Contributors’ Notes
Sharon Perkins Ackerman has published poems in Southern Humanities Review, Appalachian Places, Atlanta Review, Broad River Review, Kestrel, and elsewhere. Her second poetry collection is A Legacy of Birds (Kelsay Books, 2025). She is poetry editor for Streetlight Magazine.
Susan Aizenberg is the author of three full-length collections of poetry: A Walk with Frank O’Hara (UNMP/Mary Burritt Christiansen Poetry Series, 2024), Quiet City (BkMk, 2015), and Muse (Crab Orchard Poetry Series, 2002). Her awards include the VCU Levis Prize and the Nebraska Book Award in Poetry. www.susanaizenberg.com
Derrick Austin is the author of Tenderness (Boa Editions, 2021), winner of the 2020 Isabella Gardner Poetry Award, and Trouble the Water (Boa Editions, 2016), a finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry. This Elegance is forthcoming from Boa Editions in spring 2026.
John Peter Beck was raised in a mill town on Lake Michigan in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. He is a recently retired professor in the labor education program at Michigan State University where he still co-directs Our Daily Work/Our Daily Lives, a program that focuses on labor history and the culture of the workplace.
Mihir Bellamkonda is a DC-based poet. They were a finalist for Black Lawrence Press's St. Lawrence Book Award and have work published or forthcoming in Variant Lit, The Offing, and the Nashville Review, among other journals. @MihirWords.
Joan Bernard has published her work in the Abandoned Mine, Amethyst Review, The Main Street Rag, the Aurorean, Connecticut River Review Journal, The North American Review, and others. She lives in Boston, Mass.
Jennifer Blackledge is a poet who works for a global automotive company and lives just south of Detroit. She is the recipient of the 2025 Zocalo Public Square Poetry Prize, and her work has appeared in JAMA, Rattle, I-70 Review, Kestrel, and other places. www.jenniferblackledge.com
Todd Boss is a poet, Emmy-winning librettist, and film producer working on a series of novels. He hosts the podcast There’s a Poem in That, on which he writes healing poems for total strangers.
Mark Brazaitis is the author of nine books, including The River of Lost Voices: Stories from Guatemala, winner of the 1998 Iowa Short Fiction Award. A former Peace Corps Volunteer and technical trainer, he is a professor of English at West Virginia University, where he directs the Creative Writing Program and the West Virginia Writers’ Workshop. www.markbrazaitis.com
Gloria Bromberg has published poetry in Feral Poetry, Brawl Lit, Hobo Camp Review, and elsewhere. They attend the Rainier Writing Workshop, Pacific Lutheran University’s low- residency MFA program. Retired from a varied work life as a bookstore clerk, artists’ model, sex educator, drug counselor, and psychotherapist, they live in Berkeley.
Sarah Browning is the author of Call Me Yes (FlowerSong Press, forthcoming), Killing Summer (Sibling Rivalry) and Whiskey in the Garden of Eden (The Word Works). Co-curator and co-host of Wild Indigo Poetry, she also teaches with Writers in Progress and coaches writers one-on-one. She lives in Philadelphia. www.sarahbrowning.net
Mary Lou Buschi (she/her) authored three poetry collections. Her most recent, Blue Physics, 2024 (Lily Poetry Review), was a finalist for Contemporary Poetry in The International Book Awards and a distinguished favorite for Independent Press Award. Her poems appear in Glacier, Ploughshares, Verse Daily, and elsewhere.
Lauren Camp is the author of eight books, including In Old Sky (Grand Canyon Conservancy, 2024), which grew from her experience as Astronomer-in-Residence at Grand Canyon National Park. She received a Dorset Prize and was an Arab American Book Award finalist. Camp served as the second Poet Laureate of New Mexico. www.laurencamp.com
Gary Ciocco grew up near the Rolling Rock brewery and worked there during two summers of college. He lives south of Pittsburgh and teaches for Carlow University and West Virginia University. He has published poetry in several journals, and reviews poetry and philosophy books for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Andrew Collard is the author of Sprawl (Ohio University Press, 2023), winner of the Hollis Summers Poetry Prize. His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, AGNI, Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. He lives with his son in Grand Rapids, Mich.
