Poetry Editor: Joanna

Joanna holds a Ph.D. in British and American literature, specializing in fictional as well as nonfiction travel narratives of the Middle East. She spent eight years in that region, notably two years in Afghanistan, teaching writing, mythology, and public speaking classes to American soldiers and gathering materials for her own memoir, which she is currently completing as part of an MFA in Creative Nonfiction at Southern New Hampshire University under the direction of Mark Sundeen. Her poetry and prose have appeared widely in journals including Guernica and Prairie Schooner. 

Photography Reviewer: Nichole

Capt Nichole K. Timmreck, U.S. Air Force, a JAG officer, has served on active duty for four and half years with assignments in Colorado at the United States Air Force Academy and North Carolina. She currently works as a Victims’ Counsel at Seymour Johnson AFB and Pope AAF. She has also been an Army spouse for over 10 years, following her husband from Germany to Hawaii, where she attended law school, to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where she currently lives with her husband and two daughters. Nichole has held the title of official family photographer and historian for the last decade and specializes in landscapes and family vacations. While writing and photography have been personal hobbies since she was a child, she hopes to share more of her creativity thanks to platforms like Hallaren.

Social Media Editor: Kristy

Kristy Bell is a poet and fiction writer who has been in or around the military for most of her adult life. She served 21 years in the Navy as both enlisted and officer, and recently finished four years as a Department of the Army civilian at Fort Benning (now Moore), GA. She currently lives in southwest Georgia with her partner and a menagerie of animals. Kristy writes fiction, creative non-fiction, and poetry, with work recently in Snake Nation Press Review, Hallaren Literary Magazine, and Rivanna Review. When she's not managing Hallaren's social media accounts, you can find her on Twitter at red_dirt_poet. 

Creative Nonfiction Editor: Nancy

Nancy Stroer arrived in Germany as a newly-commissioned Army maintenance officer, two days after the fall of the Berlin Wall. She spent her entire European tour in a series of near misses—supporting the massive movement of equipment to the Middle East in the build up to Operation Desert Storm, but not having to deploy herself. Attending a Haus Rissen seminar on reintegrating East and West, attended by American military leaders as well as West German officers and recently repatriated East German officers—the same week there was a coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union. Planning, then putting the kibosh on a beach trip to Yugoslavia with her other slacker lieutenant friends because war was shaking the country apart.

Serving in the beer-soaked, post-Cold War trenches was so fascinating Nancy took a European separation from the Army so she could stay overseas. Since then she’s lived and worked in Germany, Turkey, Japan, and the United Kingdom. She’s written for the Stars and Stripes and Soldiers magazine, and is putting the finishing touches on a novel about women working together (or not!) in the peacetime Army. She’s also a certified book coach specializing in helping female veterans write about their experiences in the military.