Sam Campbell is a writer and teacher living in Northwest Arkansas. She earned her English M.A. from East Tennessee State University, where she was the Editor-in-Chief of The Mockingbird. She publishes across all genres; her work appears in October Hill, Tennessee’s Emerging Poets Anthology, and Bloodroot, among others. Her awards include, but are not limited to, the 2019 James Still Prize for Short Fiction and 2019 Jesse Stuart Prize for Young Adult Writing. She likes to be surprised when she’s reading. She is always looking for works that feel both familiar and otherworldly. She wants to see reality turned on its head and examined from a new perspective. Give her what’s real, but make it absurd. Give her characters she will love to hate. Give her situations that are relatable, but make them utterly unique. Give her fiction, but be true about it. She enjoys reading stories like George Saunders’ “Sea Oak,” and deep down she believes that the ultimate triumvirate of literary excellence is Samuel Beckett, Ray Bradbury, and Aimee Bender. Nothing fills her with more joy when she is reading than when she can see authors playing with language, experimenting and pushing against genre boundaries. Furthermore, she wants to see works that reveal themselves slowly, open themselves up piece by piece, with each read-through unearthing hidden depths. However, she dislikes pieces that try too hard; a work should also be enjoyable and entertaining during the initial reading.

Matthew Gilbert, Poetry Editor

Matthew Gilbert is an adjunct instructor of English and composition at East Tennessee State University and Northeast State Community College. He currently serves as a reader for at Orison Books and a poetry editor at Great Lakes Review. He enjoys writing that crackles and burns with emotion. He wants works that push the boundaries between writing and lived experience — works where language and form delight or agonize the speaker. Imagine poems like Ocean Vuong’s “Kissing in Vietnamese,” which layers reminiscence and sensation with longing for what is gone, or Joy Harjo’s “Fear Poem, or I Give You Back” where fear is expelled through the power of words and shapes a complex history of the speaker. Shock him with powerful images like Sharon Old’s “Still Life in Landscape” or break him with the raw truth of a world in need of transformation like Crystal Valentine’s “#feminism.” Poetry is fire to illuminate and remold. Matthew’s poems, prose, and photographs have appeared in journals such as Red Mud Review, Royal Rose: The Castle, Delta Poetry Review, The Mildred Haun Review among others, and is forthcoming in The Southern Poetry Anthology IX: Virginia.

Contact Us

For questions, concerns, and comments please send an email to:

blackmoonmageditors@gmail.com

If your inquiry is fiction related, please indicate FICTION as the subject.

If your inquiry is poetry related, please indicate POETRY as the subject.

If your inquiry is about anything else, please indicate OTHER as the subject.

If you are attempting to submit your work, please see the Submission Guidelines.