Geraldine Connolly has published five poetry collections and received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Maryland Arts Council, and Breadloaf Writers Conference. Her work appears in Poetry 180: A Poem A Day for High School Students and other anthologies. Her latest book is Instructions at Sunset (Terrapin Books, 2025).
Ginny Lowe Connors is the author of six poetry collections, including White Sail at Midnight (The Poetry Box, 2024). As publisher of her own press, Grayson Books, Connors has edited several poetry anthologies. She earned an MFA in poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts. A Board Member of the Connecticut Poetry Society, Connors is Managing Editor of Connecticut River Review.
Joseph Cooper is the author of six collections, most recently Splash Fields (VA Press, 2024). His latest works have appeared in DMQ Review, Scud, and Assignment Literary Magazine. He lives in Lewisburg, W.Va.
Heather Coughlin earned an MBA, not an MFA. She is an executive and entrepreneur whose 30-year career has spanned Wall Street to Main Street, while raising two kids. Her inaugural collection, Out of Office, documents the work/life emotions found within lifecycles of employees, products, clients, corporations, technology, and human beings.
Barbara Crooker is author of ten poetry books, most recently Slow Wreckage (Grayson Books, 2024); Some Glad Morning (Pitt Poetry Series), longlisted for the Julie Suk award, and The Book of Kells (Cascade Books), winner of Best Poetry Book of 2019 from Poetry by the Sea.
Jim Daniels comes from a family of Detroit autoworkers. His grandfather worked for Packard, his father worked for Ford’s, his brother worked for Chrysler’s. He also worked at Ford’s—it paid for college. A retired educator, he tries to honor this history, and these lives, in his writing.
Colin Dardis most recent collection is with the lakes (above/ground press, 2023). A neurodivergent poet, editor, and sound artist, he is co-host of Belfast’s long-running open mic night “Purely Poetry” and editor of the poetry blog, Poem Alone.
Shira Dentz is the author of five books, most recently Sisyphusina (Astrophil Press), winner of the Eugene Paul Nassar Prize, and two chapbooks. Her writing appears in Poetry, American Poetry Review, Iowa Review, Conjunctions, The Baffler, Poets.org, and NPR. She has received awards from the Academy of American Poets and the Poetry Society of America. shiradentz.com
Dolo Diaz is a poet with roots in Spain, currently residing in California. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in ONE ART, Rogue Agent, Right Hand Pointing, Star*Line, Humana Obscura, and Book of Matches, among others. Her debut chapbook, Defiant Devotion, was published by Bottlecap Press.
Mitch Ditkoff is a writer, poet, President of Idea Champions, Founder of “Portal to Possibility,” Content Creator for PremRawat.com, and host of the monthly Gift of Poetry Zoom gatherings. He is also the author of eight books. He lives in Catskill, NY. www.mitchditkoff.com
Liz Dolan is the author of They Abide, a The Robert McGovern Prize nominee. Her second collection, A Secret of Long Life, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She taught English in New York City. A proud grandmother of nine grandkids, she lives in Rehoboth Beach, Del.
Sean Thomas Dougherty works the nightshift as a Medtech and Caregiver in Erie, PA. His most recent book is Death Prefers the Minor Keys (Boa Editions).
Zach Eddy is a former aluminum worker. His writing has appeared in Northwest Review, High Desert Journal, Terrain.org, Poetry Northwest, The Confluence, and elsewhere. He currently teaches English composition and creative writing at Wenatchee Valley College and teaches historical fiction workshops for the Wenatchee Valley Museum & Cultural Center.
E.M. Palitha Edirisooriya works as a farmer and a three-wheeler driver. He has been a columnist and contributor for several national newspapers. His publications include a book on gammadu, a traditional ritual of rural Sri Lanka.
Kevin Ekeh is a Nigerian poet, tech creative, and theatre arts student who tells stories that live between survival and hope. His poems often echo the struggles of life, pain and mental healing. Whether on stage or behind a screen, he crafts worlds where resilience quietly blooms.
