2023 Poets and Presenters

Antonio Addessi is a poet and writer living in New York City. He received his BA in English from the University of Maine(’15) and his MFA in Creative Writing Poetry from Columbia University(’20). You can find his debut full length book of poetry, published by Rebel Satori Press, at http://rebelsatori.com…

A self-described introvert with a very public profession, Dasan Ahanu is a North Carolina-based cultural organizer, artist, and scholar. As an accomplished cultural leader and poet, Dasan has appeared on NPR News, TV One’s Verses and Flow, and the documentary Poet Son, among other features. Thro…

Toby Altman is the author of Discipline Park (Wendy’s Subway, 2023) and Arcadia, Indiana (Plays Inverse, 2017). He has held fellowships from the Millay Colony for the Arts, MacDowell, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He teaches at Beloit College.

Moncho Alvarado is a trans queer Xicanx poet, translator, visual artist, and educator.  She is the author of Greyhound Americans (Saturnalia Books 2022), which was the winner of the 2020 Saturnalia Book prize, selected by Diane Seuss. She has been published in Hayden’s Ferry Review, …

Keisha-Gaye Anderson is a Jamaican-born poet, writer, visual artist, and media strategist based in Brooklyn, NY. She is the author of Gathering the Waters (Jamii Publishing 2014), Everything Is Necessary (Willow Books 2019), and A Spell for Living (Agape Editions 2020), …

Tom Andes has published fiction in Witness, Natural Bridge, the Akashic Books Mondays Are Murder Flash Fiction Blog, Best American Mystery Stories 2012, and elsewhere. He frequently writes reviews for publications including the Los Angeles Review of Books and…

Angela Ball’s sixth and latest book of poems is Talking Pillow. Some of her ideas about writing poetry are collected in a book from Cornell University Press: Next Line, Please: Prompts to Inspire Poets and Writers, edited by David Lehman with Contributions by Angela Ball. She teaches in…

Jamie Logan Benner has served as Managing Editor at The Pinch, Product, and BreakBread magazines. Currently, she is a PhD candidate at the University of Southern Mississippi where she is Associate Editor for Mississippi Review. Her writing has appeared or is forthcomin…

Ellie Black is a poet, screenwriter, critic, and essayist originally from Arkansas. She's currently a PhD student in Creative Writing at the University of Mississippi, where she also received her MFA. Her poetry can be found in or is forthcoming from Mississippi Review, Poetry Online, The Offing, Bla…

David Boeving (they, them) is a writer, a teacher, and a psychotherapist. David has earned an MA in Creative Writing, and an MSW in clinical social work. David has published poetry, photography, and pedagogy. David teaches Creative Writing at Eastern Michigan University, tutors writing…

Timothy Bradford is the author of the poetry collection Nomads with Samsonite and the introduction to…

NOPF co-founder Megan Burns is the publisher at Trembling Pillow Press. She co-hosted the 17 Poets! Literary Series from 2002-2012 and hosted the Blood Jet Poetry Reading Series from 2013-2019 in New Orleans as well as founded The Dragonfly performance space in 2018…

James E Cherry's poetry is published or forthcoming from Fare Forward, Southern Indiana Review, Birmingham Poetry Review and Black Fire This Time, an anthology from Willow Books. He is the author of three collections of poetry, two novels and a collection of short fiction. His novel, Edge of the Wind…

NICOLE COOLEY grew up in New Orleans and is the author of seven books, the forthcoming Mother Water Ash (LSU Press 2024), as well as Of Marriage (Alice James Books 2018), Girl after Girl after Girl (LSU Press 2017) and Breach (LSU Press 2010). Her work has appeared most recently in POETRY, SCOUNDREL TIME and PLUME. She i…

Justin Cox’s recent work catalogs ecological and social impacts of industrial agriculture in rural Iowa. Riffing on necropastoral, visionary, and localized poetics, these poems propose a cottage corrosive. They’re especially concerned with living-with-animals in landscapes of runoff and hedge.

