Established in 2008, Up the Staircase Quarterly is an online journal of poetry and art. New issues are published every February, May, August, and November, unless otherwise stated.
UtSQ nominates for Best of the Net and Best New Poets. Poems published in UtSQ have appeared in both anthologies. You can join Up the Staircase Quarterly on Facebook and bluesky for updates and news.
UtSQ nominates for Best of the Net and Best New Poets. Poems published in UtSQ have appeared in both anthologies. You can join Up the Staircase Quarterly on Facebook and bluesky for updates and news.
Masthead
Editor-in-Chief
|
April Michelle Bratten co-founded Up the Staircase Quarterly in 2008. Her poetry has appeared in Southeast Review, Cartridge Lit, Zone 3, Thrush, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Screen Door Review: Literary Voices of the Queer South, and more. April's latest chapbook, Anne with an E, was published by dancing girl press. You can follow her on bluesky @aprilmbratten.bsky.social and learn more at aprilmichellebratten.com. |
Assistant Editor |
Anuja Ghimire is a Nepali immigrant who became an adult in America. She is the author of two poetry books in Nepali and two poetry chapbooks: Kathmandu, Unsolicited Press, 2020, and fable-weavers, Ethel Zine and Micro Press, 2022. She works as a senior publisher in an education-based company. A Best of the Net and Pushcart nominee, she writes poetry, flash and creative nonfiction and teaches poetry to kids at summer camps. |
Poetry Reader |
Justin Timbol is a Filipino-Canadian writer from Mississauga, ON. His work has appeared in print and digital with The Maynard, Maganda Magazine, and Wandering Autumn Magazine, and has recently been longlisted for the 2021 CBC Poetry Prize. Currently, he is a student with the Humber School for Writers. |
Poetry Reader |
Flourish Joshua is a Nigerian poet, copyeditor, and spoken-word artiste. 3rd-prize winner of the 2025 Gbemisola Adeoti Poetry Prize and the winner of the 2021 Salt Nation Poetry Prize. His works have appeared in Palette Poetry, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Poetry Sango-Ota, The Shore, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, & elsewhere. He is a member of the Frontiers Collective and a poetry editor at Olúmọ Review. |
Poetry Reader |
Yan Zhang is a student currently residing in Hangzhou, China. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Shore, Sierra Nevada Review, wildness, and Shō Poetry Journal, among others. She enjoys matcha lattes, taking long strolls in her neighborhood, observing the changing colors of leaves, and thinking. |
Editor-at-Large |
Rhiannon Thorne is an Editor-at-Large for Up the Staircase Quarterly and formerly edited cahoodaloodaling, a Sundress Publications journal. She received her MFA at LSU, where she served as Editorial Assistant for The Southern Review, Reviews/Interviews editor for The New Delta Review, and Co-Director for the Delta Mouth Literary Festival. Her thesis The Wooden Boy was selected by Sawako Nakayasu for the 2019 Robert Penn Warren Thesis Award for Poetry. Her poetry has appeared in Black Warrior Review, Manchester Review, and Midwest Quarterly, among others, and her research has been published in The Lion and the Unicorn. She received her Ph.D. at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette where she researched the mobilization of imaginary Souths and their constellation of tropes in children’s literature and comics, with a focus on sentient dolls, vegetal humanoids, and the swampscape, and where she served as Acquisitions Intern for UL Press. Currently she is in George Washington University’s Publishing Management Certificate Program and serving on the GWUP/GWJEP Strategy & Sustainability Committee, and an Acquisitions Editor for University of Georgia Press.
|
Reviewer |
Alina Stefanescu was born in Romania and lives in Birmingham, Alabama with her partner and several intense mammals. Recent books include a creative nonfiction chapbook, Ribald (Bull City Press Inch Series, Nov. 2020) and Dor, which won the Wandering Aengus Press Prize (September, 2021). Her debut fiction collection, Every Mask I Tried On, won the Brighthorse Books Prize (April 2018). Alina's poems, essays, and fiction can be found in Prairie Schooner, North American Review, World Literature Today, Pleiades, Poetry, BOMB, Crab Creek Review, and others. She serves as editor, reviewer, and critic for various journals and is currently working on a novel-like creature. Her new poetry collection will be published by Sarabande in 2025. More online at www.alinastefanescuwriter.com. |
Staff Emeritus
Dhwanee Goyal, Poetry Reader
R. Thursday, Poetry Reader
Rachel Stempel, Poetry Reader
Jade Mitchell, Assistant Editor
Jeannine Ouellette, Reviewer
Jennifer Martelli, Reviewer
Haneefah Bello, Poetry Reader
Precious Arinze, Poetry Reader
Margaret Stawowy, Reviewer
Travis Chi Wing Lau, Reviewer
Emma Miao, Poetry Reader
Benny Sisson, Poetry Reader
Len Lawson, Poetry Reader
R. Thursday, Poetry Reader
Rachel Stempel, Poetry Reader
Jade Mitchell, Assistant Editor
Jeannine Ouellette, Reviewer
Jennifer Martelli, Reviewer
Haneefah Bello, Poetry Reader
Precious Arinze, Poetry Reader
Margaret Stawowy, Reviewer
Travis Chi Wing Lau, Reviewer
Emma Miao, Poetry Reader
Benny Sisson, Poetry Reader
Len Lawson, Poetry Reader
© 2026 Up the Staircase Quarterly