Staff
Linda A. Ewing, Executive DirectorLinda is a highly experienced consulting professional and senior nonprofit executive with a proven track record of success at organizations such as the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce, the Como Park Conservatory, the Carpenter Nature Center, and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, as well as fifteen years as the CEO of Special Olympics Minnesota. Linda received a degree in English Literature from St. Catherine University and holds an MBA in Marketing from the University of St. Thomas. She also completed coursework in Leadership Theory and Development at the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, North Carolina. |
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Jeremy M. Davies, Editor-in-ChiefJeremy M. Davies lives in New York. He is the author of the novels Rose Alley and Fancy, as well as The Knack of Doing, a collection of short stories. He comes to Coffee House as an editor following his years at Dalkey Archive Press, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and And Other Stories. |
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Robyn Earhart, Production EditorRobyn Earhart joined Coffee House Press in 2024. She has an MFA in creative writing from Hamline University, and is the former managing editor for Water~Stone Review. Robyn's work has been published in Antithesis Journal, Barren Magazine, Columbia Journal, the Under Review, Water~Stone Review, and elsewhere. She lives in Saint Paul with her husband and pets. |
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Laura Graveline, Director of PublicityLaura Graveline was born and raised among the prairies and forests of Ames, Iowa. She earned degrees in Art History and Visual and Dramatic Arts from Rice University and spent five years as the Marketing Director, Children’s Book Buyer, and French Specialist at Brazos Bookstore in Houston, Texas. She’s now returned to her Midwestern roots to join Coffee House Press as their publicity director. When not working or reading, Laura can be found baking, catching up on Taskmaster, or gardening. |
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Mark Haber, Director of MarketingMark Haber was born in Washington DC and grew up in Florida. For the past ten years, he was a bookseller as well as the operations manager at Brazos Bookstore in Houston, Texas. Mark has a deep devotion to books, especially international literature, and has organized and hosted dozens of panels and events with both authors and translators. Also a writer, Mark’s novels have been translated into many languages and his debut novel, Reinhardt’s Garden, was longlisted for a PEN/Hemingway Award. In addition to his two published novels, Reinhardt’s Garden and Saint Sebastian’s Abyss, Mark has published numerous articles in a wide variety of publications and is an experienced teacher and academic lecturer in the field of creative writing. He holds a BA Degree in English from the University of South Florida. |
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Melanie Kleiss, BookkeeperMelanie Kleiss has worked as a public interest lawyer, as CEO of an engineering company, and in the last eight years with non-profits in executive and finance roles. She had led development, strategic planning, capital projects, volunteer management, staff & board recruitment, and policy development, among other things, but specializes in increasing the efficiency and functionality of financial processes. Melanie holds J.D. and M.S. degrees from the University of Minnesota, and an L.L.M in Advocacy from Georgetown University Law Center. |
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Ülrika Moats, Director of OperationsÜlrika Moats grew up in Treasure Island, Florida. She attended the Savannah College of Art & Design where she earned her BFA in Metals and Jewelry with a minor in Art History, as well as her MFA in Graphic Design. Always passionate about art and fashion, Ülrika began her career in corporate fashion merchandising and operations. In 2014 she joined Brazos Bookstore as the gift buyer and soon became the General Manager. She joined Coffee House Press as the Director of Operations in the summer of 2023. |
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Ken Chen, Spatial Species EditorKen 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. |
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Youmna Chlala, Spatial Species EditorYoumna 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. |