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Staff

Coffee House Staff

	Kristen Bledsoe, Development Assistant kristen@coffeehousepress.org Kristen joined the Coffee House staff in the summer of 2022 following an internship at the press in 2019. She graduated from Auburn University in 2019 with BAs in Journalism and in English Literature, where she was editor-in-chief of The Auburn Circle literary and art magazine. She plays the guitar, makes playlists, and pours a pretty decent cappuccino.
	Lizzie Davis, Senior Editor lizzie@coffeehousepress.org Lizzie acquires fiction, nonfiction, and translation and handles subsidiary rights. She also translates from Spanish to English, with recent projects including a cotranslation of Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions with Valeria Luiselli (winner of an American Book Award and finalist for the Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction) and Ornamental by Juan Cárdenas (finalist for the PEN Translation Prize). Her cotranslation of Elena Medel’s The Wonders with Thomas Bunstead is forthcoming from Pushkin Press and Algonquin Books in 2022.
	Daphne DiFazio, Publishing Assistant daphne@coffeehousepress.org Daphne DiFazio joined Coffee House Press following a summer internship. She earned degrees in English—Creative Writing and Classics with an emphasis in ancient Greek translation from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she was an OMAI–First Wave scholar. An alumna of Hedgebrook’s Writer-in-Residence program and YoungArts, she has published and performed poetry for almost a decade. Originally from Southeast Alaska, she now lives in South Minneapolis with gratitude for all large, Midwestern bodies of water.
	Daley Farr, Publicist daley@coffeehousepress.org Daley Farr joined Coffee House Press as publicist in 2019, after working with Milkweed Editions as a bookseller, buyer, and events coordinator for their bookstore, Milkweed Books. Previously, she worked in events at Magers and Quinn Booksellers, as well as many actual coffee houses. She graduated from Augsburg College in Minneapolis with a BA in English Literature and Theory, and studied literature at the University of Oxford's Hertford College. She lives near the Mississippi River in South Minneapolis.
	Rob Keefe, Bookkeeper rob@coffeehousepress.org Robert Keefe arrived at the offices of Coffee House Press via a trajectory that reads like a Proustian phrase: long, complex, all-encompassing—beginning as a computer scientist who picked up accounting while networking small construction developers in Los Angeles, to trade that hat and to ply his hands at publishing and writing, and cinema and radio in the Pacific Northwest, then a skip across the pond to Europe as a DJ until an inevitable return to NYC as an accountant for record labels. He packed up shop again for the long mid-west horizons to settle just south of the source of the Mississippi. He’s rather fond of biking and meeting new folks.
	Zoë Koenig, Associate Editor zoe@coffeehousepress.org Zoë acquires fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. She joined Coffee House Press in the spring of 2019 following an internship with the press the previous fall. She holds a BA from Beloit College where she focused on literary studies, creative writing, and critical identity studies.
	Valeria Luiselli, Contributing Editor Valeria Luiselli was born in Mexico City and grew up in South Korea, South Africa and India. An acclaimed writer of both fiction and nonfiction, she is the author of the essay collection Sidewalks; the novels Faces in the Crowd and The Story of My Teeth; and, most recently, Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions. She is the winner of two Los Angeles Times Book Prizes and an American Book Award, and has twice been nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Kirkus Prize. She has been a National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” honoree and the recipient of a Bearing Witness Fellowship from the Art for Justice Fund. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Granta, and McSweeney’s, among other publications, and has been translated into more than twenty languages. She lives in New York City.
	Abbie Phelps, Production Editor abbie@coffeehousepress.org Abbie Phelps joined the Coffee House staff in spring of 2022—she previously worked for Wise Ink Creative Publishing. She holds a BA in English Literature and Writing, and has been published in Ribbonfarm and Adorans undergraduate journal. When she's not working on manuscripts, she's going on walks, thinking too much about movies, or trying to read.
	Courtney Rust, Publicity and Marketing Assistant courtney@coffeehousepress.org Courtney joined Coffee House in the summer of 2021 after previously interning with the press and working as an events assistant and bookseller at Magers and Quinn Booksellers. Prior to working with books, Courtney held a variety of customer service and hospitality positions, a favorite of which was coordinating hospitality events and managing the concessions program for Theater Latté Da in NE Minneapolis. Courtney graduated from the University of Minnesota with a BA in English and she enthusiastically loves stories of all types, especially those told on the page, stage, or screen.
