Meet the Team - Independent Book Review

Founder & Editor-in-Chief

Joe Walters founded Independent Book Review in 2018. During his time as the marketing and publicity director at a small press in Oregon, he discovered how difficult it was for small press and self-published books to get the attention they deserved. So he hopped on the internet, came up with a name, got confused for a million straight hours, and made Independent Book Review happen. In addition to his IBR work, he has been a marketer for Sunbury Press, Paper Raven Books, and Inkwater Press. He is the author of The Truth About Book Reviews and is the guy behind the Write Indie newsletter. You can listen to him on recent episodes of The Creative Penn, Novel Marketing, Get Your Book Seen and Sold, and more.

Currently reading: The House of Frank by Kay Sinclaire

For press and interview inquiries, please contact jwalters@independentbookreview.com. (Not a submissions email!)

Creative Director & Senior Reviewer

Jaylynn Korrell has been writing reviews and blog posts for IBR since the beginning. She takes the photographs and manages the IBR Instagram page too. She reads all genres but is drawn to books with a strong female lead. In her spare time, she likes to play board games and take road trips around America. Find her on social media @Jaylynnkorrell, or check out her favorite IBR publication: Ten Awesome Indie Presses You Should Know About.

Senior Reviewer

Samantha Hui is a writer and reviewer whose work has appeared in The Tunnels, Thin Air, Maudlin House, and the upcoming issue of Canyon Voices. Having earned her English B.A. from Northern Arizona University, she is now living in Mesa, AZ with her partner, their two boys, their dog and cat, and she is pursuing her English M.A. at Arizona State University. In her free time, you can find her trying new foods, watching horror movies, or chasing a rare quiet moment with a book. Her genres of choice are poetry and gothic horror.

Senior Reviewer

Current cozy crime correspondent for Crime Fiction Lover and former editor of NB Magazine, Erin Britton‘s work has appeared in many places on the web, including Prairie Schooner, San Francisco Book Review, Split Lip, and The Coil, among others. When not reviewing books, she is a freelance editor and proofreader. She primarily reviews crime and mystery fiction—particularly Golden Age, cozy, and classic Japanese crime fiction—but she also enjoys literary fiction, thriller, history, biography, sci fi, and historical fiction. She is based out of London.

Senior Reviewer

Andrea Marks-Joseph is a South African freelance writer whose life outside of books is filled with Formula 1, soccer, and crochet projects. From emoji-reacting on her Kindle to having fun pairing books with her favorite TV shows, she enjoys stories focused on the joy of queerness; nonfiction about everyday magic; imaginative tech in anticapitalist speculative fiction; and mystery-thrillers, especially those involving people of color. You can find more of her work at AndreaWroteThis.com.

Senior Reviewer

Joelene Pynnonen has a glut of hobbies; sculpting, painting, drawing, writing, hiking, and swimming to name a few. One that has stayed with her all her life, though, is reading. She has been lucky enough to spend most of her career in bookstores, and every one of her favorite customers has opened up her literary world a little bit more. Now she finds herself devouring anything from architecture to romantasy. She is based out of Australia.