ABOUT HELD MAGAZINE
HELD Magazine is an online artistic and literary journal that aims to explore how all systems are interconnected, interdependent, and ever-shifting. The magazine is, itself, a system: a system of editors, designers, artists, and writers; of creators and audiences; a system where artists and writers can go to make meaning in a time where meaning is fraught.
HELD focuses on increasing access and opportunities for diverse voices: to support writers and artists who have experienced barriers to publication and who have been systematically marginalized in the literary community. We want to create a space of experimentation and hybridity, a place of play and emergence. We publish fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, experimental writing, and visual art.
HELD Magazine is led by MFA students at the University of Guelph. We are grateful for the funding we have received through the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Enhancement Fund, the Student Life Enhancement Fund, and the Creating in a Time of Coronavirus Fund, as well as for the support we have received from the School of English and Theatre Studies, the School of Fine Art and Music, the MFA in Creative Writing, and the MFA in Studio Art.
Team Members
Roukia Ali
Creative Nonfiction Co-Lead
Roukia Ali (she/her) is an award-winning, multi-published first-year MFA candidate in the Guelph Creative Writing MFA program. A high distinction graduate of the University of Toronto's English and Creative Writing programs, her work has been recognized here and abroad by publications such as Scarborough Fair, Petal Projections, Young Voices Magazine, DreamWorldGirl Zine, Vellichor Literary, Aster Lit, Sontag Magazine, and many more. Roukia loves the colour red, boy bands, and looking up plane tickets. Interact with her on Instagram @roukiaa9140.
Lois L.K. Chan
Creative Nonfiction Reader & Social Media Manager
Lois L.K. Chan (she/her) is a follower of Christ and a Chinese Canadian writer. Born and raised in Markham, Ontario, she holds a BFA in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia and is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Guelph. Her work has been published in Flash Fiction Magazine and Eavesdrop Magazine, and she is an Acquisitions Editor for Augur Society. The best compliment she's ever received was that she was once compared to an antique store.
Charliee Charles
Creative Nonfiction Reader, Experimental Lead, & Social Media Manager
Lila Ciesielski
Poetry Reader
Brittany Coy-Pinnock
Flash Lead
Brittany is a Toronto-based writer and freelance editor. She’s been published in Arrival and The Humber Literary Review. She is the creator and editing manager of the writing blog, Eye of the Writer, where she chronicles her journey in the writing industry, and shares articles about her favourite books and insights into the writerly life. Brittany is a creative writing MFA candidate at the University of Guelph, with a primary focus on fiction. Her work incorporates her interests from her psychology background and often explores themes of relationships, memory, behaviour, and characters who confront difficult, often buried emotions. When she’s not writing, she firmly embraces chaotic shenanigans, exploring Toronto in search of her next favourite meal or view of Lake Ontario.
Micah Favel
Creative Nonfiction Reader
Micah Favel is a writer and poet based in Toronto. Her creative work explores themes of temporality, queerness, and her mixed Plains Cree and settler Scottish ancestry. Her writing has appeared in The Ex-Puritan, QT Literary Magazine, PulpMag, and other venues. Her academic work on embodied pedagogy appeared in Harvard Educational Review.
Tessa Flemming
Poetry Reader
Tessa Fleming is a writer, workshop facilitator, teacher, and filmmaker. Tessa’s passion for self expression takes different forms. After teaching high school for 13 years Tessa is now taking her passion for creativity and working with others into new frontiers. One of its main pathways, in addition to Tessa’s own writing practice, is supporting other people getting into a relationship with their inner world and their creativity. Tessa’s workshop offerings help people see their own creativity as the portal through which a truer, freer life awaits. A long time film lover, Tessa also loves working with artists who want to bring their stories and songs to the screen. Tessa and her partner cinematographer, Daniel Grant love working with compelling ideas and bringing them into visual fruition. Currently Tessa is enrolled in the University of Guelph’s MFA program in creative writing, where her thesis project is focusing on a book written in a hybrid form of creative non- fiction and poetry.
