Our staff

Co-founder and Fiction/Nonfiction Editor

Norah Vawter is a freelance writer and editor. She spent five years as the Local Authors Editor of online magazine DCTRENDING.com, where she created and championed the Local Authors section. Norah has published creative writing in Memoir Magazine, Nassau Review, This is What America Looks Like, and journalism in The Washington Post, Otherwords, and Washington Independent Review of Books, among others. Norah holds an M.F.A. in creative writing from George Mason. She’s obsessed with the ocean, the stars, Fitzgerald, and the way that storytelling makes us human. Norah’s first novel, a finalist for the Eludia Award and longlisted for the Dzanc Prize, will be published by Regal House Publishing in spring 2028.

Co-founder and Poetry Editor

Gregory Luce is the author of six books of poems: Signs of Small Grace, Drinking Weather, Memory and Desire, Tile, Riffs & Improvisations and Smells Like Rain. His poems have appeared in numerous print and online journals, including Kansas Quarterly, Cimarron Review, Innisfree Poetry Review, If, Northern Virginia Review, Juke Jar, Praxilla, Little Patuxent Review, Buffalo Creek Review, and in several anthologies. He serves as Chair of the Editorial Board of The Mid-Atlantic review. In 2014, he was awarded the Larry Neal Award for adult poetry by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Retired after 32 years from National Geographic, he now lives in Arlington, Virginia. He is a volunteer writing tutor and mentor with 826DC.

Contributing Writer

Naomi Thiers grew up in California and Pittsburgh, but her chosen home is the Washington, D.C., area. Her first book of poetry Only The Raw Hands Are Heaven won the Washington Writers Publishing House competition. Her other books are In Yolo County and She Was a Cathedral (Finishing Line Press), Made of Air (Kelsay Books), and Like A Bird Released (Sligo Creek Publishing). Her poetry, fiction, essays, and interviews have been published in Virginia Quarterly Review, Poet Lore, Colorado Review, Potomac Review, Grist, Sojourners, and many other magazines and anthologies, and she is former editor of Phoebe magazine. She has taught creative writing in schools and homeless shelters among other places, and works as a substitute teacher and aide in Arlington, VA, public schools.

Contributing Writer

Tom Navratil is the author of Dog's Breakfast (Willow River Press/Between the Lines Publishing, 2025), a comedy of international intrigue that draws on his background as a diplomat. Dozens of his humor articles have appeared in Points in Case, Weekly Humorist, Slackjaw, Robot Butt, and other magazines. He has written for the Washington Independent Review of Books and has had short fiction published in Potomac Review. After graduating from Haverford College, he became a foreign service officer with the U.S. Department of State, where he served for 29 years, with postings in our embassies in Santo Domingo, Havana, Tokyo, Moscow, and Skopje. He lives in Bethesda, Maryland, where is working on his next novel, set in the DMV. More at tomnavratil.com.

Editorial Assistant Emerita

Samantha Segal is a graduate from Rutgers University with a degree in political science. She served as an associate producer at a progressive news outlet, but is increasingly leaning toward the literary realm. In her free time, you can find her volunteering at the Immigrant & Refugee Center, reading absurdist novels, or discovering a new niche topic to research. 

Want to write for us?

Are you interested in writing for Washington Unbound? We are actively looking for contributors to this new journal. If you are interested in writing reviews or interviews, please email us at Washington.Unbound@gmail.com, tell us a little about yourself and your writing background, and include a writing sample.