The Traces Masthead

Welcoming our new editors to the Traces team!

We’re thrilled to announce that Traces is continuing to grow. We received a huge response to our call for editors, and we are excited to introduce you to the full masthead of our editorial team.

The Masthead

Editor-in-chief

Maya Venters is a poet, editor, and artist. Her chapbook Life Cycle of a Mayfly won the Vallum Chapbook Prize. She received an MFA from the University of St. Thomas (TX), a BA in English Literature from the University of Waterloo, and a diploma in the History of Art from Trinity College, Dublin. Maya has published in Rattle, The Literary Review of Canada, Modern Age, and Ekstasis, among others. She can be found at mayaventers.ca.

Poetry Editors

Celia Jordan earned her Master's degree in English Literature from McGill University, where she wrote her thesis on figurations of sin in the poetry of George Herbert. She now lives in Montreal and continues to work on her own poetry. When she's not writing, she works in art acquisition and as an administrative assistant for an Ontarian non-profit that ministers at the intersection of theology, ecology, and the arts. Her current idea of a hobby is (very slowly) painting a wardrobe in the Tyrolean style.

Katie Schmidt is a writer, editor, and artist from Ontario. She holds a Master of Arts and Religion from Yale University and a Bachelor of Arts in Literature and Writing & Rhetoric from the University of Toronto. Her work focuses on the natural world and the wilderness of the human psyche. She is passionate about reading and sharing the unique voices of Canadian literature.

Reviews Editor, Poetry

Liv Ross is an urban monk, a poet, an essayist, and a reviewer with several years of engagement in creative writing, and more recent experience in publication. Liv also practices gardening, pipe-smoking, leather-working, and mischief in addition to writing in order to participate fully in the world and seek the things truly worth writing about. She has been published in Fare Forward, The Front Porch Republic, Silence and Starsong, Solum Journal, and VoeglinView. She can also be found on Instagram @liv_ross_poetry, or her substack, https://substack.com/@theabbeyofcuriosity.

Reviews Editor, Prose

Dominic Lindl holds an MSt in Theology & Religion from the University of Oxford (2022) and an MA in Western Literature from KU Leuven (2024). An English teacher by profession, he enjoys reading and writing prose and poetry in his spare time. Dominic lives in Langley, British Columbia with his wife and daughter.

Interviews Editor

Rebekah McNeilly works full-time as a resource specialist for The Salvation Army's national office in Toronto, Ontario. For this role, she hosts a podcast, writes devotionals, and organizes BRAVE events for thousands of young women each year. She is also in the fifth year of her PhD in Criminology, with research focusing on youth incarceration and reentry after prison. She's a runner, an avid audiobook listener, and an amateur coffee connoisseur.

Contributing Editors

Bret van den Brink is a literary critic, amateur poet, and dabbler in theology. Some of the sundry venues that have featured his scribblings include Notes and Queries, Radix Magazine, Traces Journal, The Robert Graves Review, [spaces], The Merton Annual, and Christian Courier. He co-hosts the podcast Mandatory Media, and he is currently an MA student in English at the University of Toronto.

Meg Freer is a musician, writer, and editor in Kingston, Ontario, where she enjoys the outdoors year-round. Her award-winning photos, short prose, and poems have been published widely. She is Poetry Co-Editor for The Sunlight Press as well as co-author of a collaborative chapbook of poems and author of three other chapbooks. She curates and co-hosts a monthly series featuring poetry performed simultaneously with live music.

Alex Rettie is a Calgary poet, reviewer, and freelance writer/editor. His recent poems are in New Verse Review, The Borough, Joie de Vivre and Dappled Things, among others. A longtime books columnist for Alberta Views, he now edits the website Poems for Persons of Interest.

If you’re interested in working with us, we are always looking for passionate individuals to join our Advisory Board and our team of Contributing Editors. If you or someone you know might be a good fit, you can contact us at traces.editor@gmail.com.

Submissions

Our submission window will remain open until April 15th, 2025. We’re looking for poetry, reviews, and pitches for interviews. Our editorial team is eager to read and publish your work! As always, submissions and questions can be sent to traces.editor@gmail.com.