Founded in 1986, Hayden’s Ferry Review is a semi-annual, international literary journal edited by the MFA students at Arizona State University under the guidance of a full-time editor in chief. HFR is located in Tempe, AZ, on ancestral territories of Indigenous peoples, including Akimel O'odham (Pima) and Pee Posh (Maricopa) Indian Communities. The journal’s namesake is Tempe’s prior name, Hayden’s Ferry, which was named after a ferry service that operated on the Salt River by Charles Trumbull Hayden. Hayden’s Ferry was renamed Tempe, in part, to save the postmaster space and ink needed to mark Hayden’s Ferry on mail. Since 2023, the journal has been produced by graduate and undergraduate students in the HFR literary editing and publishing course and in the HFR internship program.
We publish poetry, fiction, nonfiction, translation, and art. A small portion of the publication is solicited from established authors, while the majority of our contributors are chosen from the thousands of manuscripts the journal receives each year. In addition to two yearly print issues, HFR publishes online-exclusive web content on The Dock and on the HFR Blog, including web issues, interviews, book reviews, and more. Our sister project, the Thousand Languages Project, is an ever-developing database featuring translations of the work originally appearing in HFR transformed from its original English into manifold world languages. Subscribe to our Substack to stay in the know about our calls for submissions, events, and more!
Work from Hayden’s Ferry Review has been included in the Pushcart Prize Anthology, Best American Poetry, and Best New Poets. HFR has notable pieces in Best American Short Stories, Best American Essays, Best American Mystery Stories, and the Pushcart Prize Anthology. To find out more about anthologies that have included pieces from Hayden’s Ferry Review, please view our in-progress list (we’re working on updating this soon).
Among the writers and artists who’ve found a home in Hayden’s Ferry Review are Kaveh Akbar, Sarah Ghazal Ali, Matt Bell, Kimberly Blaeser, TC Boyle, Raymond Carver, Lydia Davis, Rita Dove, Norman Dubie, Stephen Dunn, Matthew Gavin Frank, Tess Gallagher, Beckian Goldberg, Raquel Gutiérrez, Joseph Heller, Brenda Hillman, B.J. Hollars, Pam Houston, Ken Kesey, Peter LaBerge, Mike Meginnis, Haruki Murakami, Gloria Naylor, Dianne Nelson, Alice Notley, William Olsen, Benjamin Percy, Joy Priest, George Saunders, Jeannine Savard, sam sax, Naomi Shihab Nye, Peggy Shumaker, Jane Smiley, Gary Soto, John Updike, Anne Valente, and Jenny Xie.
Janet Biehl, Tangled Up
Our Mission
HFR looks for well-crafted work that takes risks, challenges readers, and engages us emotionally and artistically. The makeup of our editorial team changes every year, and we pride ourselves on our values of inclusivity and multiplicity, seeking to uplift emerging writers and artists. We are interested in creative work that takes risks with language and form, work that challenges boundaries/borders and systems of power, work that examines historically marginalized experiences, as well as work that identifies as hybrid or genre-nonconforming. As a diverse team of editors, we are invested in highlighting voices traditionally underrepresented in the literary landscape, including writers and artists in BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, TGNC, disabled, and economically marginalized communities. Through our publications and events, we aim to showcase a variety of stylistic and artistic modes.
Land Acknowledgement
Hayden’s Ferry Review and ASU’s four campuses are situated on the unceded ancestral lands of the Akimel O’odham (Pima), Pee Posh (Maricopa), and many other Indigenous peoples. We recognize the original stewards of this land and honor those living here today, including the Gila River Indian Community, the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, and the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation. Furthermore, we recognize that we would not be here today if not for the American occupation of O’odham and Piipaash lands, beginning with the 1854 Gadsden Purchase, which caused a rapidly growing settler population that instigated the “Time of Famine.” We know that a land acknowledgment without action is not sufficient and are making efforts toward equitable practices most immediately by providing a number of free submissions for underrepresented writers for each print issue, keeping our submissions free for web issues, and celebrating Indigenous authors with our 2023 Indigenous Poets Prize.
