About Us: The Backwords Team

Jenny M. Chu grew up in Oregon and received her Master of Fine Arts in Writing from the University of San Francisco. Her creative work has been featured in The Ignatian, The Molotov Cocktail, VoiceCatcher, and MReview. Her current preoccupations can be found on BACKWORDS Blog. Words to live by: it’s impossible to know everything about everything, but you still have to try. In work, she’s focused on several equity projects, collaborations, and conversations. In art, she seeks the possibility of a horizon and a clockless day. In life, this is it, and she’s going for it.

Phillip Trey Coates is a Portland transplant, by way of Idaho, after completing his Bachelor's in English at Idaho State University. In his free time, when not traveling, he works as a curator for BACKWORDS Blog and BACKWORDS Press. You'll see him on the Blog as Phillip Trey, because he thinks that's cooler for some reason – like a pen name no one asked him to create. For money, he works in marketing and freelance editing. Everything he loves most he's allergic to: ie cats, dogs, and people.

Matthew D. Kulisch is a graduate of the MFA in Writing program at University of San Francisco and holds an English BA from University of Utah. Matty has published poetry with Switchback, the online literary journal at USF, as well as with Enormous Rooms, a Salt Lake City zine. His photography has been published online and in-print with Spit & Spirit, Gorgeous Freaks, and in Hypnopompia III (a Brooklyn-based magazine). While the press was initially his idea, he credits his collaborators more—and admits he’s something more of an idealist rather than a doer. He’s a lover and a nerd. Matty lives with his cat, Benedict, in Portland, OR.