Ju…

Sabrina Dalla Valle, MFA is an experimental writer, and educator—working to see how we may work collaboratively to 'decenter voice', create new sensory perceptions to enhance spatial and temporal awareness, and expand our notion of listening to both the visible and invisible. Author of  Bee as Timbra…

Jill Darling is the author of Geographies of Identity: Narrative Forms, Feminist Futures, (re)iteration(s), a geography of syntax, Solve For, begin with may: a series of moments, and two collaborative chapbooks with Laura Wetherington and Hannah Ensor…

Amber DiPietra is a poet, performance artist, bodyworker, and community organizer for disability and sex worker rights. In 2013, she co-founded the Tampa Bay Area chapter of the Sex Workers Outreach Project. Her book Waveform, with collaborator Denise Leto, came out in 2…

Casie Dodd lives in Arkansas with her husband and two children. Her writing has appeared in The Windhover, Oxford American, Image, Louisiana Literature, and other journals. Based in Fort Smith, she is the founder and publisher of Belle Point Press.

Emily Marie Passos Duffy is a poet and itinerant performing artist. Her poetry debut, Hemorrhaging Want & Water, is out now with Perennial Press. She was a finalist for the Noemi Press 2020 Book Award and a finalist of the 2020…

Christopher Dunn is Professor and Chair of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Tulane University. He holds a joint appointment with Africana Studies Program and is a core member of the Stone Center for Latin American Studies. He is the author of Brutality Garden: Tropicália and the Emergence of a Brazilian Counte…

Kerry James Evans is the author of Bangalore (Copper Canyon). He lives in Milledgeville, Georgia, where he teaches in the MFA program at Georgia College & State University and serves as the poetry editor for Arts & Letters.

Norman Fischer is a poet, essayist, and Zen Buddhist priest. His latest of more than twenty-five prose and poetry titles include There was a clattering as... (Lavender Ink), Men in Suits (BlazeVox), the serial…

Chad Foret is a writer and editor from SE Louisiana. He lives in Hammond, LA, with his wife Audrey, who appears in many of his poems. Chad is the author of Scenes from a Rain Country (Lavender Ink, 2022). Recent work appears or is forthcoming in storySouth, Bayou Magazine, …

Ariel Francisco is the author of Under Capitalism If Your Head Aches They Just Yank Off Your Head (Flowersong Press, 2022), A Sinking Ship is Still a Ship (Burrow Press, 2020) and All My Heroes Are Broke (C&R Press, 2017), and the translator of Haitian-Dominican poet Jacque…

Kenning JP García is a diarist, humorist, and antipoet. García is also the author of With (Really Serious Literature) as well as an editor at Rigorous and Dream Pop Press. 

Melissa Ginsburg is the author of the poetry collections Doll Apollo and Dear Weather Ghost, the novels The House Uptown and Sunset City, and three poetry chapbooks, Arbor, Double Blind, and Apollo. Her poems have appeared in the New York…

Henry Goldkamp (he/they) is an experimental poet and interdisciplinary artist whose work blurs the boundaries between poetry, visual art, and community performance through public installations of intermedia, such as an olfactory poem "read" through the nose (SUMMERTIMER, 2023), immersive clown u…

Athena Goldsby, a Louisiana native, lives in Farmerville, Louisiana. Attended Grambling State University 2002-2015 and received a BS in CIS and her Master's Criminal Justice. Ms. Goldsby is currently working as a Legal Assistant. In the year of 1998, at the age of 14, Athena was shot and was sub…

Maxwell Gontarek has poems out or forthcoming in Noir Sauna, Works & Days, Tilted House, Posit, Denver Quarterly, Witness, and elsewhere. He has lived in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Las Vegas, Belgrade, Langres, and Lafayette, Louisiana.

Author of Limerence (Rebel Satori Press, April 2023) and The Book of Ours (Momotombo Press, 2009), as well as Misfit Modernism (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2020). I teach English and creative writing at Wellesley College. Pronouns: He/el

Maggie Graber (she/her/hers) is a queer poet from the Great Lakes and the author of Swan Hammer (Michigan State University Press, 2022), winner of the 2021 Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize and a 2023 nominee for best poetry collection from Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters. Her work has been publis…

Lisa Gray opens doors and helps other writers of color claim space in writing and is a non-profit leader with over twenty years of working in and serving communities of color. She is a writer and leader who believes that it is necessary for black women and women of color to write and share our stories so…