Editors
Susan Nguyen,
Editor-in-Chief
Susan Nguyen is the author of Dear Diaspora (2021), which won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize, an Outstanding Achievement Award form the Association of Asian American Studies, a New Mexico-Arizona Book Award, and was a finalist for the Julie Suk Award. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Arizona Commission on the Arts, and elsewhere. A Kundiman Fellow, she is a member of the She Who Has No Master(s) collective and is an alum of Arizona State University’s MFA program.
Chiara Naomi Kaufman,
Managing Editor
Chiara Naomi Kaufman is a fiction writer and MFA candidate in the Phoenix valley. Their stories have been semi-finalists for the Indiana Review and London Magazine's short story prizes. Her writing has been supported by institutions such as the McCormack Writing Center, Lambda Literary, the Key West Literary Seminar, the Virginia G. Piper Center, Center for Imagination in the Borderlands, and Wesleyan University. Chiara is working on a novel.
Hannah Palmisano,
Fiction Editor
Hannah Palmisano is pursuing her MFA in fiction at Arizona State University. She reads and writes across genres, with particular interests in speculative fiction, mystery, and mythology. She received an Honorable Mention in Fiction for the 2026 Swarthout Awards, and her work appears in Tempe Writes: An Anthology, Volume 12. She often writes late into the night, accompanied by her guinea pigs, Bambi and Blaze.
Isabel Lanzetta,
Poetry Editor
Isabel Lanzetta | she/her | is a poet whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in Bicoastal Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Leviathan, and Convergence: Young Authors of Arizona, among others. Her poetry has been supported by the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing and the Lighthouse Writers Workshop. Isabel is a recipient of the Mabelle A. Lyon Poetry Award and a two-time award winner of the Tucson Festival of Books Literary Award. When she’s not writing, she’s likely to change out of her heels and take a long walk with her dog, ABBA. You can find her on IG @isalanzetta.
Sarah Scarcliff,
Nonfiction Editor
Sarah Scarcliff is an MFA candidate studying poetry at Arizona State University. She is the author of the children's book Pitanga, a story about frogs, deforestation, and what humans can do to mitigate the effects of climate change. Her work can be found in Obindo Magazine, Spectrum Literary Journal, and MSU Roadrunner Review. She is from Birmingham, Alabama.
Tsong Chang,
Translations Editor
Tsong Chang (she/they) is a fiction writer, and literary translator. You can find their translations in Asymptote and Poetry International Online, and their short story in Epiphany: A Literary Journal. Pursuing an MFA in fiction at Arizona State University, they are the translations editor at Hayden’s Ferry Review. They live in Mesa, Arizona.
Zêdan Xelef,
Art & Web Editor
Zêdan Xelef is a poet, translator, organizer, and archivist. They grew up in the Yazidi community of Shingal Mountains where they herded four goats with three other cousins. They are the co-creator of Tew Tew, an oral history and oral traditions archive with a mission to conserve the endangered Yazidi oral traditions in response to the Yazidi genocide. They’re the writer of A Barcode Scanner (Kashkul Books 2021/Gato Negro Ediciones 2022) and co-editor and co-translator of Something Missing from This World: Contemporary Yazidi Poetry (Deep Vellum, August 2024).
Argent Martinez Brito,
Social Media Manager
Argent Martinez Brito is a poet, filmmaker, and painter from the Southwest Side of Chicago. She's received the Arizona Artists Opportunity Grant, two Amiri Baraka Scholarships from Naropa University, the Frances Mason Harris '26 Prize, the Kim Ann Arstark Memorial Award, a Virginia G. Piper Center Grant, and a CantoMundo fellowship. She is currently researching Queer Utopianism.
Associate Editors
Celeste Antu
Celeste Luisa Antu is 24 years old and from South Texas. She earned a BA in English literature with a concentration in creative writing at New York University. She specializes in fiction, with a special interest in Weird Fiction and Southern Gothic literature. She is currently pursuing an MFA in fiction at Arizona State University. Her fiction has been published in The Talon Review.
Logan Crandall
Logan Crandall is a fictional writer, digital artist, and an undergraduate senior at Arizona State University. He is pursuing a BA in English (creative writing) and has obtained an associates degree in video game production (specializing in narratives). He spends his free time reading light novels like Apothecary Diaries, plays story-driven games like Final Fantasy XIV: Online, and petting his cat.
Fin Farmer
Fin Farmer (they/them) is a slinky carrier, a movie theater employee, and a poet. Their work has been awarded as a finalist for the ASU Swarthout Awards in Writing and can be found in the Tempe Writes Anthology and Paradise Valley Literary Review. In between random bouts of writing insanity, they can be found doing audio video tech, research rabbit holes, or drawing.
Aeka Joshi
Aeka Joshi is a South-Asian American punk poet based in Arizona. Aeka attends Arizona State University and is studying creative writing with a focus on nonfiction. When not writing, she can be found dancing badly at a punk gig, rewatching bad ‘90s TV, and taking long walks without a destination.
Elsa Kim
Elsa Kim is a fiction writer and poet from lower Michigan. She is published in the Allegheny Review and is currently pursuing an MFA in fiction. Her writing centers around queerness, familial relationships, and dead dogs as a metaphor.
Maria Lata
Maria Lata is a first-year MFA candidate studying fiction at Arizona State University. Her work can be found in Split Lip Magazine. When she is not reading or writing, she’s likely out looking for ducks to feed, documenting life with her film camera, coloring, or baking. She is from Queens, New York.
Paige Maultsby
Paige Maultsby is a writer from Summit, New Jersey, pursuing an MFA in fiction at Arizona State University. Her screenplays have received recognition from Austin Film Festival and the Atlanta Film Festival, and she hopes to finish a novel someday.
Taylor Montano
Starting their first year as an MFA fiction student at Arizona State University, Taylor Montano is a nonbinary, Mexican, queer writer who complicates societal norms in their stories. They utilize unique story structures, challenge morality, and flip the lens on what is “common.” Taylor has edited for ASU’s Superstition Review and was the 2022 Homecoming Writing Awards winner (fiction), as well as the 2nd place winner of the 2023 Swarthout award (fiction). They are grateful to contribute to HFR’s community!
Josephine O'Connor
Josephine O’Connor (she/her) is a creative writing major at Arizona State University and is very happy to be here! She believes that art is one of humanity’s most important habits and encourages everyone to sing in the shower. When she isn't revising poems or writing speculative fiction, you can find her watching birds, over-analyzing bad comic books, or knitting.
Eva Tanderup
Eva Tanderup is an aspiring author who is pursuing a BA in English, creative writing. Her passion for storytelling originated in the performing arts through her high school theatre program. Her goal is to move forward in the publishing industry and help other aspiring authors tell their stories. She is drawn to otherworldly fiction and takes creative inspiration from the colorful, whimsical world that surrounds her.
Kylee Wilson
Kylee Wilson is an undergraduate student studying creative writing at Arizona State University. Her piece, “Fourteen Minutes,” received second place for fiction in the Mariposa Literary Review at Estrella Mountain Community College. Her passion for literature and the humanities comes from her love of reading, writing, and storytelling.
Editorial Assistants & Community Readers
Joshua Bliek
Joshua Bliek is an avid reader, aspiring writer, and an undergraduate student studying English via ASU Online. He believes activism, education, and art are fundamentally interconnected and crucial to affecting positive change in the world. When he's not reading, writing, or hiking, you can typically find him playing tabletop games with friends or ravenously consuming falafel.