Terri Kirby Erickson is the author of seven collections of poetry. Her work has appeared in “American Life in Poetry,” ONE ART, Rattle, The SUN, The Writer’s Almanac, and elsewhere. Her awards include the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize, Nautilus Silver Book Award, and the International Book Award for Poetry.
Yvonne M. Estrada is the author of My Name on Top of Yours, a crown of sonnets accompanied by original photographs. Her poems have appeared in Talking Writing and Pratik: The Ghosts of Paradise and several anthologies, including The Coiled Serpent: Poets Arising from the Cultural Quakes and Shifts of Los Angeles.
Leila Farjami is an Iranian-American poet and psychotherapist. Her debut poetry collection, Daughter of Salt, an Editor’s Selection at Trio House Press, is forthcoming in July 2026. A recipient of awards from The Iowa Review, The Cincinnati Review, and PEN America, she has published work in Ploughshares, AGNI, Pleiades, The Iowa Review, and elsewhere.
Arvilla Fee is from Dayton, Ohio, and is the author of The Human Side, This is Life, and Mosaic: A Million Little Pieces. https://soulpoetry7.com/
Molly Fisk is author of The More Difficult Beauty, Listening to Winter, and five volumes of radio commentary, and edited California Fire & Water, A Climate Crisis Anthology. Her book of linked historical poems, Walking Wheel, is forthcoming from Red Hen Press in 2026.
Gary Fincke is the author of sixteen collections of poetry published by Ohio State UP, Michigan State UP, the University of Arkansas Press, BkMk, Lynx House, Slant, Jacar, and others. His newest book is The Necessary Going On: Selected Poems 1980-2025 (Press 53, 2025).
Ann Fisher-Wirth has published eight books of poems, most recently Into the Chalice of Your Thoughts and Paradise Is Jagged. She is coeditor, with Laura-Gray Street, of The Ecopoetry Anthology and Attached to the Living World: A New Ecopoetry Anthology. She is Poet Laureate of Mississippi for 2025-2029.
Jennifer L. Freed is the author of When Light Shifts, which explores themes of identity, body, and caregiving and was a finalist for the 2022 Sheila Motton Book Prize and the 2025 Medal Provocateur. Recent work appears in Atlanta Review, One Art, Rust and Moth, and Vox Populi. She lives in Massachusetts. Jfreed.weebly.com
Cal Freeman (he/him) is the author of the books Fight Songs and Poolside at the Dearborn Inn and the chapbook Yelping the Tegmine. His work appears in The Glacier, Potomac Review, Panoply, North American Review, and elsewhere. His book The Weather of Our Names is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press.
Monica Fuglei teaches in the Department of Composition, Creative Writing and Journalism at Arapahoe Community College in Littleton, Col. A 2019 Pushcart Prize nominee, she has published recent work in Progenitor and Mason Street. When she’s not writing or teaching, she’s usually knitting or tweeting on #AcademicTwitter.
Sanjay Ganesan is a writer from Vanduvanchery, a village near Kumbakonam in southern India. His poetry reflects his deep care for nature, people, and social justice. He writes with compassion and conviction, often addressing political and human struggles in everyday life.
Katy Giebenhain is a poet and occupational health tech. She is interested in writing and visual art that speaks to themes of public health. She is the author of Sharps Cabaret (Mercer University Press). Recent poems appear in American Journal of Nursing, Poetry Wales and Keystone Poetry: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania.
Marissa Glover lives in Florida, where she’s busy swatting bugs and dodging storms. Her poetry collections, Let Go of the Hands You Hold and Box Office Gospel, are published by Mercer University Press. Recent work is found in Whale Road Review and Halfway Down the Stairs.
Emily M Goldsmith (they/them) is a queer Louisiana Creole poet originally from S. Louisiana. Emily received their MFA from the University of Kentucky and their PhD from the University of Southern Mississippi. Their work can be found in or forthcoming from Midway Journal, Gnashing Teeth Publishing, The Penn Review, and elsewhere.
