CommuterLit has a new team of volunteer readers who have taken on the task of helping the editor read through the many General Submissions we get in hopes of improving how quickly we get back to submitters. They also helped judge our Halloween Week 2024 contest, the top five winners of which will be announced in this coming Monday’s (Oct. 28) newsletter, and posted on CL throughout that week.
We’re pleased to welcome to the CL team our volunteer readers:

Michelle Dinnick lives in Aliston, Ontario. She has an H. B.sc in Biological Anthropology and has won several awards, in fiction, poetry and nonfiction. She has published online on CommuterLit.com, fiftywordstories.com, the Quick Brown Fox blog and feminiecollective.com; and in print in The Globe and Mail, Chicken Soup for the Soul, The Briar Crier Magazine, Total Sports Magazine, Voice of the Farmer Newspaper, Focus 50 Plus Newspaper, and Arts Talk Magazine, published by the South Simcoe Arts Council.

Maria Hypponen is based in Burlington, Ontario. She is a content marketing writer for a not-for-profit organization, where she collaborates with writers and technical experts on a regular basis. As well she is one of the founding members of Restless Writers, a four-woman strong critique group in southern Ontario, which recently celebrated 15 years of sharing drafts, offering constructive feedback, and supporting each others’ writing journeys. She is a past contributor to CommuterLit.

David McConnell is retired and lives in Guelph, Ontario. A past contributor of CommuterLit, he has also published a collection of poetry and stories called BE(c)CAUSE: An Introspection and a novel called Frameworks. As well, he writes for the Guelph Arts Council, reporting on upcoming and ongoing cultural and artistic events in the area.

Madi Morelli (she/her) is a queer woman based out of Toronto who plans to someday publish a romance novel, a poetry collection, and a play. Her work can be found in Wild Greens Magazine, Spell Jar Press’s first anthology and her poetry account, @musiing.more on Instagram. She is currently singing in public.

Susannah W. Simpson is a hospice nurse and an ESL tutor. Her poetry has been published in North American Review, Potomac, Wisconsin Review, South Carolina Review, POET, Nimrod International, Poet Lore, Salamander, Sequestrum,and Xavier Review among others. Her book: Geography of Love & Exile was published in December 2016 by Cervena Barva Press (Somerset, MA). She is the founder and co-director of Performance Poets of the Palm Beaches Monthly Reading Series. Pine Row Press has accepted her poetry collection Mother Wind for publication in late fall/winter 2024. And Shanti Arts Press will publish her poetry collection Dharma of Death and Desire in 2025. She is based in Florida.