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. — 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

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Susan Nguyen,
Editor in Chief

Susan Nguyen is the author of Dear Diaspora (2021), which won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize, an Outstanding Achivement 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 an alum of ASU’s MFA program.

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Issa Marc Shulman,
Managing Editor

Issa Marc Shulman is a third-year fiction writer from Northern California, with a background in interactive media and game design. He misses the cats that used to visit him in his backyard.

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Brennie Shoup,
Fiction Editor

Brennie Shoup is a second-year MFA student studying creative writing, fiction. When she's not writing or reading, she enjoys running, napping, and playing video games.

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Zack Lesmeister,
Poetry Editor

Zack Lesmeister is a mixed queer Mexican-Vietnamese American poet and filmmaker based out of Arizona. They have earned their BA in Creative Writing as a First Wave Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Currently they are a MFA candidate in Poetry at Arizona State University. Zack is a Lambda Literary Fellow and Pushcart Nominated Poet. Their writing is published in The Offing, The Margins, Nimrod, Button Poetry, Rosebud and elsewhere. Their debut film was published by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center. You can find more about Zack at zacklesmeister.com or on instagram @cultiv.asian

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Emad Jabini,
Nonfiction Editor

Emad Jabini is an Iranian-American writer and educator based in Phoenix, AZ. He earned his MA in Literary and Cultural studies from the University of Utah and is currently an MFA candidate in Fiction at Arizona State University. His interdisciplinary research and artistic work revolve around themes of liminality, displacement, assimilation, mass media, and pop culture. He has received fellowships and scholarships from the Vermont Studio Center, the Kenyon Review, the Center for Imagination in the Borderlands, and the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing. He is the current Nonfiction Editor for Hayden’s Ferry Review.

Brandon Blue,
Translations Editor

Brandon Blue is a black, queer poet, translator, educator and MFA candidate at Arizona State University from the D(M)V. He is an assistant editor for Storm Cellar Magazine and his work has or will appear in Poet Lore, Action, Spectacle, Metro Weekly, and more. Their work is also featured in the Capital Pride Poem-a-Day event and has received the support from the Virginia G Piper for creative writing. His chapbook, Snap.Shot, has been published by Finishing Line Press and was named in Poetry Mutual’s Best Books of 2023. Keep up with their work at brandonbluepoet.com

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Patrick De Leon,
Art & Web Editor

A writer originally from Southern California, Patrick has called Phoenix, Arizona, home for over a decade and is currently a student at Arizona State University pursuing an MFA in poetry. He has worked for various non-profit organizations and museums in the Phoenix area. He explores queer realities and queerness in conjunction with Catholicism, heterosexuality, and queer futures through his poetic practice. Patrick is also an interdisciplinary artist working in video, printmaking, and photography.

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Chloe Jensen,
Social Media Manager

Chloe L. Jensen is a fiction writer whose work has received fellowships from the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing and been produced for the streaming audio platform Femtasy. She earned an MBA from the Berlin School of Creative Leadership and her writing on finance and investing has appeared in many print and online publications. Originally from Salem, Massachusetts, she’s now based in Mesa, Arizona, where she teaches at and is a student in the MFA in Creative Writing program at Arizona State University. She also tutors in the Writing Center at Mesa Community College.

Associate Editors

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Vale Duran Garcia

Valeria Durán García is an Ecuadorian fourth-year undergraduate student earning her degree in English Linguistics and a minor in Italian. She loves languages languages and can speak English, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese. She’s currently helping with a project at Arizona State University, where she reviews Italian comic books. Vale also enjoys cooking and a long afternoon of cross-stitching.

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Siobhan Jean-Charles

Siobhan Jean-Charles graduated with her BA from Salisbury University on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. She is an MFA candidate at Arizona State University and the blog editor for The Shore. Her work is published in Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Furrow, The Tusculum Review, and elsewhere.

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Chiara Naomi Kaufman

Chiara Naomi Kaufman is a first-year MFA candidate and educator at Arizona State University. Their writing has received support from the Wesleyan University Hamilton Prize, The Key West Literary Seminar, and BackDraft Live: a one-time Guernica workshop. A former reader for Guernica and Epiphany, she is currently an Associate Fiction Editor for Hayden's Ferry Review.

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William Kruger

William Kruger is a fourth-year undergraduate writer from Phoenix, Arizona. He was a finalist for the Swarthout Award in 2024 for his story The Pain of Living for You. He works in both literature and interactive stories, and is currently working on his first novel Last One to Santa Monica. He really wants to talk to you about Deltarune.

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Isabel C. Lanzetta

Isabel Cristina Lanzetta knows Arizona to be home. Her work has appeared in HFR, Oakland Arts Review, New Reader Magazine, Leviathan, Curios Magazine, and Convergence: Young Authors of Arizona, among others. She is a recipient of the 2023 Emerging Writer Fellowship in Poetry from the Lighthouse Writers Workshop. She received her BA in English and Southwest Studies from Colorado College. Isabel’s poetry often explores inherited stories of displacement, cultural erasure, and embodied memory. As an interdisciplinary artist, you may find her engaged with written and visual storytelling, metalwork, and movement. In her downtime, you’ll find her taking long walks with her dog, ABBA (yes, after the band.)

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Noa Padawer-Blatt

Noa Padawer-Blatt is a first-year MFA student studying creative writing, fiction. She is the winner of the 2021 carte blanche prize in fiction, an alumni of the Quebec Writers Federation Mentorship Program, and a Pushcart Prize nominee.

