by Bao Vo

The Coven

Masthead

Amarantha Cruz
Founder | Creative Director | Head Juror & Editor
Amarantha Cruz is a queer Latinx witch, writer, editor, creative, curator, public speaker, and community leader. She is the founder, producer, and host of OyeDrum. Her writing has appeared in Promethean and Minimus, and she was a music and art critic for Punchland Magazine, as well as a Senior Editor for Promethean. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from City College of New York, and a Master’s in Arts Management from Pratt. She’s the recipient of The Goodman Fund Grant, the Jacqueline Schiller Scholarship, the Danielle and Larry Nyman Family Project Award, the JIWAR Barcelona artist residency, and the Kowald Fund, and is represented by The Rights Factory. Amarantha’s readings and public speaking engagements include being a featured speaker and reader for the NYC Writers Circle, and she was a guest speaker for the Literary Magazine Editing Course at Worcester Polytechnic Institute thanks to the students voting for OyeDrum as their favorite literary journal. You can catch her speaking and curated public programming at the OyeDrum salons and events, both in-person and online. OyeDrum are currently incubating and organizing events at NYC’s Dada Cafe. Her projects have been featured in the New York Times, BBC, NPR and other outlets. She loves life, art, words, learning, women, coffee, meditating, music, film, politics, traveling, the occult, and helping others. Watch her interview here. Contact: amarantha@oyedrum.com
Starr Davis
allia abdullah-matta
Poetry Editor

allia abdullah-matta is a poet and Professor of English at CUNY LaGuardia. She currently serves as our Poetry Editor, selecting poetry for volume five and our open themed section.  She writes about the culture, and history of Black women and explores the presence of Black bodies and voices in fine art and poetry. Her poetry has been published in Newtown Literary, Promethean, Marsh Hawk Review, Mom Egg Review Vox, Global City Review, and the Jam Journal Issue of Push/Pull. Her do-si-do double chapbook, washed clean & blues politico was published by harlequin creatures (hcx) 2021. She has written critical essays on motherhood, composition, writing center pedagogy, and poets Jessica care Moore (The Fight & The Fiddle Furious Flower Poetry Center, 2020) and Dominique Christina (The Operating System & Liminal Lab, 2021). She has served on various poetry editorial review boards and selection panels before joining the OyeDrum editorial collective. She is working on a poetry/hybrid collection of poems and images entitled blackprint.
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Neda Zahraie
Neda Zahraie
Founding Member | Volume Jury & Editor

Neda is a writer, musician, painter, filmmaker and actress based in NYC. She has served as a Poetry and Fiction Editor for over two years, and was most recently the fiction editor for volume five. She is the author of two volumes of poetry, Bar Scraps & Bathroom Confessionals (2010), and Anamnesis. Neda writes and performs original music under the moniker Kamalata. She is a founder and member of an all-women synth techno rock trio, Chic Choc.  She holds an M.A. in English Literature from the City College of New York, is a Persian/English interpreter and translator, and has a certificate of French Language & Civilization from Université Paris-Sorbonne.

Past Editors

 

Kim Gittens

Alex Graffeo

Shamecca Harris

Kristine Esser Slentz

Hilary Davies

Jo Reyes-Boitel

 

OyeDrum® 2025