Born and raised in The Bahamas, Brandi Hanna received her BA in Writing and Linguistics from Georgia Southern University, her MFA from Louisiana State University and is currently a third year PhD student at ULL where she is studying English with a focus in Poetry. Her work deals primarily with matters of…

Carolyn Hembree's third collection, For Today, was published by LSU Press in 2024 as part of their Barataria Series. She is also the author of Rigging a Chevy into a Time Machine and Other Ways to Escape a Plague (Trio House Press, 2016), winner of the 2015 Trio Award and the 2015 Roche…

Alison Hicks was awarded the 2021 Birdy Prize from Meadowlark Press for Knowing Is a Branching Trail. Previous collections are You Who Took the Boat Out and Kiss, a chapbook Falling Dreams, and a novella Love: A Story of Images. Her work has appeared in Ec…

SCOTT HIGHTOWER is the author of five books of poetry in the US.  Imperative to Spare, the fifth, is from Rebel Satori Press. He has also published two bilingual collections in Spain. Hightower's awards include a Hayden Carruth Book Award and a Barnstone Translation Prize. He has lived in Austin…

Erika Hodges is a gender expansive poet and performance artist living in New Orleans. They are a recent graduate of Pratt Institute where they received their MFA as the Leslie Scalapino Scholar. Their work can be found at Flag + Void, CALYX, & The Poetry Project among others. They hosted and curated…

Cynthia Hogue’s most recent collections are Revenance, listed as one of the 2014 “Standout” books by the Academy of American Poets, and In June the Labyrinth (2017).  Her tenth collection, instead, it is dark, will be out from Red Hen Press in April of 2023. Her third book-leng…

Skye Jackson was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her work has appeared in The Southern Review, Electric Literature, Green Mountains Review, RATTLE and elsewhere. Her chapbook A Faster Grave won the 2019 Antenna Prize. Her work has been a finalist for the 2023 Io…

Grant Matthew Jenkins, Associate Professor of English, teaches contemporary literature, theory, and creative writing at the University of Tulsa.  He has published three books of poetry: Contingencies of the Bourgeoisie (Blazevox 2023),  Joy of God and Other Series (Blackbird, 2003), whi…

Quincy Scott Jones is the author of two books of poetry: The T-Bone Series (Whirlwind Press, 2009) and How to Kill Yourself Instead of Your Children (C&R Press, 2021).  His work has appeared in the African American Review, The North American Review, the Bellingham Revie…

Jack Jung is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he was a Truman Capote Fellow. He is a co-translator of Yi Sang: Selected Works (Wave Books 2020), the winner of 2021 MLA Prize for a Translation of Literary Work. He currently teaches at Davidson College.  

Rodger Kamenetz is a poet and author. His latest book of poetry is The Missing Jew: Poems 1976-2022 from Ben Yehuda Press recently reviewed by Hank Lazer here.  Other books of poetry include Dream Logic (PURH, 2…

ADEENA KARASICK, Ph.D, is a New York based poet, performer, cultural theorist and media artist and the author of 12 books of poetry and poetics. Her Kabbalistically inflected, urban, Jewish feminist mashups have been described as “electricity in language” (Nicole Brossard), “proto-ecstatic jet-propulsive…

www.freequencyspeaks.com

James Kimbrell’s poems have appeared in anthologies including the Best American Poetry and the Pushcart Prize Anthology. The recipient of a Ruth Lilly Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, his most recent collection is Smote…

Aristilde Kirby is a dakini from the charnel grounds of the Bronx, New York. She has published chapbooks with Best American Experimental Writing 2020, Belladonna, & Black Warrior Review. Her book, [Daisy & Catherine²] from auric press will be back with a reissue in the Spring. Her work,…

Jenna Korsmo is a queer nonfiction writer that braids poetry in prose. She resides in Tucson Arizona with her wife, two children, and all the pets. You can read and see her work on the Longridge Review, Kore Press, Notes from the Mother Field, Female Storytellers, The Splinter Collective and others.

