Jessie Leitzel

Co-founding Editor & EIC

A young woman with short dark curly hair, hoop earrings, and a black shirt, smiling and sitting in a room with wooden chairs piled on top of each other, a fan on the wall, and a bottle of water on a nearby table.

Jessie Leitzel was born in the Pennsylvania mountains and raised in Charleston, SC. She is a YoungArts award winner with distinction, a Presidential Scholar in the Arts, and a gold medalist of the Scholastic Writing Awards. Leitzel’s work has been featured in Rattle, The Interlochen Review and Poetry, and pieces from her collection The Small Hours (2024) were commended by YoungArts and the National Endowment for the Arts. She serves as the Operations & Editorial Director for the Nantucket Poetry Festival, and conducts research on the contemporary place essay. A student of the literature department and a member of the Radcliffe varsity rowing team, Leitzel studies at Harvard College.