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Meet the Team
Sabine Wilson-Patrick
Editor-In-Chief
Sabine Wilson-Patrick is originally from Barbados and is in her third year at Cardiff University studying English Literature & Creative Writing. She has performed at the Hay Festival and her writing has been nominated for the Best of the Net and Best Small Fictions anthologies. Her work can be found in Midnight & Indigo, Aster Lit, Nawr Magazine and Ethereal Magazine. She is also the Managing Editor of Rover Magazine. She created The Tonic Review because she loves the diversity of creative writing that literary magazines foster.
Caitlin Tina Jones
Poetry Editor
Caitlin Tina Jones is a third-year Creative Writing student and emerging poet from Hengoed, South Wales. Her poems have been published by The Poetry Society’s Young Poets Network, Poetry Wales, and Propel. Her poems have also featured in various anthologies, including He, She, They, Us: Queer Poems (Pan Macmillan) and Beyond/Tu Hwnt: Anthology of Welsh D/deaf and Disabled Writers (Lucent Dreaming). She is currently working with Edge Hill University as a Lived Experience Consultant on Arts4Us, a £2.5m research project using creative solutions to alleviate stress from children and young adults with mental health struggles.
Lydia Byrne
Poetry Editor
Lydia Ruby Byrne is a third year International Relations and Politics student currently living in North Carolina, USA. Her passion for writing emerged in high school where she was immersed in her local zine culture and now is a consistent contributor to Quench. Besides writing, Lydia enjoys reading an expansive range of genres, drawing, cross stitch, and following anything fashion related. Along with her studies, she is a communications intern for an EU-US education outreach program based in Brussels and hopes to merge her creativity and interest in public policy into a career in diplomacy.
Lowri Player
Poetry Editor
Lowri Player is a third year English Literature student at Cardiff University. As well as working on The Tonic Review, she is a contributor for both Quench and Empoword Journalism. Although she is pursuing a career in editorial publishing, she thoroughly enjoy creative writing and would love to give others a platform to share their own works. Lowri has specific interest in iconoclastic works surrounding religion and love a gothic novel. In her spare time, she loves to play piano and has gone on to win several events including the semi-final of EPTA’s UK annual competition. Her main aspiration is to encourage and promote as much creativity in people’s lives as she can.
Freya Rose Jenkins
Poetry Editor
Freya Rose Jenkins is from the Isles of a Scilly, a small archipelago twenty-eight miles off Land’s End, Cornwall. She has just completed an undergraduate degree in English Literature and Creative Writing and is now doing a Masters in Creative Writing at Cardiff University. Her poetry explores various aspects of the natural world, folklore, and nostalgia, and is deeply inspired by the landscape of her home islands. In her spare time she enjoys film photography and wild swimming! Freya’s work has been published by Poetry Wales, ‘the southwester’ newspaper, the Rough Island Band, Seedlings magazine, and Tonic.
Nik Pelley
Poetry Editor
Nik Pelley is in their third year of the English Literature with Creative Writing BA at Cardiff University. They are also part of the team that runs the Store-Bought Flowers creative writing zine at the university and have helped to organise fundraising events alongside it. In addition to writing, they enjoy photography in their free time, and co-host Crow Calls, a monthly open mic night based at the university during term. Other activities they enjoy include crochet, netball, and heading to Bute Park to feed the crows and get through their reading list. They most often like to read and write gothic pieces, but also engage with poetry and realism.
Hannah Coyle
Poetry Editor & Resident Artist
Hannah Coyle is part of the poetry and design teams. They love all sorts of writing but in their course, English Literature and Creative Writing, they have focused their poetry skills and are working towards their dissertation. A skill they want to practice more is their sfx makeup, which they used to do a lot more, but now that uni work has picked up, the makeup brushes have done down In their free time, they love to read, draw and play instruments! They also love food and are always up for ordering a take-away and watching a film with friends or going out for drinks and playing board games.
Ally-Joh Gowan-Day
Prose Editor
Ally-Joh Gowan-Day has a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing and is currently studying an MA in Creative Writing. Her writing focuses on life with trauma, specifically dealing with childhood trauma and PTSD. Previously she has worked as an editorial assistant for Wales Arts Review and as a freelance editor and researcher for companies such as Open Genius and Kogan Page. She originally hails from Somerset but has lived in the Valleys for 6 years now and can’t imagine herself anywhere else, even with the rain and the hills her car engine hates.
Emily Paradice-Ruan
Prose Editor
Emily Paradice-Ruan is a Creative Writing MA student at Cardiff University from Swansea. She is passionate about championing Welsh literature and putting the country’s profoundly talented writers on the map. Being mixed race (and usually homesick for somewhere liminal), Emily’s work often tackles themes of identity and belonging. Her short story ‘Adref’ which broaches these topics was shortlisted for the 2024/25 Bloomsbury Mentorship Prize. Emily is a big fan of unique and moving prose, particularly that which is autofictional and charts a narrative journey (emotional, physical, or otherwise). She is very excited to read your work
Alex Childerstone
Prose Editor
Alex Childerstone is a 19 year-old writer from Buckinghamshire, with a passion for a wide range of literature, from contemporary short stories to Gothic horror. His only publication to date is within The Tonic Review, but intends to seek out a career as a short story writer or screenwriter. Alex has a deep love for the natural world, which often shines through in his writing and choice of reading. When not sat at his desk, you can often find him hiking or wild swimming around Cardiff, or tending to his collection of houseplants and playing the guitar.
Molly Wilcox
Prose Editor
Molly Wilcox completed her BA in English Literature at Cardiff University in 2025 and is now working towards an MA. Growing up and living in Bristol, her love for pros began when she read A Room of One’s Own at 15 years old. She has since developed a passion for modernist fiction, focusing her undergraduate dissertation on the significance of solitude in Virginia Woolf’s writing. Alongside university, she bartends and tutors GCSE English Literature students. As an editor for Tonic, Molly is keen to celebrate and amplify the wide range of perspectives that Welsh students have to offer in their writing.
Carys Speed
Prose Editor
Carys Speed (she/her) is a writer from Newcastle, currently preparing to undertake an MA in Creative Writing at Cardiff University. Carys reads widely with a love for literary voices like Jane Austen and Ocean Vuong but maintains a deep love for fantasy epics. As a writer herself, her work ranges from narrative non-fiction, political fiction, to her summer project: a full-length fantasy novel. She believes the best prose earns its power through detail, rhythm, and risk, and she’s happiest when working alongside other writers to bring their stories into sharper, stranger focus.
Sam Davies
Resident Artist, Poetry (Issue 1-2)
Sam Davies loves all things literature, particularly Greek myths and philosophy. Passionate about retellings and classics, he is currently working on his own novel while researching the intersections of celebrity culture, fandom, and digital activism for his dissertation. When not reading or writing, Sam is immersed in pop culture, dissecting the latest album releases or media trends. In his final year of university studying journalism, he hopes to build a career in magazines and publishing. With a love for storytelling in all forms, he finds inspiration in everything from classic literature to modern music.