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 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.
Brennie Shoup,
Managing Editor
Brennie Shoup is a third-year MFA student studying creative writing, fiction. When she's not writing or reading, she enjoys running, napping, and playing video games.
Chiara Naomi Kaufman,
Fiction Editor
Chiara Naomi Kaufman is a 2025 Lambda Literary Fellow whose work has appeared in The Literary Review, Necessary Fiction, and is forthcoming in the 2025 Emerge Anthology. Their work has been long-listed for The London Magazine's Short Story Prize and supported by The Key West Literary Seminar, Wesleyan University's Hamilton Prize, and the Virginia G. Piper Center. As HFR's Fiction Editor, Chiara is looking for stories with a heart of voice, language, and verve. Send her the story that scares you, the story that surprised you. The story that dismantles tropes, the narratives we claim to know.
Siobhan Jean-Charles,
Poetry Editor
Siobhan Jean-Charles graduated with her Bachelor's from Salisbury University in Maryland, and is a MFA candidate in Poetry at Arizona State University. She is the blog editor for The Shore Poetry and was a finalist for the Subnivean Award, judged by Major Jackson. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart prize and received support from the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing. Siobhan's poetry is published or forthcoming in Passages North, Cider Press Review, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and elsewhere.
Hana Saad,
Nonfiction Editor
Hana Saad (she/her) is a Lebanese-American writer based in Phoenix, AZ by way of Tulsa, OK. Her work is featured in Mizna and has been supported by Tin House. Hana loves spending time with friends (dancing & pickleball & taste testing new foods!), traveling, and going to concerts. She urges you to support the liberation of Palestine in whatever way you can. Connect with her @hanaxsaad on Instagram or say hello at hana-saad.com.
Max Wheeler,
Translations Editor
Max Wheeler is a trans writer and teacher from Oakland, CA. His work can be found or is forthcoming in Gulf Coast, trampset, Astrolabe, Beaver Magazine, and elsewhere. His short story about a snail was included in Best Small Fictions 2024. He is currently living in the Sonoran Desert, pursuing an MFA at Arizona State University and making friends with the cacti and the birds.
Lan Lesmeister,
Art & Web Editor
Lan 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. Lan 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 Lan at lanlesmeister.com or on instagram @cultiv.asian
Chris Du,
Social Media Manager
Chris Du is a poet born and raised in southwest China, where she grew up in the mountains and writes poetry in both English and Chinese. She is also a translator of Sylvia Plath and contributed to the Thousand Languages Project at ASU. She is currently collaborating with scientists and visual artists on a visual poetry project. Her poetry explores ecopoetics, myth, and memory. 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 and loss.
Associate Editors
Zêdan Xelef Almito
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).
Negin Heydari
Negin Heydari is a second-year PhD student in English Literature. Her research explores the intersections of Victorian Gothic fiction with psychoanalytic and feminist literary theories. Outside of her academic work, she enjoys spending time with friends, reading, going to concerts, and re-watching her comfort shows.
Hannah Palmisano
Hannah Palmisano is a second-year MFA student studying fiction at Arizona State University. Her work has been supported by the Maya Smith Creative Writing Endowment Fund and the Aurelie Sheehan Memorial Scholarship. She also dabbles in poetry, and is one of the winners of the UA Poetry Center’s 4th annual Haiku Hike.
Madelynn Paz
Madelynn Paz is an emerging writer and multimedia artist based in Tempe, Arizona. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Arizona State University and is pursuing another degree in creative nonfiction. As an interview editor for Superstition Review, she conducted and published author interviews for Issue 33. After working with various nonprofit organizations in the Phoenix area, she is also a research administrator for Watts College, assisting faculty with grant proposals and submissions.
Owen Pesavento
Owen Pesavento is a first-year graduate student in the Narrative Studies MA program. Outside of his studies, he enjoys working on his first novel, reading whatever fantasy or science fiction he can get his hands on, and running chaotic games of Dungeons and Dragons for his friends.
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.
