Meet the Team

Joan Cusack Handler (she/her)

Founder/Publisher

As the founder of CavanKerry Press, Joan is a poet and memoirist, a psychologist in clinical practice, and a blogger for PsychologyToday.com (“Of Art and Science”). Her poems have been widely published and have received awards from The Boston Review and five Pushcart nominations. A Bronx native, she has four published books and currently resides in Brooklyn and the East Hamptons. Joan is married to a great man and fellow psychologist, has a loving son and daughter-in-law, and two amazing granddaughters.

Gabriel Cleveland (he/they)

Executive Director & Managing Editor

gabriel@cavankerrypress.org

Gabriel Cleveland is a poet and fiction writer with an MFA in Creative Writing from Pine Manor College. Along with Joan Cusack Handler, he co-edited Places We Return To, a 20th Anniversary retrospective on the publishing history of the press. An avid video gamer and music lover, he hosts The Andover Special, a weekly internet radio program on HomeGrownRadioNJ. Gabriel is also a mental health advocate, often working online to raise awareness, visibility, and money for psychological and psychosocial issues. He has spent several years in the field of caregiving for people with increased physical and/or mental needs and wants you to know that you’re not alone.

Dimitri Reyes (he/him)

Marketing & Communications Director

dimitri@cavankerrypress.org

Dimitri Reyes is a Puerto Rican multidisciplinary poet, educator, and arts administrator from Newark, New Jersey. He has been named one of The Best New Latinx Authors of 2023 by LatinoStories.com for his most recent book, Papi Pichón (Get Fresh Books, 2023) which was a finalist for the Omnidawn chapbook contest and the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize. His other books include Every First and Fifteenth, the winner of the Digging Press 2020 Chapbook Award, and the poetry journal Shadow Work for Poets, now available on Kindle and in print. Dimitri’s work has been featured on NPR and PBS, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net Anthology. He was an inaugural poetry fellow for the Poets & Writers Get The Word Out publishing incubator as well as a 2024 fellow with the NJ Arts Professional Learning Institute. You can find more of his writing in Poem-a-Day, Verse Daily, Até Mais: Latinx Futurisms, and elsewhere.

Tamara Al-Qaisi-Coleman (she/her)

Marketing & Social Media Coordinator

tamara@cavankerrypress.org

Tamara Al-Qaisi-Coleman (she/her) is a bi-racial Muslim writer, historian, poet, and artist. Her first book of poetry The Raven, The Bayou, & The Willow was released from FlowerSong Press in 2022. She is a Brooklyn Poets Fellow, a Rad(ical) Poetry Fellow, and a poet for the Houston Grand Opera & MFAH’s event “The Art of Intimacy.” She is a Best of the Net Prize nominee. Her work can be found at www.tamaraalqaisicoleman.com

Rebecca Connors (she/her)

Grant Writer

rebecca@cavankerrypress.org

Rebecca Connors (she/her) comes to CavanKerry Press with experience in creative communications and development for nonprofits. Over the years she has worked in bookstores, web development, and the arts. Rebecca is the author of the chapbook, Split Map (Minerva Rising Press, 2019). Her poems can be found in Nixes Mate, Stone Circle Review, and Salamander, among others. She is the co-founder of the virtual literary space, The Notebooks Collective, and received her MFA in poetry from the Solstice Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing Program. She serves on the Solstice MFA Advisory Board and the Maynard Friends of the Library Board. She is happily settled with her family and cats in a mill town in Massachusetts, where she writes poetry, tends her houseplants, and hangs out with ghosts.

Editors

Joy Arbor, Copyeditor

Joy Arbor is a poet, writer, and copyeditor with an MFA from Mills College and a PhD from University of Nebraska-Lincoln. A writing teacher for fifteen years, she resigned her tenured professorial position in 2018 to write and edit full-time; she now edits poetry, memoir and other nonfiction, and scholarship/academic materials. She feels honored to be able to help get writers’ words out into the world. For more about Joy’s editing, poetry, and other writing, please visit her website at https://joyarbor.net/.

Designers

Ryan Scheife, Book Designer

Ryan Scheife is a graphic designer specializing in all aspects of book design, including cover design, page design, typesetting, and production. Ryan manages various aspects of production, coordinating with editors, artists, and printers to produce the highest quality books. He also manages eBook conversion for both ePub and Kindle. He enjoys working with the finished text to create beautiful, engaging, and exciting works, and prides himself in offering an experience that is time-efficient and worry-free.

