review, The Pinch, Helen, Door is a Jar, and elsewhere.
kate@presspausepress.org
Maryann aita
Nonfiction Editor
Maryann Aita (rhymes with beta) is a writer and performer in Brooklyn, New York, and the nonfiction editor for Press Pause. Her essay collection, Little Astronaut, is forthcoming from ELJ Editions in spring 2022. Her work has appeared in Press Pause, as well as PANK Magazine, which earned a 2020 Best of the Net Nomination, The Porter House Review, The Exposition Review, and Perhappened Magazine, among other journals. She also wrote and performed My Dysfunctional Vagina, a one-woman comedy show, and often performs around New York City. She has an MFA in writing from Sarah Lawrence College and lives with three cats.
William justice
Art Director and Designer
William Justice is a designer and technologist with scrappy beginnings in rural newspaper photojournalism. He unwittingly became a web designer after learning enough code to showcase his photography online. Inspired, he abandoned paid photography to launch Serial Free Press, an early online literary and arts magazine. He went on to help other artistic startups go online, including The Documentary Channel and the Untitled Artist Group in Nashville, Tenn. From there, he expanded into research-led design across multiple industries. More recently, he has found his true calling in service design, focusing on projects that help people navigate and understand the complexities of healthcare, finance, and law.
Sushanti bordoloi
Reader
Sushanti hails from Assam, India (where tea comes from) and has been living in Brooklyn, NYC, in the same apartment for over a decade. She has not moved from her place, primarily due to the overwhelming amount of books in her apartment. Her background is in media, writing, and filmmaking. She was the chief artist liaison at an Art Council and booked, presented, and conceptualized book launches and dance, music, and film festivals. She is working on a series of short stories and is still in pursuit of being in an apartment big enough to hold all her books and, most definitely, a dog.
laura dellabadia
Reader
Laura DellaBadia is a writer, editor, dancer, and a licensed North Carolina attorney. She graduated Campbell Law School after graduating from the University of North Carolina Wilmington magna cum laude with a B.A. in Communication Studies, a B.F.A. in Creative Writing, and the Certificate in Publishing. Her background experiences have largely focused on law (intellectual property and corporation/business), broadcast and print journalism, publishing, editing, film production, theater, and dance. She actively writes fictional novels and short stories with themes of family, identity, psyche, and love. Her award-winning short stories have appeared in various literary magazines.