About the Project
Thanatos is a death positive publication with the goal for information about death to be more widespread and accessible.
Anyone is welcome to submit art, photography, prose, poetry, and any other medium centered around death and death positivity.
We are looking for poems, essays and short fiction that deal with the topics of death, dying, grief and mortality that offer a unique and personal perspective on death.
We have a commitment to diversity and highlighting queer and BIPOC authors, as well as different cultures, religions, and thoughts on the afterlife. All are welcome!
While we love and welcome Gothic writing, we strive for a variety of representations on death ranging from the heartfelt to the humorous.
Photo Credit: Unsplash, Sergio Ibannez, @ibannez
Rebecca Kilroy
Creator and Editor in Chief
Rebecca Kilroy is a novelist and short-story writer originally from New Jersey. She enjoys writing magical realism, historical fantasy, and anything that mixes magic with the mundane. Her interest in the Death Positive movement began because she wanted to understand her fears around mortality. Since then, she's developed a particular interest in 19th-century death rituals and representations of death in myth and folklore. She founded "Thanatos Review" with the idea of encouraging and broadening conversations about death.
Her own work has been featured in "Fatal Flaw", "Capulet Magazine", "Laurel Moon" and "The Copperfield Review Quarterly". She also serves as editor-in-chief of "The Mount Holyoke Review"
What she's looking for: anything that expands the conversations people currently have around death--- your funeral stories, your personal deathcare experience, the unexpected narratives we haven't heard before. I would love to see retellings of death/afterlife myths, especially from traditionally underrepresented cultures. I also love and appreciate dark humor; it makes the lighter moments brighter
Writers she admires: Emily Dickinson, Neil Gaiman, Jane Austen, Toni Morrisson, Claire Keegan
Arden Delphine Young
Editor in Chief
Arden Young is a student at Hampshire College studying literature and story-telling through different mediums, focusing mainly on creative writing and visual art. She likes to write fiction/fantasy stories with real-world themes and relatable characters. Death, grief, and mortality are often the main themes in Arden’s stories, as death is her biggest fear. If not to completely conquer it, her goal is to get a better understanding and acceptance of death by expressing and exploring it through her stories. When she’s not doing homework or working at the campus library, Arden can be found walking in the woods on a misty morning or curled up in bed watching Youtube with her cat Meow.
Arden was an editor and writer for her High School newspaper, “The Dragon Flyer”, with one of her pieces published in the town paper as well. She has also submitted short stories to her college newspaper and creative writing classes.
What she's looking for: Anything relating to thoughts on death and dying, fiction or nonfiction. I’d love for people to be able to share their opinions and views on what happens before, during, and after we die, and how it impacts our loved ones. Stories about deaths we have experienced can be extremely moving. I would also love to see fantasy stories with death as the main focus because there is so much you can explore when you combine the realm of magic with realism! So I am open to anything that is centered around death and death positivity, and how we can live our lives knowing that it will one day end.
Writers she admires: JRR Tolkien, William Shakespeare, Jonathon Larson
Augusta Karpatkin
Website Editor
Gus Karpatkin is a student at Mount Holyoke College studying English with a focus on creative writing. Gus enjoys writing westerns, poetry, post-apocolypse stories, and autobiographical work that focuses on the complex themes of human morality, mortality, and the synonymous nature of ghosts and love. After several personal losses, death became a reoccurring theme in Gus's work—attempting to understand and process grief. The work is never ending.
Gus was the publisher of the Walter Johnson High School Literary Magazine Spectator Magazine in 2019-2020, and the business manager from 2018-2019. Gus won the Bethesda Urban Partnership Young Poet prize in 2020. In 2023, Gus will be published in the Mount Holyoke Literary Review.
What Gus is looking for: anger about death, something that captures grief in its entirety, things that contemplate the nature of death. I like when the death is incongruous, or the grief is incongruous, and things don't make sense. Magical realism and surreality are always interesting elements to include, when done well. Political elements interest me, and how lives are altered after a death.
Writers admired: Leslie Feinberg, Mary Oliver, Toni Morrison, Emily Dickinson, Octavia Butler
Meet Our Admin Team!
Juno Rapoport
Juno Rapoport is a student at Mount Holyoke College studying Political Science. They've worked on numerous Florida based political campaigns, in a law firm, and in college admissions. They love reading queer romance and keeping us organized! We literally would die without them.
If you have experience with google office, have sent an email before, and enjoy organizing spreadsheets, we are desperate for admin support! Be like Juno and fill out this form to lend a helping hand to your favorite literary magazine about death :)