The Shiver (AKA: The Masthead)

McKenzie Lynn Tozan

Editor-In-Chief

McKenzie Lynn Tozan is a formerly Midwestern writer, transplanted to coastal Croatia. She is a published poet, novelist, and the Editor-in-Chief of Lit Shark Magazine and the Banned Book Review. She received her MFA in Poetry from Western Michigan University and her BA in English/BS in Education from Indiana University South Bend, where she began her work in publishing. Her poems have appeared in Rogue Agent, Whale Road Review, Young Ravens Review, The Birds We Piled Loosely, and Encore Magazine, among others; her book reviews and essays have appeared in The Rumpus, Green Mountains Review, Memoir Mixtapes, The Life Collective, Her Journal, Motherly, and more; and she had a chapter on Australian vampire lore featured in the critical anthology, Global Perspectives on the Liminality of the Supernatural: From Animus to Zombi. McKenzie’s short horror story collection, What We Find in the Dark, and her horror novella, Black As Black, are both forthcoming from the Shiver Collective in 2024. When she’s not writing, McKenzie is spending time with her kiddos, cat, and husband; reading submissions for Lit Shark; making future plans to start a pumpkin patch on the coast (seriously); physically conditioning to start scuba-diving and swimming with sharks in spring 2024 (also seriously); stumbling her way through learning Croatian; researching local conservation projects she can get involved in; and getting back into playing piano and creating visual poetry broadsides. Basically, she’s endlessly happy. Find more on her website.

mckenzie@litshark.com

Dragan Tozan

Operations and Technical Director

Dragan received his BA in Arts and Sciences from Indiana University, where he also incidentally met McKenzie. He was always an avid reader, and reading is one of the battery-charging hobbies he has.

As the Operations and Technical Director with Lit Shark, Dragan is in charge of all daily sales, service, and technical responsibilities. If you are interested in becoming a Lit Shark partner or having your book advertized with us, he is the guy to contact!

dragan@litshark.com

Beth Mathison

Beth Mathison

Assistant Poetry/Prose Editor & Contributor

Beth Mathison has work published in The Foliate Oak (including the 2008 and 2009 annual “Best Of” print editions), Haiku Journal, 365Tomorrows. com, MysteryAuthors.com, Drops of Crimson, Colored Chalk, and The Citron Review. Stories published with Untreed Reads include Mobsters for the Holidays; Criminally Hilarious Short Stories (also an audio book) and the short story romance series, Young at Heart. Her poem “My Grandmother’s Hands” was featured in Verse Wisconsin, along with a reading with Wisconsin’s first Poet Laureate (Ellen Kort).

Beth lives with her family in the Upper Midwest, and during the cold winter months, she dreams of snorkeling in the Riviera Maya.

Julie A. Dickson

Julie A. Dickson

Assistant Poetry/Prose Editor

Julie A. Dickson has been writing since she was a young teen, prompted from art, nature, and memories, her poetry travels to many places. Dickson’s poetry is seen in various journals, including Lothlorien, Blue Heron Review, and Lit Shark, and her full length works are on Amazon. She shares her home with two rescued feral cats and is an avid reader.
Cherilyn Chin

Cherilyn Chin

Contributor

Cherilyn Chin is a marine biologist who has worked at public aquariums, including the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco. She has held a three-day-old sea otter in the palm of her hand, cuddled with a week-old penguin chick, and gotten a painting from a giant pacific octopus. Cherilyn also has a whale shark and manta ray named after her. She enjoys writing children’s books about ocean animals, has four early-reader books (called Lily Lu to the Rescue) that came out January 1st, 2025, and has an award-winning blog, “Ocean of Hope” (https://oceanofhope.net).

    Pamela Rafalow Grossman

    Pamela Rafalow Grossman

    Contributor

    Pamela Rafalow Grossman lives in Brooklyn, NY, and has written for outlets such as the “Village Voice,” Time.com, OnEarth, and RollingStone.com. She is working on a short documentary about women in their nineties.

      Beth Mathison

      Beth Mathison

      Contributor

      Beth Mathison has work published in The Foliate Oak (including the 2008 and 2009 annual “Best Of” print editions), Haiku Journal, 365Tomorrows. com, MysteryAuthors.com, Drops of Crimson, Colored Chalk, and The Citron Review. Stories published with Untreed Reads include Mobsters for the Holidays; Criminally Hilarious Short Stories (also an audio book) and the short story romance series, Young at Heart. Her poem “My Grandmother’s Hands” was featured in Verse Wisconsin, along with a reading with Wisconsin’s first Poet Laureate (Ellen Kort).

      Beth lives with her family in the Upper Midwest, and during the cold winter months, she dreams of snorkeling in the Riviera Maya.

        Martina Frka Milotic

        Martina Frka Milotic

        Guest Book Reviewer, Books & Blanket: Books, Blanket, Joy

        Martina Frka Milotić is a mother, journalist and blogger born in Rijeka in 1984.

        During her Law studies, she turned to the media and permanently stuck in journalism—from Novi list, through Kanal Ri, Soundset Trsat, Index.hr to the lifestyle portal Extravagant.com.hr, she crossed a solid number of media thresholds and brought valuable experiences with her from each.

        As a mother of a seven-year-old girl and a two-year-old boy, she has been running the blog, “Mala Kme Conquers the World” for her whole career, with stories from family life and socially engaged topics.

        In her free time, she reads, writes, reviews books, and invents stories.

        Privately, Martina is a bookworm, a lover of fairy tales, myths and legends, nature, tights and, above all, her family.

        As part of the Fragment publishing house, she published two books: Little Kme Conquers the World: Motherhood Without Filters (2019) and Storyteller (2021).

        Krystina Quintana

        Contributor

        Krystina Quintana is a 30-year-old freelance writer living outside of Chicago, IL. With a passion for food and travel, she seeks to help businesses bring traffic to their page by writing blog posts that are engaging and fun to read. Reach out to her for blog posts and articles on Writers Work: https://writers.work/krystinaquintana.

        Brooke Spivey

        Brooke Spivey

        Contributor

        Brooke Spivey hales from Dothan, Alabama. She has a five-year-old who is obsessed with sharks. Besides writing, Brooke enjoys drawing, coloring, and making things up in whatever form she can!

        Past Contributors

        Ellen Acconcia

        Contributor

        Christy Howitt

        Contributor

        Katie Hudson

        Contributor

        India Rose Kushner

        Contributor

        Interested in Being the Next Member of Our Team?

        We are looking for more contributors who can write regularly for Lit Shark in the following areas: marine life, marine biology, conservation, sustainability, green living, SHARK WEEK and other documentaries/docuseries, animal rescue, coral reef restoration, book reviews in a wide variety of genres, and more. 

        If any of these subjects are of interest to you, or if you have other ideas that you think might be a fit in the Lit Shark community, please read more here about how to contribute.

        Thank you! We look forward to hearing from you!