Dylan Krieger is a Louisiana writer whose experience in the intersection of poetry and online sex work was featured in The Big Smoke in 2021. She is the Managing Editor of Fine Print and the author of six full-length collections of poetry, as well as a recent chapbook, Hideous Compa…

Kelly Krumrie is the author of Math Class (Calamari Archive, 2022). Her creative and critical writing is forthcoming from or appears in journals such as Harp & Altar, DIAGRAM, Annulet, Full Stop, and Black Warrior Review. She also writes a column…

Christine Kwon is the author of A Ribbon the Most Perfect Blue (Southeast Missouri State University Press, 2023). She is the winner of the 2022 Cowles Poetry Book Prize. Her poems are forthcoming in The Harvard Advocate, Copper Nickel, The Xavier Review, and Annule…

NOPF co-founder Bill Lavender is a poet, novelist, musician, carpenter and publisher living in New Orleans. My ID, his eleventh book of poetry, was published by BlazeVOX in October, 2019. His novel trilogy,…

Hank Lazer has published thirty-four books of poetry, including P I E C E S,  field recordings   of mind   in morning (with 15 music-poetry tracks with Holland Hopson on banjo – available from Bandcamp and on YouTube), When the Time Comes (Dos Madres Press, 2022), CO…

Daniel W.K. Lee is the author of the collection of poetry Anatomy of Want (QueerMojo/Rebel Satori Press, 2019). He is a third generation refugee, queer, and of Cantonese descent. His work as also appeared in various online and print publications, including most recently Fourteen Poems,…

Christian Lee was born in New Orleans but raised in the #225. He recently graduated from the University of New Orleans. He's a bike rider, skateboarder, soccer player, cat dad, chess enthusiast, and a drifter. Along with his many interests, he enjoys poetry. In 2022, he was a featured reader with lmnl li…

Warren Lehrer is a writer/artist known as a pioneer of visual literature and design authorship. Honors include: Ladislav Sutnar Prize, Brendan Gill Prize, Center for Book Arts Honoree, three AIGA Book Awards; fellowships from the NEA and NYFA; grants from Ford, Rockefeller, Greenwall Foundations. Collect…

Denise Leto is a queer, multidisciplinary poet, writer and dance dramaturge. Her current project, home (Body), is a collaborative poetry/dance/video installation and performance at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art. She co-created “The San Francisco Baylands Eco-Poetry Project.” Her work has appeared…

Alexis Levitin translates works from Portugal, Brazil, and Ecuador.  His thirty-four books of translation include Clarice Lispector’s  Soulstorm and Eugenio de Andrade’s Forbidden Words, both from New Directions. In 2010, he edited …

Steven Leyva was born in New Orleans, Louisiana and raised in Houston, Texas. His poems have appeared in Smartish Pace, Scalawag, Nashville Review, jubilat, Vinyl, Prairie Schooner, The Hopkins Review and Best American Poetry 2020. He is a Ca…

Timothy Liu's latest book of poems is Down Low and Lowdown: Bedside Bottom-Feeder Blues. A reader of occult esoterica, he lives in Manhattan and Woodstock, NY. www.timothyliu.net

Cameron Lovejoy is a self-taught poet, writer, and fine printer based in New Orleans. He co-edits and operates Tilted House, a small press focussed on intimately made handbound books, and digital work; and has hosted the Rubber Flower reading series since 2017. His poems and reviews have appeared or are…

Melissa Mack is a poet and author of The Next Crystal Text (Timeless, Infinite Light / Nightboat), the chapbook Includes All Strangers (Hooke Press), and poems that have appeared in anthologies such as Catechism: Poems…

Kwoya Fagin Maples is a writer from Charleston, S.C. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Alabama and has received fellowships from Cave Canem and the Alabama State Council on the Arts.   She is the author of Mend (University Press of Kentucky, 2018) which was named a 2019…

Jerika Marchan was born in Manila, Philippines and raised in the American South. A graduate of Louisiana State University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, she lives in New Orleans. Her debut SWOLE (Futurepoem, 2018) was the June 2018 poetry bestseller o…

Kristi Maxwell is the author of nine books of poems, including Wide Ass of Night (Saturnalia Books, 2025); Goners (Green Linden Press, 2023), winner of the Wishing Jewel Prize; Realm Sixty-four, editor’s choice for the Sawtooth Poetry Prize and finalist for the National Poetry…

