Our Current Staff
Many thanks to our graduates, alumni and volunteer staff, without whom much of our work would not be possible!
SCOTT W. BERG – PUBLISHER
Born and raised in the Twin Cities, Scott W. Berg holds a BA in Architecture from the University of Minnesota, an MA from Miami University of Ohio, and an MFA in Creative Writing from George Mason University, where he now teaches publishing, writing, and literature. He is the author of The Burning of the World, Grand Avenues: The Story of Pierre Charles L’Enfant, the French Visionary Who Designed Washington, D.C. and 38 Nooses: Lincoln, Little Crow, and the Beginning of the Frontier’s End.
TAYLOR SCHAEFER – EDITORIAL DIRECTOR
Taylor Schaefer (MFA ‘25) is the recipient of Stillhouse Press’s inaugural post-graduate fellowship, and will serve as the press’s Editorial Director until Spring 2026.
In her three years as a student at Stillhouse, Taylor previously worked as Director of Marketing, and was the publicist for The Rolodex Happenings, Liddle Deaths, The Atlas of Remedies, Sad Grownups, Leafskin, and Tell Me Yours, I’ll Tell You Mine.
Taylor writes lyric and journalistic essays focused on myth, nostalgia, recent sociocultural history, and human exploration. She loves to read essay collections with a magnified voice that blur the boundaries of genre and narrative. Essays that read like fiction, essays that read like poetry– she is especially interested in narrative nonfiction that blends the personal with research and niche topics. She is currently at work on her first full-length project, an essay collection about gun culture and myths in American Identity.
JACOB SHARP – EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, PUBLICIST
Jacob Sharp (he/him) is a third-year MFA candidate in Creative Writing at George Mason University. Jacob received his BA in English and recently relocated from Asheville, North Carolina. He has a fascination for birds, reptiles, and invertebrates. His tuxedo cat Beelzebub is his partner-in-crime.
Currently, Jacob is focusing on his literary fiction short stories and has begun dabbling in historical fiction. Jacob finds inspiration from reading literature that focuses on dissecting the human psyche.
After graduation, Jacob hopes to continue to pursue a career in publishing while also focusing on publishing his own works.
CHRIS MANN – ACQUISITIONS EDITOR
Chris Mann (he/him) is a third-year MFA candidate in Fiction at George Mason University. Chris received his B.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at El Paso (1994) and earned an MFA in Theatre Arts from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (2002). In addition to his literary studies at Mason, Chris will graduate with a certificate in publishing.
Chris is heavily influenced by writers of Southern Gothic such as Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Conner, and Tennessee Williams. He often writes on the trials and tribulations of those characters who live in the south. He also enjoys venturing from that and into the realm of what it means to function within the growing pressures of these challenging times in the United States.
After graduation, Chris intends to pursue a career in publishing as well as continuing his own writing.
OLIVIA BISSELL – DESIGNER
Olivia Bissell (she/her) is a current graduate student pursuing a Master of Arts in English Literature at George Mason University. She received her Bachelor of Arts in English and Psychology from the College of William & Mary in 2022. Olivia works at George Mason University’s Writing Center and is an Assistant Editor at Stillhouse Press. In Olivia’s academic work, she applies feminist theory and psychological theories to examine the underworkings of male authors’ anxieties when writing their female characters in the Romantic and Victorian Eras. She is now working with trauma theory in examining how traumatic events, like the Bubonic Plague, affect literature.
Outside of academic work, Olivia likes to write fantasy, science fiction, and short stories in her free time. She is an avid reader who falls asleep every night with a book in hand. Besides writing, she also likes to paint and has been playing the clarinet for the past 13 years. After graduation, Olivia hopes to pursue a career within the publishing industry as an editor and possibly publish a novel as well.
REBECCA BURKE – CONSULTING EDITOR
Rebecca Burke (she/her) is a 2021 graduate of George Mason University’s MFA in Creative Writing with a concentration in Fiction, and a 2017 graduate from Mason with a BA in Government and International Relations. At Stillhouse, Rebecca has previously worked as the Submissions Editor and Manager, an assistant editor for You Will Never be Normal and Shapeshifting, and the lead editor for Stillhouse’s first anthology, In Between Spaces: An Anthology of Disabled Writers, and for Sad Grownups, winner of the 2025 PEN/Bingham Award for Debut Short Story Collection. For her day job, she manages the production of over 2,000 articles a year for Science Advances, an interdisciplinary open-access online journal, and she hopes to eventually teach an undergraduate class on publishing.
Rebecca predominantly writes contemporary fiction and short-form nonfiction, and is currently working on a novel about queerness, trauma, and recovery. She loves voice-driven narratives that take bold risks and ask pressing questions in new or previously unexplored ways. Some of her favorites include Little Fires Everywhere, Make Your Home Among Strangers, Station Eleven, and Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl.
PAUL LOGAN – INTERIOR DESIGN
Paul Logan IV (they/he) is a George Mason alum who received their MA in English Literature in 2024. Paul received their BA in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies with a minor in Spanish from American University in 2022. They do all the interior designs for the books we publish at Stillhouse Press.
Paul loves to read anything with a queer lens. Mainly fantasy, romance, horror, and graphic novels. They also run all the social media accounts for Safe Space NoVa, a queer youth non-profit in northern Virginia. After graduation, they hope to continue working in the publishing field doing interior design work for a queer publishing house.
CAROL MITCHELL – CONSULTING EDITOR
Carol Mitchell (she/her) is a book editor at Stillhouse Press and an alum of the George Mason University MFA program (2020). Her first novel for adults: What Start Bad a Mornin' was published by Central Avenue Publishing in September 2023. In the past she has written realistic fiction, however, her love of fantasy has been nudging its way into her writing and appearing as magical realism in the most unexpected places. In addition to being an author, Carol is a trained and experienced editor who enjoys working with Stillhouse authors to bring out the best in their work.