Veronica Fredericks
Fiction Reader
Veronica Fredericks is a teacher and writer. Her work has been published in Queen's Quarterly, The New Quarterly, ROOM Magazine, and Briarpatch Magazine. She is currently in her second year at the University of Guelph Creative Writing MFA program.
Jackie George
Flash Reader & Head Editor
Jackie George (she/her) is a queer, Cuban American fiction writer from South Florida. She graduated from Harvard College with a BA in English in 2024 and is currently pursuing a creative writing MFA at the University of Guelph. Her work has been published in The Harvard Crimson and The White Wall Review and explores themes of identity, family, belonging, and politics.
Maria Giesbrecht
Poetry Reader
Maria Giesbrecht is an award-winning poet and the author of A Little Feral (Write Bloody Publishing, 2026). Her writing has appeared in, or will appear in, Best Canadian Poetry, The Literary Review of Canada, Canadian Literature, Grain, The New Quarterly, and elsewhere. She is the winner of the Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Poetry contest, the Lesley Strutt Poetry Contest, the Narrative Poetry Prize, and she was a silver finalist in Poetry at the 2026 NMA Awards. Maria lives in Elmira with her husband and tuxedo cat.
Suliat Giwa
Fiction Lead
Lawson Hannaford
Flash Reader & Social Media Manager
Lawson Hannaford (they/them) is a multidisciplinary creator whose plays, fiction, and illustrations explore themes of queerness, transness, mental illness, and striving to find meaning in life. They wrote and directed two award-winning plays which were performed in Halifax and across Nova Scotia. Their fiction and poetry has been published in Fathom Magazine, and the Bitchin’ Kitsch. If they’re not writing or doodling, you can find them drinking matcha, reading queer ancient history, or stopping to say hello to random cats they see on the street. follow them @lookitslawson :)
A Jamali Rad
Poetry Co-Lead
Rachelle-Anne Lawka
Poetry Co-Lead
Rachelle-Anne Lawka (she/her) is a Brampton-based poet and painter, born and raised in Southern Ontario. Her writing has appeared in Arrival, PRISM International, The Ampersand Review, and more. When she’s not writing or painting, she can be found reading her cat poetry, exploring new hiking trails, or chasing waterfalls across Ontario.
Mary King
Poetry Reader
Ariesha Mais
Poetry Reader
Selena Mercuri
Nonfiction Reader
Selena Mercuri is a Toronto-based writer and publishing professional. She received the 2023 Norma Epstein Foundation Award for Creative Writing, placed second in The Ampersand Review's 2026 essay contest, was longlisted for Camel Journal‘s 2026 Gilmer Prize, and was shortlisted for The Masters Review Best Emerging Writers 2026. She is an MFA candidate at the University of Guelph and is represented by K2 Literary. An excerpt of her unpublished debut novel, Smooth Jazz and Other Forms of Torture, is forthcoming in The Rumpus. Find her on Instagram at @selenamercuriwriter.
Amy Oldfield
Fiction Reader
Kate Reider Collins
Nonfiction Lead
Kate Reider Collins is a poet and nonfiction writer who is a two-time alumnus of Banff’s Writing Residencies. Her poetry has been published in The Malahat Review, Prairie Fire and Moth & Rust. TNQ’s long-listed one of her essays for the 2025 Edna Staebler contest. A creative nonfiction piece is forthcoming in Geist in Spring 2026. Her writing explores loss, memory and imaginative leaps. Kate lives in Toronto. She’s currently an MFA student at Guelph.
Gabi Samfira
Fiction Reader
Gabi Samfira is a writer and filmmaker from Toronto. She graduated with a BFA in Screenwriting from York University in 2026, where she was the writer of various short films including Double Double (2023), which she co-directed, A Wave (2024) and The Sidekick Mission (2026). Alongside writing for the screen, Gabi writes in prose as well, specifically fiction. She is the recipient of the 2025 Adrienne Grago Memorial Prize for Short Fiction. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph.