Mouthful of Salt exists to amplify stories that won’t stay quiet. We seek work that challenges, disturbs, reimagines, and reclaims. We are a literary journal dedicated to publishing BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and neurodiverse writers whose voices challenge conventions and refuse containment. We are here for what doesn’t fit neatly into genre or expectation. For the jagged, the intimate, the unfiltered truths that live in the body and memory.
Our focus is on relationships in their most layered forms between lovers, cultures, identities, ancestors, and the self. Give us work that wrestles with mental health, longing, pleasure, grief, gender, joy, and survival.
Mouthful of Salt is committed to publishing work that lingers. Stories and poems that leave something behind. Give us your softest pain and sharpest resistance.
Masthead
Imani Cauthen-Robinson
(she/her) Founder & Editor-in-Chief
Imani is a mother, writer, yoga teacher, and sun-seeker. Her work has appeared in Rigorous, Next Page Ink, World Insane, and Royal Rose, but she dreams of publishing her debut novel. A graduate of the Masters in Professional Writing program at Towson University, she enjoys finding the delicate balance between quiet moments with words and the chaos that makes them worth writing about.
IG: @rootedwithimani
Kaci MoDavis
(she/her) Editor, Fiction
Kaci is a writer & editor from Pennsylvania. She’s currently an MFA Candidate in The Writer’s Foundry program in Brooklyn, NY and serves as a Co-Editor for Writer’s Foundry Review and Assistant Managing & Marketing Editor for Tabula Rasa Review. Her fiction and poetry have been published in Rivercraft Magazine, Sanctuary Magazine, and Ink in Thirds.
IG: @kaciielizabeth
Kevin Jin
(he/him) Editor, CNF
Kevin is an amateur writer currently struggling with imposter syndrome, although he thinks he’s nearly there because he lives off instant ramen and copious coffee, like all his writing heroes. He currently writes about films, literature, gaming, and contemporary Chinese culture.
IG: @salty.scrawlings
Renan Mahmoud
(they/them) Editor, Poetry
Hailing from the land of the pharaohs, Renan Mahmoud is an aspiring writer studying English and Comparative Literature at the American University of Cairo. With their soul dedicated to the arts and crafts of writing and photography, they are currently working on poetry collections that explore the commemoration of memories Their work has been published in Mad Persona Magazine, The Rotten Pomegranate Literary Magazine, and Northern Light 10: Part 2. They like their coffee as dark as their sense of humor.
IG: @via_santa_maria_dell_anima
Joe Massa
(he/him) Editor, Fiction
Joseph is a writer and communicator from Baltimore, Maryland. He attended George Mason University, where he studied creative writing with a dual focus on fiction and poetry and minored in professional writing. During that time, Joe worked with Volition and Phoebe literary magazines, read submissions for Stillhouse Press, and studied abroad at Oxford University. He graduated from GMU in 2021 and promptly started working with CityLit Project, a nonprofit focused on nourishing writers and readers in Baltimore through a variety of events.
Will Diggs
(he/him) Editor, Granules
Will is a PG County raised, NC braised writer & scholar. His work has appeared with Merion West, Moist Poetry Journal, Last Leaves Magazine, Furrow & others, Diggs is the Co-Founder & Co-Creative Director of Sepia Soul Live Poetry & Music. His debut poetry book is forthcoming with Bridgehouse Publishing in the summer of 2026.
IG: @willtheblackguy
Mariam Girgis
(she/her) Editor, Granules
Mariam is an Egyptian editor and English & Comparative Literature student with a passion for literature, journalism, and thoughtful storytelling. She is particularly interested in gender, culture, and contemporary social issues.
IG: @mar.iamgirgis
Kaycee Painter
(she/her) Web Editor
Kaycee is a disabled poet from Dalton, Georgia. She writes from the body, exploring what it means to endure in a world not built for you. Kaycee’s work appears in Mouthful of Salt, TrashLight Press, and The Nonbinary Review.