
Rima Rantisi is an essayist, lecturer at the American University of Beirut, and the founding editor of Rusted Radishes: Beirut Literary and Art Journal. Her essays can be found in the New England Review, Literary Hub, Slag Glass City, Rusted Radishes, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and has received literary fellowships from Art Omi, Headlands Center for the Arts, Monson Arts, and Hedgebrook. She is at work on a collection of essays on writing and the liminal spaces residing at the junctions of motherhood/land, fractured histories, and writing.

زينة الحلبي، أكاديمية وكاتبة تهتمّ بالثقافة العربية المعاصرة. صدر لها كتاب عن تمثيل المثقّف في الأدب والسينما منذ تسعينات القرن الماضي ومقالات حول الأدب المعاصر والموسيقى والثقافة البصرية. عملت أستاذة جامعية في الولايات المتحدة والجامعة الأميركية في بيروت. لا تهوى الترجمة، ولكن هناك نصوص تعترضها دون خجل أو سابق إنذار.

Hussein Nakhal is an artist and a curator based in Beirut, Lebanon.

Milia Ayache is a Beirut-based actor, writer, and Linux enthusiast. She recently appeared as the lead performer in Angelmakers: Song for female Serial Killers. Her writing has appeared in American Theatre Magazine as well as the book Stages of Resistance: Theatre and Politics in Capitalocene (NoPassport Press). Milia teaches playwriting and creative writing at The American University of Beirut and holds an MFA from The American Repertory Theatre/Moscow Art Theatre Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University.

Maha Ahmed is an English Literature & Creative Writing PhD candidate at the University of Houston. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Grist, The Adroit Journal, 580 Split, Rusted Radishes, The Recluse, and elsewhere. Her critical and creative work explores the Arab-American diaspora, late capitalism, World Literature, global feminism, and inter-religious history. She is currently the poetry editor at Rusted Radishes and the online nonfiction editor at Gulf Coast. Find her on twitter @mahaahmed81.

عمر الدليمي، طالب دراسات عليا في قسم الأدب المقارن في كلية دارتموث ومحرّر مساعد في قسم اللغة العربية لمجلة فَمْ. تخرج من الجامعة الأميركية في بيروت عام 2024.

Angela Brussel is an American-Armenian-Lebanese writer and photographer based in Beirut with nonfiction and fiction that have appeared in New Statesman, Los Angeles Review of Books, Literary Hub, and Electric Literature to name a few. She is also the founder of Nour Jan Presents This Diaspora Life, a multi-media project that uses oral histories and archival music to do ethnographic deep dives into diaspora communities around the world.

May Ghaibeh is a graphic designer based in Beirut, with experience over the past 25 years in motion graphics, websites, graphic design, and branding. Her core work lies in creative businesses, cultural institutions, TV channels, academia, and non-profit humanitarian organizations.

Nour Naffaa is a storyteller with a background in English literature and a passion for crafting thoughtful, engaging content. As Digital Content Manager at Rusted Radishes, she helped shape the journal’s online presence—growing its readership from local to international and streamlining digital publishing workflows. With experience across editorial strategy, project coordination, and user-centered communication, Nour brings a creative yet organized touch to every project she’s part of. She’s especially drawn to the spaces where language, design, and community meet.

هي المديرة المؤسسة لمركز رادا ومعتز الصواف لدراسات الشرائط المصورة العربية في الجامعة الأميركية في بيروت، وأستاذة في قسم العمارة والتصميم في الجامعة. كما هي رسامة وفنانة رسوم متحركة وشرائط مصورة تستكشف أعمالها الفنية قضايا الهوية والانتماء والعدالة الاجتماعية، وقد تم عرض أعمالها في العديد من المهرجانات السينمائية والمعارض الدولية. وتتركز أبحاثها على الشريط المصور في العالم العربي كجزء من الثقافة العربية المرئية المعاصرة.

Nur Turkmani is the author of October, a poetry chapbook selected by Chen Chen for Purple Ink’s Poetry Contest and forthcoming in 2025. She is a writer and researcher in Beirut. Her research looks at social movements, displacement, and agriculture. She has fiction and poetry in Copper Nickel, The Rumpus, The Missouri Review, The Adroit Journal, Short Fiction, Poetry London, The Offing, and others. Her essays are in The Evergreen Review, AlJumhuriya, Jadaliya, Syria Untold. She studied creative writing at Oxford University and is a contributing editor at Rusted Radishes.

Mai Serhan is the author of CAIRO: the undelivered letters, winner of the 2022 Center for Book Arts Poetry Chapbook Award, I Can Imagine It For Us, a finalist for the 2022 Narratively Memoir Prize and forthcoming withAUC Press, as well as the poetry collection, A Thousand Minarets & No Sidewalks forthcoming with Diwan Publishing. She’s a graduate of the Creative Writing programme at the University of Oxford. Visit www.maiserhan.com for more on her work.

Nourhane Kazak is the Assistant Poetry Editor at Rusted Radishes. She has been writing and performing poetry in Beirut for over seven years. Nourhane models her poetry on the processes of the mind and body as they unfold in real-time. She enjoys dismantling language and exploring the limitations and possibilities of syntax, pushing the medium to new functions. Her creative practice traces the corporeal experience of language through experiments with body and voice. She sees language as a playground to explore consciousness and the subconscious, impulses, neuroses, obsessions, dreams, the severed relationship to nature and the non-human world, time, words, sound, thoughts, and all this imagined living.
Student Assistants

Tia Kaedbey is a visual artist and a creative writer based in Beirut. She is currently pursuing her bachelor’s degree in English Literature at the American University of Beirut. She is the founder of Fairylistiic, a green project that upcycles CD waste into hand-painted art pieces. In 2024, she got recognized among the top three green women entrepreneurs in Lebanon. When she’s not painting and advocating for the environment? She’s advocating for human rights! One of her latest published works is an optional protocol addressing violence against women in Lebanon to CEDAW. Even revolutions need a bit of color 😉

Mona Itani is an MA student in English Literature at the American University of Beirut, where she also completed her BA in English Literature and a Diploma in Special Education. With a background in education and a love for literature, language, and creative expression, she is interested in the ways people communicate and engage with ideas. At Rusted Radishes, she supports the team through administrative coordination and communications.
Advisory Board
المجـلس الاستشاري
Nael El Toukhy
Ahmad Gharbieh
Marilyn Hacker
Golan Haji
Lina Mounzer
Marquard Smith
ئنال الطوخي
أحمد غربية
مارلين هاكر
جوالن حاجي
لينا منذر
ماركوارد سميث
