Social Media Co-Managers

Mia Schilling Grogan is a scholar, teacher, and poet originally from Brooklyn but happily transplanted to Philadelphia where she raised her three children and lives with her husband, John. She is Associate Professor of English at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia. A medievalist specializing in hagiography and women’s spiritual writing, Mia presents frequently at conferences, and her scholarly articles have been published in journals including Traditio, The American Benedictine Review, and Magistra: A Journal of Women’s Spirituality in History. She has published translations of Anglo-Latin prayers in The Benedictine Reader I, (Cistercian Publications, 2019) and in First Things. Mia also writes book reviews, both of new scholarship in her field and of new poetry collections. 

Mia started writing poetry at age six and has never stopped. She has published poems in print journals and on media platforms including America, Dappled Things, Mezzo Cammin, The Christian Century, Amethyst Review, Southern Poetry Review, Light, The Windhover, Literary Mama, Ekstasis, Jesuit Media Lab, WPSU’s Poetry Moment, and Presence. She has been both a runner-up and a winner of America’s Foley Poetry Prize, a finalist several times in the Kim Bridgford Memorial Sonnet Contest (crown category), a Laureate’s Choice winner in the Maria Faust Sonnet Contest, and a placed finalist in contests sponsored by Fare Forward and Catholic Literary Arts. She was also pleased to be involved with the 2023 Art and Synodality Project sponsored by Catholic Artists’ Connection and Discerning Deacons.

Mia has been an enthusiastic reader, contributor, and supporter of Presence since its second year, and is honored to have a formal role to play as Social Media Co-Manager.

Visit her CHC faculty page at: https://www.chc.edu/academics/faculty/marie-grogan/

Jana-Lee Germaine is a poet and homeschooling mom of 4. A winner of the Patricia Dobler Poetry Award, her poems have appeared widely in journals, including Presence, Nelle, Water-Stone Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, New Ohio Review, Nimrod, Cimarron Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Poet Lore, The Christian Century, Rock & Sling, and elsewhere. She is a Senior Poetry Reader for Ploughshares, where she has been reading poetry since 2009. She earned her MFA from Emerson College. She loves to travel and has lived in Chicago, Tucson, Los Angeles, and a tiny village in Northamptonshire, England, where the local peacock showed up at her kitchen door every morning to ask for biscuits (preferably the chocolate covered variety). A member of the Board of Trustees for her local library, Jana-Lee currently lives in Lunenburg, Massachusetts, with her husband, children, and four rescue cats. She is delighted and honored to act as a Social Media Manager for Presence, whose mission and place in the literary community she sees as invaluable. You can find her online at janaleegermaine.com.

 Lisa Toth Salinas is a poet, genealogist and author of Smallest Leaf (2015), awarded the Eakin Manuscript Prize. A descendant of Catholic Hungarian, Croatian and Irish immigrants to America, many of her research and writing projects are inspired by the legacy of faith passed down through the generations. Fellow poet Annabelle Moseley stated, “Lisa Salinas writes with a sacred humility that allows her to enter into the heart of her reader.” Lisa’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Presence, St. Austin Review, mater et magistra, Tejascovido, The Houston Chronicle, Through Layered Limestone, Odes & Elegies: Eco-Poetry of the Texas Gulf Coast, Texas Poetry Calendar, and Keystone: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania. Her work has been published in many editions of Encore: Prize Poems of the National Federation of State Poetry Societies, and she has twice been selected as featured poet within the collaborative poetry and visual art exhibit Color:Story. Honored with the Therese Lindsey Award by the Poetry Society of Texas, Lisa was also appointed by PST as Councilor-at-Large on the basis of service in the promotion of poetry throughout the state of Texas. She is a frequent poetry judge for contests in numerous states affiliated with the National Federation of State Poetry Societies. A regular presenter on both writing and genealogy topics, she has produced webinars and published research guides on Catholic and Eastern European genealogy. Lisa is passionate about sharing her love for poetry and the Catholic faith in many formats and is honored to act as Social Media Marketing Manager for Presence Journal.

You can find her on the web at http://smallestleaf.com.