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Jade Rose

Jade Rose is a first-year graduate student in the English Literature MA program. She focuses on female representation in modern literature with a specific interest in fantasy novels. Outside of class, Jade has an interest in encouraging a love for writing and reading in everyone. She helped found the Book Club at ASU and is a former intern of the PEN Project.

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Avani Sambra

Avani Sambra is a fourth-year undergrad at Arizona State University, originally from a small town in New Mexico, and an Associate Editor and Editorial Intern at Hayden's Ferry Review. Pursuing a degree in English Literature, Avani enjoys exploring the worlds of books, traveling to new places, and staying active through swimming.

Editorial Assistants & Community Readers

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Chris Atwood

Chris is a fourth-year English Literature student at Arizona State University after graduating with an Associate Degree in English, Creative Writing from Chandler-Gilbert Community College. He looks forward to working alongside his fellow interns at Hayden’s Ferry Review and gaining new experiences in the editorial process. While he tends to read and write his fair share of fiction, Chris also adores the other literary branches like nonfiction and poetry.

Seth Bartlett

Seth Bartlett is a second-year Computer Science student from Chandler, Arizona. He enjoys music, hiking, and anything art related.

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Kristen Therese Chua

Kristen Therese Chua is a graduate of Oklahoma City University where she received her BFA in Acting and minored in Psychology and English. Currently an Arizona-based actor, Kristen is in her final semester of pursuing her second bachelor’s in English, Narrative Studies at ASU. Her works of fiction and poetry have been published in Canyon Voices (Issue 30), The Scarab (ed. 38-40), Seasons of Therapy, The Amulet, and Pierian Spring.

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Arden Galloway

Arden Galloway is currently pursuing her undergraduate degree in Creative Writing at ASU. When she is not spending her time writing or reading, she is most likely outside camping, hiking, or rock climbing.

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Katie Grierson

Katie Grierson is often a poet. She has been recognized as a Best of the Net Nominee, twice as the Academy of American Poets Jean Burden Prize Winner, and is diligently working on her MFA at Arizona State University. She hopes to one day become a beam of light.

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Paige Hochhalter

Paige Hochhalter is a second-year undergraduate student at Arizona State University, currently pursuing a concurrent degree in Creative Writing and Film and Media Production. Paige has been writing stories since she learned how to hold a pencil, and aims to explore themes of mental health, friendship, and sexuality through her work. Alongside writing, she also enjoys reading (shocker), painting, and performing Broadway musicals alone in her bedroom.

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Dahlia Horan

Dahlia Horani is a third-year undergraduate student pursuing a concurrent major in Psychology and English Literature. She is writing her thesis on Muslim representation in young adult literature and when she isn't reading, she is trying new coffee shops with friends, going to bookstores, and working on her latest creative project.

Emma Jackson

Originally from Erie, Colorado, Emma Jackson is an second-year undergraduate student at Arizona State University in English, Creative Writing. She has been writing fiction books and poetry since she was 11, spanning from magic-filled mystery novels to journeys exploring mental health and loss. When Emma is not studying English or making plots for future novels, she is in choir or sketching floor plans for homes and schools.

Jacob Martin

Jacob Martin is working on his master's in English Studies. When he is not found with a book in his nose, this fantasy and LGBTQ writer can often be found sampling desserts, avoiding Mom’s for Liberty chat rooms, and taking naps with his cute but territorial cat, Aiden.

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Sara Meyers

Sara Meyers is a Senior in English Linguistics at Arizona State University and an academic at heart. Outside of her studies, she enjoys being a bookseller, music producer, vibe curator, and cat enthusiast. Her three cats and fiancé keep her company.

Jenna Oldaker

Jenna Oldaker is a first-year MA student studying English at Arizona State University. She is based in Ohio and enjoys reading and spending time with her cat.

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Shelby Roberts

Shelby Roberts is a second-year undergraduate student majoring in Ocean Futures with a minor in English. All of her hobbies involve the consumption of media, from watching movies and television shows to reading and listening to music. She also enjoys creating media of her own, as she practices creative writing with her English major friends, occasionally dabbles in acoustic guitar, and has recently picked up a new hyperfixation of nail art. Shelby also has a chunky dog and would be happy to show you many, many pictures.

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Avani Sambra

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Robin Willett

Robin Willett is a third-year creative writing student at Arizona State University. They have a love for birds, video games, film soundtracks, and all things sci-fi.

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Zhongxing Zeng

Zhongxing Zeng holds a PhD in English Literature from Arizona State University and currently teaches first-year composition courses at Sam Houston State University. He is an English-Chinese literary translator and a singer-songwriter, releasing music on Spotify and YouTube Music under the artist name 曾寅.

Community Readers

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Bella Hutchinson

Bella Hutchinson is an undergraduate student at Arizona State University, specializing in Computer Science and English Literature. Bringing the creative writing arts to new and varied audiences is a passion of hers, and she does so by leading community engagement projects like creative writing workshops and poetry performances as president of The Devil's Inkwell. Now, Bella is excited to be working with HFR to learn more about the craft. When Bella isn't hammering away at a creative project, she can be found playing sports on the tennis court or out on the jugger pitch.

Alvin Le

Alvin Le is a second-year graduate student at Arizona State University and an associate editor in nonfiction at Hayden's Ferry Review. Outside of reading and writing, he enjoys tabletop role-playing games and music.

Carlos Novoa

Carlos Novoa is an undergraduate student at Arizona State University. Originally born in Seattle, Washington, he moved to Phoenix at a very young age and has lived there most of his life. He enjoys reading, writing, and making music.

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. — 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. — *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.