	Marit Swanson, Marketing and Sales Manager marit@coffeehousepress.org Marit Swanson joined Coffee House Press in 2019. She previously worked in marketing at Consortium Book Sales & Distribution and as a bookseller and sidelines buyer at Magers & Quinn Booksellers. She studied violin pedagogy at the Wheaton College Conservatory of Music. On most Saturday mornings, you'll find her curled up with a cup of tea and a good book, ideally beside one of her two gray cats.
	Quynh Van, Editorial & Production Assistant quynh@coffeehousepress.org Quynh joined Coffee House Press in the summer of 2021 following a spring internship. She graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2021 with a BA in Journalism and Film with a concentration in creative writing where she was a contributing writer for The Tower. Quynh supports the editorial and production process, including acquisitions, contracting, submissions management, rights and permissions management, preparation of manuscripts for production, and maintenance of key publishing and copyright data.
	Mara Winke, Development Director mara@coffeehousepress.org Mara Winke joined Coffee House Press in 2022. Mara has served as a professional fundraising consultant to nonprofit arts organizations for nearly 20 years, strategizing and managing annual and special project campaigns, foundation and corporate giving and special events. She holds an MBA in Nonprofit Management from the University of St. Thomas and a BA from St. Olaf College.
	Ken Chen, Spatial Species Editor ken@coffeehousepress.org Ken Chen is the recipient of the Yale Younger Poets Award, the oldest annual literary award in America, for his book Juvenilia, which was selected by the poet Louise Glück. He served as the executive director of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop from 2008 to May 2019. An NEA, NYFA and Bread Loaf Fellow and National Book Award judge, Chen cofounded the cultural website Arts & Letters Daily and CultureStrike,a national arts organization dedicated to migrant justice. He has been quoted in NPR’s All Things Considered, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, the New Republic, the New Yorker, and the New York Times. A graduate of Yale Law School, he successfully defended the asylum application of an undocumented Muslim high school student from Guinea detained by Homeland Security. He is currently a Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library, where he is working on Death Star, a book about his traveling to the underworld and seeing there everything that has been destroyed by colonialism. He is represented by the Wylie Agency.
	Youmna Chlala, Spatial Species Editor youmna@coffeehousepress.org Youmna Chlala is a writer and artist born in Beirut and based in New York. Her poetry collection, The Paper Camera, was published by Litmus Press in 2019. She is the recipient of a 2018 O. Henry Prize and a Joseph Henry Jackson Award and is the founding editor of Eleven Eleven {1111} Journal of Literature and Art. Her writing appears in publications such as BOMB, Guernica, Prairie Schooner, Bespoke, Aster(ix), CURA, MIT Electronic Journal of Middle East Studies, and Bahithat: Lebanese Association of Women Researchers. She has exhibited widely including at the Hayward Gallery, the Drawing Center, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Art in General, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Art Dubai, and Hessel Museum of Art. She participated in the 33rd Bienal de São Paulo, the 2017 LIAF Biennial, and the Performa 11 Biennial. She is a professor in the Humanities and Media Studies and Writing Departments at the Pratt Institute.
	Erin is a Spring 2023 Intern. After three years of tenant organizing, Erin has returned to her love of experimental literature at Coffee House Press. Erin is passionate about independent publishing and the DIY literary scene. When not at Coffee House, you can find Erin at Boneshaker Books where she helps run a public risograph print studio. Erin is working on growing her zine collection!
	Alice Paige is an author, performing artist, and creative writing teacher from Chicago, Illinois. She has her MFA in creative writing from Hamline University, her B.Sc. in Biology from Iowa State University, is a LOFT Mentor Series fellow, a Digital Pedagogical Lab fellow, and a McNair Scholar. Her work can be found in Coffin Bell, Take a Stand: Art Against Hate, A Raven Chronicles Anthology, Luna Station Quarterly, and plenty of other strange journals.