About the Editor
Our Mission:
Seems provides a physical and established place for writers around the globe to publish quality literature. Our goal is to give writers from all backgrounds the chance to be published in a credible magazine regardless of any financial constraints, which is why submitting has always been free. We aim to publish accessible editions and curate collections that leave readers ruminating.
Our Editors:
Jodie Mortag, who grew up in the farm fields of central Wisconsin, followed in her parent’s cheese-making footsteps and labored in a mozzarella factory over the summer months as she studied the craft of writing at Lakeland College and then at Wichita State University, where she earned her MFA and served as Editor of Mikrokosmos.
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Her poetry, fiction, and nonfiction have been published in Ruminate, North Dakota Quarterly, Counterclock, Fourteen Hills, Barnstorm, Stoneboat, Fractions, and Metal Scratches. Her short fiction piece "Horses for Fairies" received the Merit Award in the Pump House Exhibit "Exposure: Words from Images 2011."
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Mortag is Associate Professor of Writing and the host of the annual Great Lakes Writers Festival at Lakeland University in Plymouth, Wisconsin where she lives with her husband, daughters, and English springer spaniel.
Leah Henckel has worked with Seems for over a year, serving as a cover designer and later an assistant editor. She is studying creative writing at Lakeland University, focusing on flash fiction, short stories, and prose poetry, selections of which will appear in her presently untitled upcoming book. Henckel is a writing academic coach and a festival assistant with the Great Lakes Writers Festival at Lakeland University in Plymouth, Wisconsin. She is also an intern journalist and editorial department intern with the Dodge County Pionier, Campbellsport News, and Kewaskum Statesman newspapers located in Theresa, Wisconsin, where she grew up and currently lives.
Sarah Stege, a creative writing and professional writing major at Lakeland University, joined the Seems editorial team in Fall 2023. Also in Fall 2023, Sarah founded Lakeland Content Writers, a university-owned venture that allows student writers to create professional content for local small businesses. Her favorite literary genre is flash fiction. In a rare gem of free time, Sarah usually obsesses over story ideas, doodles on sticky notes, or heads to the woods to free her mind.
Marian Cramer joined Seems at the beginning of her sophomore year at Lakeland University as an assistant editor. She will graduate this spring with a degree in creative writing and English with an emphasis on professional writing and pedagogy. In addition to Seems, Cramer helped organize the Great Lakes Writers Festival in Plymouth, Wisconsin in 2022 and 2023. She also recently completed a summer communications internship at Glacial Lakes Conservancy, a nonprofit land conservation organization. At Lakeland, she has been an academic writing coach for two years and worked as the stage manager at the Bradley Theatre for one year. She is in the process of completing her senior project, a chapbook titled Gutted, before she will move on to earn her MFA at University of North Carolina Wilmington.
