Meet Our 2026 Editorial Team
Meet Our 2026 Editorial Team
Professor Darci Schummer
Professor Schummer is the author of Six Months in the Midwest, The Ballad of Two Sisters, The Book of Orion, and the forthcoming story collection Keystone Species. She is the director of the creative writing program at CSUP and faculty editor of Tempered Steel.
Hailey Gardner
Hailey Gardner is studying History and also minoring in Museum Studies and Creative Writing. She loves reading, writing, and watching anime and international TV shows like Weak Class Hero, The Trauma Code: Heroes On Call, Love Between Fairy and Devil, and Taxi Driver. Hailey is a strong advocate for accessibility and brings her lived experience as a wheelchair user to her work and studies. She hopes to earn a Master’s in Library and Information Science and become an archivist.
Thomas Vigil
Thomas Vigil searches for strange, heartwarming, and fun stories and has been published in Tempered Steel.
Olivia Winkelman
Olivia Winkelman is a history student at CSU Pueblo with minors in creative writing and anthropology. Her work has been published widely, and she has experience editing various literary journals. She plans to attend graduate school for library sciences and public history and is very passionate about the preservation of historical memory. Ultimately, she wants to be an archivist and work with medieval manuscripts. Her fiction, poetry, and nonfiction have been previously published in Tempered Steel.
Issac Samples
Isaac Samples is an optimist, writer, game designer, and teacher. Science teacher by trade, his hobbies are writing, TTRPGs, tech, and video games - often all at once. He is primarily into Sci-Fi (the harder the better), but sometimes with a little cosmic weird fantasy as a treat. He is loud, highly opinionated, ambitious, direct, and has various other personality traits that are fun and cool.
Shylynn Valenzuela-Flores
Shylynn Valenzuela-Flores is an English major with a minor in Italian at Colorado State University Pueblo. She is also a member of a Greek organization on campus called Alpha Psi Lambda. Her academic interests include creative writing across multiple genres, particularly horror, science fiction, and fantasy. She aspires to become a published author and is committed to developing her craft through both scholarly study and creative practice. Outside of her academic work, Shylynn enjoys spending time with her dogs, drinking coffee or tea, and listening to music. She believes that many of her strongest ideas originate from dreams or music, which often serve as inspiration for her writing.
Jayme Trujillo
Jayme Trujillo is currently in her third year as an English major at CSU Pueblo. She primarily focuses on writing creative fiction short stories in the genres of horror and mystery; however, she has also had creative nonfiction work published in a previous issue of Tempered Steel. Along with her passions for reading and writing, she also has a love for music and is a part of the CSU Pueblo Concert Choir.
Abigail Blanchard
Abigail Blanchard is a Senior at CSU Pueblo majoring in English and is minoring in both Italian and Leadership Studies. She has experience with outreach projects as well as non-profit work and is passionate about writing, reading, and helping others. She hopes to have a career in grant writing at a non-profit (or multiple non-profits) in the future to utilize her passions. She loves to travel and aspires to travel anywhere in the world that she can in her lifetime. She also does creative writing on the side, mostly non-fiction, and has a poem published in the 2024 edition of Tempered Steel titled "Life and Death Within the Trees."
Kimberly Sample
Kimberly Sample is a student at CSU-Pueblo pursuing a Bachelor's degree in English with a concentration in secondary education. She hopes to become a high school English teacher where she can foster a safe and supportive space for students to think critically and creatively. She enjoys reading, painting, and spending time with her friends and family.
Chloe VanEvera
Chloe VanEvera is an English major student at Colorado State University Pueblo. She has been an avid reader her entire life, and has been writing her own stories since she was small. She hopes to become an educator after graduation. Her favorite genres are fantasy, science fiction, and suspense/horror.
Emily Olonia
Emily Olonia is a sophomore at CSU-P double majoring in English and Criminology with a minor in Legal Studies. When she's not writing, she enjoys watching baseball and traveling with friends.
Hannah Brown
Hannah Brown is a retired military veteran who is now embracing her desire to write stories that could one day become a full fledge novel. She mostly writes creative fiction pieces, but has also dabbled in writing scripts, alongside experimenting with genres throughout her works. Currently, she is earning her Bachelor’s in English and will later go on to obtain a Master’s in Library Sciences..
Cathrina Jakeman
Cathrina Jakeman is a writer and student pursuing her English Literature and Creative Writing degree in Colorado. She is a staff writer for The Lycian Magazine, with work published in The Afterpast Review. Her debut chapbook, Why I Bite, was published by Bottlecap Press in 2025 and is available now on their website. Her new micro chapbook, Aftercare, is forthcoming in 2026 with Shadow and Sax Press.
Kimberly Ann Murillo
Kimberly is a Junior English major at CSU-Pueblo with a minor in Creative Writing and an emphasis in Secondary Education. She loves to write poetry, enjoys traveling and trying new outdoor adventures, and is passionate about spreading her excitement for education and writing to the up-and-coming generations.
Sam Atencio
Sam Atencio is an English Major and Creative Writing Minor at Colorado State University Pueblo. He is from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and is attending college with aspirations of becoming a teacher, baseball coach, and author.
Jacqueline Koopman
Jacqueline "Jacquie" Koopman is a student at CSU Pueblo who hopes to extend her storytelling to the film world. Her love of creating extends across the arts, although writing silly stories with her characters takes the cake. She writes like there's a movie theater in her mind, producing short stories like "Don't Shoot the Messenger," which was featured in Tempered Steel's 2025 edition. Outside of school, Jacquie enjoys karaoke, cat cafes, and customizing nearly everything she owns.