Meet Our Team

The Bayou Review provides a platform for emerging and established writers and artists to feature their work. Our dedicated team carefully reviews all submissions and selects work ranging from prose, poetry, translation, and visual work.

Spring 2025 Interns

Guy Anchondo

Guy Anchondo (he/him) is a junior at the University of Houston-Downtown studying English. He enjoys many forms of storytelling such as films, short stories, and graphic novels. He plans to work in the publishing world and or anything involving books.

Derek Layfield

Derek Layfield (he/him) is a junior at the University of Houston-Downtown, pursuing a B.A. in English with a Creative Writing concentration. He enjoys reading and bird watching. He plans to become an english professor in the future.

Abraham Leija

Abraham Leija (he/him) is a senior majoring in English at the University of Houston-Downtown. Graduating in Spring 2025, Abraham is astute in writing, the study of literature, film anatomization, and he dabbles in editing. Abraham is a section editor at The Dateline since March 2024. Abraham recently came back from a study abroad trip to York and London in May 2024, which has propelled him out of his suburban homelife and into the ranks of a world traveler. In Fall 2024, he contributed to the ongoing revision of the UHD Faculty Handbook via copyediting and supplying a style sheet.

When Abraham is not in the midst of schoolwork, he is managing and leading the UHD eSports Super Smash Bros. Varsity Team as Captain. In his free time, Abraham enjoys taking care of his two cockatiels and playing Halo, Smash Bros., Grand Theft Auto, and trying to catch up on his endless backlog of other gaming titles.

Nickolas Topp

Nickolas Topp, (any) usually going by Nicky, is a Creative Writing major at the University of Houston-Downtown with interests in literature and high fantasy, especially world building and deconstruction of themes. He looks up to many writers in the creative and video game field, growing up with the works from Christ Metzen, he aspires to be a prolific writer, however it may happen in the future, he’ll work relentlessly toward his goals, making friends along the way.

Nicky Topp (and mom - Eleana Topp)_edite

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Faculty Advisor

Dr. Lau Cesarco Eglin (she/ella/ela) is a poet and translator from Uruguay. She is the author of six collections of poetry, including the chapbooks Between Gone and Leaving—Home (dancing girl press, 2023) and Time/Tempo: The Idea of Breath (PRESS 254, 2022). Her poems and translations (from the Spanish, Portuguese, Portuñol, and Galician), have appeared in many journals such as Zócalo: Public Square, Asymptote, Figure 1, Eleven Eleven, Puerto del Sol, Copper Nickel, SRPR, International Poetry Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Columbia Poetry Review, Timber, and more. Cesarco Eglin is the translator of claus and the scorpion by the Galician author Lara Dopazo Ruibal (co•im•press, 2022), longlisted for both the 2023 PEN Award in Poetry in Translation and the 2023 National Translation Award in Poetry. She is also the translator of Of Death. Minimal Odes by the Brazilian author Hilda Hilst (co•im•press), which was the winner of the 2019 Best Translated Book Award. Her most recent translation is The Mistaken Place of Things by Gabriela Aguirre (Eulalia Books, 2024). Cesarco Eglin is the publisher of Veliz Books and teaches creative writing at the University of Houston-Downtown.

Dr. Lau Cesarco Eglin