Dona Mayoora & Donmay Donamayoora  is a bilingual/visual/experimental poet and creator of Calligraphy Stories.Occasionally she is a columnist, essayist & short story writer. Her poems have been included in the academic syllabus of universities in India. Dona's published poetry works are Ice Cubuk…

Teresa Marita McGuire was born to write, and she writes from the heart. Love and social justice are central themes of Teresa’s writing. The independent author published My Soul Speaks Poems about Love with heartwarming poetry and stories about real love. Teresa’s short story, Coffee…

Ciara Darnise Miller, a native of Chicago, holds both an MFA and MA in Poetry and African American/African Diaspora Studies from Indiana University. She also received her BA in Liberal Arts from Sarah Lawrence College. She has published poems and academic essays in such collections and periodicals as…

Jose-Luis Moctezuma is a Xicano poet based in Chicago. He is the author of Place-Discipline (Omnidawn, 2018) and Black Box Syndrome (Omnidawn, 2023). 

Marian D Moore grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana and works in the city of New Orleans. An early reader, her parents encouraged a love of both science and literature.    In 1998, she became a member of the NOMMO Literary Society, a writing workshop led by New Orleans writer and activist Kalamu ya Salaam.  …

A native of Mississippi, Benjamin Morris is the author of Coronary (Fitzgerald Letterpress, 2011), Hattiesburg, Mississippi: A History of the Hub City (Arcadia/The History Press, 2014), and Ecotone (Antenna/Press Street, 2017). His work appears in such places as The Oxford…

Travis Mossotti is the author of five collections of poetry, including About the Dead, Field Study, Narcissus Americana, Racecar Jesus* and Apocryphal Genesis* (*forthcoming 2023 and 2024). Mossotti has been the recipient of the May Swenson Poetry Award, the M…

Sean F. Munro is a poet, filmmaker, Associate Professor of English, and Associate Editor for Lavender Ink / Diálogos. Sean is the executive director of the New Orleans Poetry Festival, curates…

UCHE NDUKA is a poet, essayist, and collagist. Whether from the pulsing sidewalks of Lagos, on the cobbled streets of Bremen, the canal-matrixed Amsterdam, the cupola-tinged Bucharest, or frenetic New York City, this prolific poet has intrigued and solaced readers and listeners worldwide with his words and music. A NYSCA…

Kristen E. Nelson is a queer writer, performer, and community builder. She is the author of the length of this gap (Damaged Goods, August 2018) and two chapbooks: sometimes I gets lost and is grateful for noises in the dark (Dancing Girl, 2017) and Write, Dad (Unthinkable Creat…

M.A. Nicholson is a New Orleans poet, editor, educator, journalist, and arts administrator. An alumna of Loyola University and a M.F.A. graduate from the University of New Orleans—where she served as Associate Poetry Editor for Bayou Magazine—M.A. was the recipient of the 2021 Andrea-Saunders Gereighty A…

Tiana Nobile is the author of Cleave (Hub City Press, 2021). She is a Korean American adoptee, Kundiman fellow, and recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer's Award. A finalist of the National Poetry Series and Kundiman Poetry Prize, her writing has appeared in Poetry Northwest, The New Republic…

Robert Ostrom is the author of Sandhour, Ritual and Bit and The Youngest Butcher in Illinois. He lives in Ridgewood, New York and teaches at New York City College of Technology.

Lisa Pasold is originally from Montreal. Her 2012 book, Any Bright Horse, was nominated for Canada’s Governor General’s Award for Poetry. Her fifth book, The Riparian, is about a ghost, a river, and a dive bar. Her poetry has appeared in magazines such as Fence, Exile,…

Current Louisiana Poet Laureate Alison Pelegrin is the author of four poetry collections, most recently Waterlines (2016) and Our Lady of Bewilderments (2022), both with LSU Press. The recipient of fellowships from the NEA, and the Louisiana Board of Regents, she is Writer-in-Residence…

Jonathan Penton founded the electronic journal Unlikely Stories in 1998, and continues to run it as editor-in-chief. He serves and has served in an editorial, management, or technical role for numerous arts organizations, including Big Bridge and MadHat, Inc. He now se…

Roxi Power is a poet who teaches at University of California, Santa Cruz where she founded and edits the trans-genre anthology series, Viz. Inter-Arts, and where she has been a longtime labor activist. She has an MFA in Poetry from Cornell University.  