Amanda Calderon
Amanda is an undergraduate concurrent degree senior studying English (creative writing) and gender, women, and sexuality studies. Amanda is an aspiring writer / screenwriter who hopes to help people find their voices. She is also a lover of photography, art, nature, and animals.
Chris Du
Chris Du is a poet-translator and MFA candidate in creative writing (poetry) at Arizona State University. Her research and creative practice focus on translation, ecopoetics, myth, memory, and the relationship between language and land. Her translation projects include Su Shi, Sylvia Plath, and ASU’s Thousand Languages Project. She is currently collaborating with scientists and visual artists on a visual poetry project. Rooted in classical Chinese traditions yet written in a contemporary lyric mode, her work dwells on questions of presence, language, and the human relationship to land, technology, and loss.
Marqueen Gluck
Marqueen Gluck is a third-year student at Arizona State University. She enjoys writing character-driven short fiction and spends her free time working towards her pilot’s license. Her work has appeared in Anemone Magazine.
Paige Hochhalter
Aeka Joshi
Aeka Joshi is a South-Asian American punk poet based in Arizona. Aeka attends Arizona State University and is studying creative writing with a focus on nonfiction. When not writing, she can be found dancing badly at a punk gig, rewatching bad ‘90s TV, and taking long walks without a destination.
Lainey Keightley
Lainey Keightley is a third-year undergrad student at Arizona State University, currently pursuing a Bachelor's degree in English with a creative writing focus. An Arizona native and a proud queer Asian American, she often spends her time writing either character-focused fictional stories or poetry. When not writing or reading, she enjoys listening to music, watching movies and TV with her family, and hanging out with her son, a five-year-old Holland Lop rabbit.
Xena Lundahl
Xena Lundahl is an aspiring publishing professional currently pursuing a Master of Science in marketing at Arizona State University. A graduate of the University of Arizona with a degree in business marketing and a minor in English, she combines strategic brand thinking with a deep love for literature. Currently a bookseller at Barnes & Noble, Xena is dedicated to helping readers discover new stories while working toward a career in the publishing industry. When she isn't reading, Xena, a Chandler native, enjoys watching movies, attending concerts, and spending time with her family and friends.
Serena Sangster
Serena is a third-year undergraduate student pursuing her English literature degree, a minor in media content creation, and a TESOL certificate. She is part of the Navajo tribe and comes from Holbrook, Arizona. She loves being involved on campus and is part of Native Narratives at the Center for Imagination in the Borderlands. Outside of school, Serena loves to shop at the mall, hang out with her friends, and go to concerts. In the future, she hopes to find a career in journalism.
Delilah Siegel
Delilah Siegel is a fourth-year undergraduate student currently pursuing a bachelor's degree in creative writing and a certificate in game design. Maintaining a passionate interest in storytelling from a young age, she is attending Arizona State University in the hopes of sharing her craft with the world around her, with a particular interest in stories that incorporate action, horror, and queer themes. When not writing or studying how works of literature and games tell their stories, she can be found hiking, cooking, or engaging in queer activism within her community.
Peyton Thompson
Peyton Thompson is an aspiring poet and writer finishing up her BA in English at Arizona State University. She reads a wide range of genres, from literary fiction to poetry collections and memoirs. With her love of the written word, she aims to get into the publishing industry as well as pursue her own creative writing endeavors. When she’s not studying, Thompson loves to read, cook, travel, work on her poetry, or write on Substack.
With special thanks to our partners…
Hayden’s Ferry Review is supported by the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University, which offers readings, talks, workshops, and other literary programs for the larger community.
Hayden’s Ferry Review is supported by Arizona State University’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, housed within the English Department, and edited by the MFA students there.
The Thousand Languages Project is a multilingual translation database exploring the art and scholarship of literary translation. The project will feature creative and critical work drawn from the publishing catalogue of Hayden's Ferry Review.