who we are

Cal Angus, Publisher
Cal started smoke and mold in 2019. He rejects the label “founding editor” for how uncomfortably patriotic it sounds. He now operates in a publisher role via celiumlit.net, a new publishing ecosystem. He is the author of the nonfiction chapbook CATARACT (Fonograf Editions 2024), and the story collection A Natural History of Transition (Metonymy Press 2021). STREAM: A Watershed Manifesto is forthcoming from Curbstone Books in 2027. He writes the blog Instar: a blog about life’s transitions at calangus.com. He does have a withering newsletter on Substack, but you have to go through the blog to get to it. He cares a lot about the DIY internet outside of large social media platforms as a way to reclaim our lives and dignity as writers and artists and humans.

Wren Hanks, Managing Editor
Wren is the author of Lily-livered (Driftwood Press), winner of the Adrift Chapbook Contest, and The Rise of Genderqueer (Brain Mill Press). An alum of the Tin House Workshop and the Lambda Writer’s Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices, his recent writing appears in Foglifter, No Tokens, RHINO, The Journal, and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn, where he works for an animal protection org and cares for too many fish tanks. You can find more of his writing on Instagram (@wrenhanks) and at wrenhanks.com. 

Galen David Bunting, Editor
Galen is a doctoral candidate in English at Northeastern University. His flash fiction piece “Watching Over Me” appeared in the pages of the Fabulist Magazine, while his poem “bonepickers” was featured in the Minnesota Review, and his poem “poppet (an apotropaic object)” appeared in the October 2021 issue of Superfroot Magazine. His critical essays have been featured on the Ploughshares Blog and Modernism/Modernity. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts, where you can find him combing through books at the back of local thrift stores.

[sarah] Cavar, Editor
Cavar is an anti-genre writer, PhD candidate, and instructor of undergraduates on both u.s. coasts. They are the author of Failure to Comply (featherproof books, 2024). Cavar edits manyworlds.place, and has had work published in The Offing, Split Lip Magazine, Nat. Brut, Electric Lit, and elsewhere. More at www.cavar.club, librarycard.substack.com, and @cavarsarah on twitter.

Forest Smotrich-Barr, Editor
Forest stands in unequivocal support of a free Palestine. Forest is a writer, visual artist and educator based in Brooklyn. His chapbook Spells for the Portals will be published by Madhouse Press in 2024, and his poems have appeared in smoke and mold, Brooklyn Poets, Dialogist, and elsewhere.

Luke Sutherland, Interviews Editor
Luke Sutherland is a writer, librarian, and publisher on Piscataway lands, so-called Washington D.C. His chapbook Distance Sequence won the 2023 OutWrite Chapbook Contest, published by Neon Hemlock Press. He helps run the trans small press Lilac Peril with his friends. Find him online as @lukejsuth.

readers

smoke and mold is primarily funded out of pocket by publisher Cal Angus. In the past we have been supported by a grant from the Regional Arts & Culture Council of so-called Portland, Oregon. We also immensely appreciate financial donations from readers and supporters to help us pay our authors, afford web hosting, as well as commission the occasional illustrator and residency.