Her book, The Songs that Objects…

Karisma Price is from New Orleans, LA, and holds an MFA in poetry from New York University. Her work has appeared in Poetry, Four Way Review, Wildness, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships from Cave Canem and New York University, was winner of 2019 Best of the Net Prize, a finalist for th…

Evelyn Reilly is a poet, scholar, and environmentalist. Her books include Styrofoam, Apocalypso and Echolocation, all of which are published by Roof Books. Her poetry has appeared in many anthologies, among them The Arcadia Project: Postmodernism and the Pastoral, …

Evelyn Reilly is a poet, scholar, and environmentalist. Her books include Styrofoam, Apocalypso and Echolocation, all of which are published by Roof Books. Her poetry has appeared in many anthologies, among them The Arcadia Project: Postmodernism and the Pastoral, …

Brad Richard is the author of Habitations (Portals Press, 2000); Motion Studies (The Word Works, 2011 - winner of the 2010 Washington Prize); Butcher’s Sugar (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2012); and Parasite Kingdom (The Word Works, 2019 - winner of the 2018 Tenth…

Kris Riley is a writer from Houston, currently living in New Orleans. They received their BFA in Creative Writing and Literature at Stephen F. Austin State University. Kris is a teaching artist for Upturn Arts, sharing their passion for writing with young people in local schools. Their works can be found…

Kit Robinson is a Bay Area poet, writer, and musician. He was born in Evanston, Illinois in 1949, graduated from Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati, and earned a BA in philosophy and English literature at Yale University. He is the author of two dozen collections of poetry, including Quarantina…

Michael Ruby is a poet, literary editor and journalist. He is the author of eight poetry books, most recently Compulsive Words (BlazeVOX, 2010), American Songbook (Ugly Duckling, 2013), The Mouth of the Bay (BlazeVOX, 2019), The Star-Spangled Banner (Station Hill, 2020…

Gabrielle Octavia Rucker is a writer, editor and teaching artist from the Great Lakes currently living in the Gulf Coast. She is a 2020 Poetry Project Fellow, a 2016 Kimbilio Fiction Fellow, and the founder of the The Seminary of Ecstatic Poetics, a non-traditional learning space for the poetically minde…

Stefene Russell is a recent New Orleans transplant by way of St. Louis and is currently pursuing her MFA in poetry at the University of New Orleans. She was the 2018 Laumeier Sculpture Park poet-in-residence and is the author of 47 Incantatory Essays (Spartan Press, 2019), The Possum Codex…

Linda Russo is a poet and teacher of ecospheric care. Her published works include Participant (Lost Roads), Meaning to Go to the Origin in Some Way (Shearsman), and To Think of Her Writing Awash in Light (Subito), a book of essays. She is co-editor of Counter-Desecration: A…

C.T. Salazar is a Latinx poet and librarian from Mississippi. His debut collection Headless John the Baptist Hitchhiking (Acre Books 2022) was named a 2023 finalist for the Theodore Roethke Memorial Award. His poems have most recently appeared in Poetry Northwest, Gulf Coast, West Branch, Ci…

Mona Lisa Saloy, Ph.D. Louisiana Poet Laureate (2021-2023), is an author, folklorist, Louisiana Folklife Commissioner, educator, and scholar of Creole culture in articles, documentaries, and poems about Black New Orleans before and after Katrina; currently Conrad N. Hilton Endowed Professor of English at…

Laurie Saurborn is the author of Industry of Brief Distraction, Carnavoria, and Patriot. She lives in Columbus, OH, where she works as a psychiatric nurse practitioner and teaches yoga. 

