Litmosphere Masthead
Charlotte Lit Press is the publishing imprint for Charlotte Center for Literary Arts, Inc. (“Charlotte Lit”)
Staff
Editor-in-Chief: Kathie Collins
Managing Editor & Designer: Paul Reali
Fall 2026 Editorial Team
Poetry
Guest Editor: Luke Whisnant
Fiction
Guest Editors: Justine Busto & Michael Sadoff
Reader: Ebony Morman
Creative Nonfiction
Guest Editor: Kristin Sherman
Reader: Nikki Campo
Flash
Editors: Kathie Collins & Paul Reali
Bios
Kathie Collins, co-founder and creative director of Charlotte Lit and editor-in-chief of Charlotte Lit Press, is a poet, mythologist, and lifelong student of Jungian psychology—which, consciously and unconsciously, makes its way into her work. She earned her graduate degrees in mythological studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute, where she also served as adjunct faculty. Kathie is author of Jubilee (Main Street Rag) and her poems have appeared in Jackdaw, Kakalak, Literary Mama, Pedestal Magazine, Santa Fe Literary Review, Susurrus, and others. She’s a 2023 Pushcart nominee, and a finalist in both the Iron Horse Lit Review and Palette Poetry 2023 Chapbook competitions.
Paul Reali is co-founder of Charlotte Lit, a nonprofit literary arts center in Charlotte, NC. He won the 2023 Doris Betts Fiction Award and is a past winner of the Elizabeth Simpson Smith Short Story and Ruth Moose Flash Fiction awards. His writing on creativity and business has been widely published, and his recent fiction can be found in the North Carolina Literary Review. He was awarded a Wildacres residency in 2022, and received a Regional Artist Project Grant from Charlotte’s Arts & Science Council in 2018. He earned an M.B.A. from Syracuse University and an M.S. in Creativity from Buffalo State University.
Justine Busto has an MA in English from Emory University, taught speakers of other languages in the US and México, and now helps first generation students write their college application essays with the non-profit GenOne in Charlotte, NC. Find her stories and essays in Gulf Stream Lit Mag, Prime Number Magazine, Litmosphere and upcoming in The North Carolina Literary Review. Her recently completed novel-in-stories, Queens Road East, went through many drafts in the Authors Lab program at Charlotte Lit and is now a finalist for the 2026 C. Michael Curtis Short Story Book prize with Hub City Press. Find her online at: justinebusto.com
Nikki Campo is an essayist, journalist and humor writer. Her work has appeared in Washington Post, The New York Times, Creative Nonfiction, Narratively, Brevity’s blog, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Good Housekeeping, National Geographic, HaveHasHad, Women’s Health and others. Her essays earned recognition in the 2025 Narratively True Romance Contest and the 2023 Writer’s Digest Personal Essay Contest, among others. She holds an M.B.A. from Harvard University and lives in Charlotte with her husband, three kids and two dogs. Online: Nikkicampo.com
Ebony Morman is a journalist and storyteller whose work spans short fiction, flash, and poetry. Raised in Chicago and now living in North Carolina, she writes about family, identity, and the ways cities shape who we become.
Michael Sadoff’s stories have appeared in Gulf Coast, South Carolina Review, Sixfold, and elsewhere. A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and recipient of the 2024 Lit/South Award for Fiction, his current project, The Hotel Motel: 13 Stories, is about people in urgent need of connection. He lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, and holds an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte. Website: michaelsadoffwriter.com.
Kristin Donnalley Sherman lives in Charlotte, where she works as a writer, editor, and writing coach. She’s published both fiction and nonfiction, and is currently at work on two novels. Her work has appeared in Brevity, Barrelhouse, Silk Road, Main Street Rag and Flashquake, and she has won or been a finalist in numerous contests, including Elizabeth Simpson Smith Short Fiction, the Writers Workshop Memoirs, the Reynolds Price Fiction, River Styx Micro-fiction, and the Press 53 Open Awards for Short Short Fiction.
Luke Whisnant is the author of six books and chapbooks, including In the Debris Field, which won First Prize in the 2018 Bath Flash Fiction International Novella-in-Flash competition, and the novel Watching TV with the Red Chinese,made into an independent film in 2012. His most recent novel, The Connor Project, came out in 2022. Luke’s work has been published in over 50 different journals and anthologies, with three appearances in New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best, and three of his stories have made the Best American Short Stories Distinguished Stories list. He is Emeritus Professor of English at East Carolina University, where he was a three-time recipient of the department’s Excellence in Teaching Award.