Kellen Williams
Kellen Williams is a 4th year ASU Undergraduate student working towards a degree in Creative Writing with a concentration in Fiction. He was born and raised in Chandler, Arizona. He has been an avid reader of Fantasy and Science-fiction all his life. When he is not reading or working towards his degree, he spends his time cooking and playing games with friends.
Editorial Assistants
Nana Atakora Appiah-Padi
Nana Atakora Appiah-Padi is a 4th year PhD student in Justice and Social inquiry. His research interests include the processes of emergent social identities, decolonization, abolition, and the linkages between them. By analyzing the cosmologies, cultural creations, and ecological practices of maroon communities his work explores the world-making capabilities of people living through apocalypse. Outside of academia, Nana Atakora is also a substitute teacher for elementary school and the assistant program director at the phoenix based non-profit FIBCO Family Services
Ashley Cameron
Ashley Cameron is an undergraduate English major at Arizona State University. She loves to write short stories in various genres, especially fantasy, sci-fi, and horror with touches of romance. She aspires to be a Young Adult novelist and video game writer, hoping to bring vivid worlds and relatable characters to life. Her work can be found in the online literary magazines "Outrageous Fortune" and "Quirk" as well as in "Tempe Writes: An Anthology Volume 10" and the ASU Barrett magazine "Normal Noise."
Cassandra Derhammer
Cassandra Derhammer is a Midwest-born romance author and first-year BA English student at Arizona State University. She has self-published four novels in the romance genre, known for their emotional depth and compelling characters. A lifelong reader, she discovered her love for storytelling in the first grade after picking up Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Ever since, she has been captivated by the power of words to create worlds, spark emotion, and connect people. When she’s not writing or studying, she can be found exploring bookstores, drinking coffee, and dreaming up her next love story.
Kamille Escobar
Kamille Escobar is a third-year undergraduate student pursuing a degree in English Creative Writing. She is a short story fiction writer who aims to create stories for the communities she is proudly a part of. Outside of writing, she loves to read, try out new coffee shops, and attend baseball games!
Olivia Heuser
Olivia Heuser is an aspiring writer/filmmaker, finishing up her BA at Arizona State University in Film and Media Studies with a minor in Digital Audiences. An avid media maker, you can usually find her painting, drawing, or writing / shooting short films with her partner in business and life. When she's not creating, she's either reading, gardening, baking sourdough and sweet treats, or watching movies and lounging around with her partner and 3 cats.
Paige Hochhalter
Paige Hochhalter is a third-year undergraduate student at Arizona State University, currently pursuing a BA in Creative Writing, and a minor in Film and Media Production. She aims to explore themes of mental health, grief, friendship and identity through her work. Alongside writing, she also enjoys reading (shocker), painting, and performing Broadway musicals alone in her bedroom.
Cade Januszewski
Cade Januszewski is a third-year Linguistics and French student. Outside of academics, he enjoys sailing as a part of the Sailing at ASU club, reading, and crocheting.
J. Keefer
J. Keefer is a third-year student studying engineering and creative writing at Arizona State University. She enjoys investigating the intersection between literature and science, working in libraries, and saying “a cat!” every time she sees a cat.
Gladys Anette Sanchez Padilla
Gladys Anette Sanchez Padilla is an English and Anthropology student at Arizona State University. She has written and acted in two short films for school projects. She was in the corps de ballet for Proyecto Danza Academia de Ballet and performed at Teatro Socorro Astol and Teatro Pablo de Villavicencio. She is currently a ballet teacher. She loves to write gothic horror, fairy tales, and young adult, but she hopes to be part of the art world in every way possible.
Court Taft
Court is a 3rd year undergraduate student getting their bachelor's in Creative Writing alongside a minor in Film and Media Studies. When not reading a new book or watching movies, Court is typically playing Dungeons and Dragons with their friends and writing up new characters.
Robin Willett
Robin Willett is a fourth-year creative writing student at Arizona State University. When not reading or writing, they enjoy listening to film soundtracks, playing games, and birdwatching.
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.