Jakaila Scaife is a writer, poet/spoken word artist, researcher, filmmaker, and community facilitator from Bartow, Florida. As a FAMU Alumna, she holds a B.S. in History and minor in African-American Studies. As a storyteller, she weaves together the collective experiences of Africana peoples to contextu…

Rone Shavers is author of the experimental Afrofuturist novel Silverfish (Clash Books), a finalist for the 2021 CLMP Firecracker Award in Fiction and one of The Brooklyn Rail’s “Best Books of 2020.” His work has appeared in numerous journals, including Another Chicago Magazine,…

James Sherry is the author of 14 books of poetry and prose. Recent titles include Selfie: Poetry, Social Change & Ecological Connection (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) and Entangled Bank (Chax Press, 2016). His selected works, Comin' 'Round, will be published by Chax Press in Oc…

Christopher Shipman (he/him) lives on Eno, Sappony, & Shakori land in Greensboro, NC, where he teaches literature and creative writing at New Garden Friends School & plays drums in The Goodbye Horses. Recent work appears or is forthcoming in Denver Quarterly, Iron Horse Literary Review, Fence, Pedestal, Poetr…

Spencer Silverthorne's work has been published in Black Warrior Review, Dialogist, Dream Pop Journal, Gigantic Sequins, Sundog Lit, Surging Tide, and others. He holds degrees from Kenyon College, University of New Orleans, and University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Curren…

Jessica Smith was the founding editor of Foursquare and name magazines and Coven Press. A native of Birmingham, Alabama, she received her B.A. in English and Comparative Literature: Language Theory, M.A. in Comparative Literature, and M.L.S. from SUNY Buffalo, where she participated in…

Amanda Emily Smith is a Mom, a Black feminist, a sex-positive activist, healer, writer and poet. She is a contributing writer to "Luminiscent Threads: Connections to Octavia E. Butler," 2018 Hugo Award finalist for best related work and 2018 Locus Award winner for best non-fiction. She has performed poetry on New Orleans…

Kristine Snodgrass is an artist, poet, professor, editor, cultural advocate, and publisher living in Tallahassee, Florida. Her written and visual works have appeared world-wide. She has collaborated with dozens of artists, writers, and musicians. 

As Co-director of …

Elizabeth Strauss Friedman is the author of the poetry books The Lost Positive (forthcoming from BlazeVOX Books), The Eggshell Skull Rule (Kelsay Books, 2018), and the prose/poetry chapbook Gathered Bones are Known to Wander (Red Bird, 2016). Her poetry has been nominated for t…

Rodrigo Toscano is a poet and essayist based in New Orleans. He is the author of eleven books of poetry. His latest two books are The Cut Point (Counterpath, 2023), The Charm & The Dread (Fence Books, 2022). His previous books include In…

Ryan Tucker is a multi-media artist and poet from Paso Robles, CA. He currently lives in Iowa City and teaches at Augustana College in Rock Island, IL.

Nikki Ummel is a queer artist and an editor for Bear Review. Nikki has been published or has work forthcoming with Gulf Coast, The Georgia Review, Black Lawrence Press, and others. She is the 2022 recipient of the Leslie McGrath Poetry Prize and 2023 recipient of the Juxtaprose Poetry…

Danielle "Danny" Unger is a poet and social worker living in New Orleans, Louisiana. 

Pamela Uschuk has eight published books of poems, including Crazy Love, winner of a 2010 American Book Award and a new collection, Refugee,  from Red Hen Press, 2022 (Kirkus Starred Review). Refugee was chosen as one of the 14 best books of poems in 2022 by Orion Magazine.  Translated into more than a do…

Born & raised in New Orleans, Bernardo Wade tries at poems, catches elbows on the court, & rides his bike around Bloomington, IN, because IU funds his present period of studying with others. He currently serves as Editor & CNF Editor of Indiana Review. Though he’s published in a bunch of literary journals no…

Lesley Wheeler is the author of the hybrid memoir Poetry’s Possible Worlds; five books of poetry, most recently…

Adele Elise Williams is the author of WAGER selected by Patricia Smith for the 2024 Miller Williams Poetry Series. She is a PhD candidate in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Hou…

Terri Witek is the author of  8 previous books of poems: the most recent, Something’s Missing in This Museum, was published by Anhinga Press in 2023.   Exit Island was a Florida Book Award medalist; The Rape Kit was the Slope Editions Prize 2018 winner, judged by Dawn Lundy Mar…

Andy Young's second full-length collection, Museum of the Soon Departed, is forthcoming from Carnegie Mellon University Press. She is also the author of All Night It Is Morning (Diálogos Press, 2014) and four chapbooks. She holds an MFA from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson Coll…