Visit mayflydesign.com for more information.

Mike Corrao, Book Designer

Mike Corrao is the author of ten books including Gut Text, Surface Studies, and Under Reef. His writing often explores the haptic and architectural nature of text. As an artist and typesetter, his work has been featured in the catalogs of publishers like Fonograf Editions, Milkweed Editions, CavanKerry Press, and more.
You can learn more about his work at mikecorrao.com.

Coral Sue Black, Cover Designer

Coral Black is a freelance book cover designer and illustrator with a BA in Fine Art and Interdisciplinary Studies from Western Washington University. With eight years of experience, she blends fine art and digital techniques to create striking, custom covers for indie authors and publishers. She has worked with clients like Patrón Tequila, Button Poetry, LAMBDA Literary, and Sundress Publications, and her work was a finalist in the NM-AZ Book Awards. She lives in Washington with her partner on a goat farm.
Visit coralsuecreative.com for more information.

Natasha Kane, Interior Designer

Natasha Kane is a Thai American editor and educator. She holds an MA in English from the University of North Florida and is the Marketing and Acquisitions Editor at Trio House Press. She is the former Editor-in-Chief of the Talon Review and currently serves as their Marketing Faculty Advisor. She teaches community writing workshops at her local indie bookstore, Femme Fire Books, and is a Visiting Instructor at the University of North Florida.
Learn more at thebartendingeditor.com

Board Members

Carol Snyder, President Emeritus

Retired Human Resources Director for major chemical company

Monica Yus, Board President

As a private business owner, and previous manager of merchandising and sourcing at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Brooks Brothers, Monica has many years of strategic management, budgeting, and marketing experience. Her long-standing service and knowledge of CKP has proven to be invaluable.

Talena Lachelle Queen, Vice President

Poet, Educator, Artivist, and Orator, Talena is the Poet Laureate of Paterson, NJ, founded WordSeed, Inc. to promote poetry among youth, and created the Paterson Poetry Festival. She teaches high school English and holds an MFA from the University of Washington.

Sony Q. Ton-Amie, Treasurer

Sony Ton-Aime is Executive Director of Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures, and previous director of Literary Arts at Chautauqua Institution. He is the author of a chapbook, LaWomann (2019), & the forthcoming Haitian Creole translation of Olympic Hero: The Story of Lennox Kilgour. He is the co-founding editor of ID13 & holds an MFA from the NEOMFA.

Joan Cusack Handler, Ph.D.

Psychologist, Poet, Publisher & Founder of CavanKerry Press
(Full bio above)

Alan Handler, Ph.D.

Retired psychologist and learning center owner/director

Cornelius Eady

Cornelius Eady is co-founder of the Cave Canem Foundation and a professor of English at SUNY Stony Brook Southampton. He recently received a prestigious inaugural Pegasus Award for Service in Poetry from the Poetry Foundation. His seven poetry collections include: Victims of the Latest Dance Craze, winner of the 1985 Lamont Prize; The Gathering of My Name, nominated for a 1992 Pulitzer Prize; and Hardheaded Weather (Putnam, 2008). He recently served as Interim Director at Poets House, New York, NY.

Judith Hannan

As a speaker and panelist on the topic of the healing power of writing, Judith Hannan is a writing mentor with the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center’s Visible Ink program where she also serves as an interventionist in a study to evaluate the benefits of expressive writing among elderly cancer patients. In June, 2016, she joined the faculty of the inaugural Narrative Medicine program at Kripalu.

Kevin Mittelmeier

Kevin has many years of financial experience in both domestic and global markets and is committed to advocating for mental health and equality in the workplace.

Afaa Michael Weaver

Afaa Michael Weaver, formerly known as Michael S. Weaver, is an American poet, short-story writer, and editor. He has recently received the coveted Wallace Stevens Award, a lifetime achievement honor presented by the Academy of American Poets. Weaver was a member of Cave Canem’s first faculty at the retreat in 1997, and in 1998 he became the first “Elder” of the Cave Canem organization. He is the author of numerous poetry collections, and his honors include a Fulbright Scholarship and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Pew Foundation, and Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. His papers are held in the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.