Susana Gonzales has published her work in numerous literary anthologies and journals, including The Power of the Feminine I, Sheila Na Gig, Gyroscope Review, One Art, The Santa Fe Literary Review, and Mobius. Her poetry explores her Mexican American roots and the lesbian feminist experience.
Jessica Greenbaum is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Spilled and Gone, (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019), which was named best book of the year in the Boston Globe. Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry, the Pushcart Prize anthology, and A Century of Poetry in The New Yorker.
Kelle Groom is the author of four poetry collections including, Spill (Anhinga), a memoir: I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl (Simon & Schuster), and essays: How to Live (Tupelo Press). Groom’s work appears in AGNI, American Poetry Review, Best American Poetry, The New Yorker, and Ploughshares.
Kari Gunter-Seymour, Poet Laurate of Ohio, is the author of three award winning collections of poetry, including DIRT SONGS. Her work has been featured in a variety of journals and periodicals including the American Book Review, World Literature Today, Poem-a-Day, and The New York Times. www.karigunterseymourpoet.com
Tresha Faye Haefner is an award-winning poet and founder of The Poetry Salon Online. Her first book, When the Moon Had Antlers (Pine Row Press, 2023) was a finalist for the Glass Lyre Poetry Prize. thepoetrysalonstack.substack.com
Bex Hainsworth is a poet and teacher based in Leicester, UK. Her work has appeared in The Rialto, Prole, Honest Ulsterman, bath magg, and Poetry Wales. Walrussey, her debut collection of ecopoetry, is published by The Black Cat Poetry Press.
Marc Harshman is the author of Dispatch from the Mountain State (WVU Press), Woman in Red Anorak, winner of the Blue Lynx Prize (Lynx House Press), Believe What You Can (WVU Press), winner of the Weatherford Award, and Following the Silence from Press 53, as well as multiple award-winning children’s books.
Gloria Heffernan is the author of three poetry books, most recently Fused (Shanti Arts Publishing). Her collection Exploring Poetry of Presence (Back Porch Productions) won the CNY Book Award (Nonfiction). Her earlier collections are What the Gratitude List Said to the Bucket List, (NYQ Books) and Peregrinatio: Poems for Antarctica (Kelsay Books).
Matthew E. Henry (MEH) is an educator, prose dabbler, and the author of six poetry collections. MEH’s editor-in-chief of The Weight Journal, creative nonfiction editor at Porcupine Literary, and an associate editor at Rise Up Review. He writes about education, race, religion, and burning oppressive systems to the ground. www.MEHPoeting.com
Donna Hilbert is the author of six poetry collections, most recently Enormous Blue Umbrella (Moon Tide Press, 2025). Her work has appeared in Eclectica, Gyroscope, Rattle, ONE ART, Verse Daily, Vox Populi, The Writer’s Almanac, and numerous anthologies. She writes and leads workshops from her home base in Long Beach, Cal.
Le Hinton is the author of seven poetry collections, most recently Elegies for an Empire (Iris G. Press, 2023). His work has appeared in Pleiades, The Best American Poetry 2014, The Progressive, Little Patuxent Review, and outside Penn Medicine Park in Lancaster, Pa., incorporated into Derek Parker’s sculpture Common Thread.
Leslie Hodge lives in San Diego. Her poems appear in Catamaran Literary Reader, South Florida Poetry Journal, ONE ART, Whale Road Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, and elsewhere. Her debut chapbook, Escape and other poems, was published by Kelsay Books in 2024. Currently she is reading for The Adroit Journal. www.lesliehodgepoet.com
John Hoppenthaler has published four collections of poetry with Carnegie Mellon UP, most recently Night Wing Over Metropolitan Area and Domestic Garden. His poems appear in Ploughshares, Virginia Quarterly Review, TriQuarterly, Southern Review, Poetry Northwest, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Southeast Review, Blackbird, Southern Humanities Review, and many other journals, anthologies, and textbooks.
T. R. Hummer is the author of thirteen poetry collections, most recently Eon (LSU Press, 2018) and After the Afterlife (Acre Books, 2018).
David W. Janey is a Boston-based African American poet and essayist. He writes about racial justice, social change, personal memory/growth, and lessons learned from nature. A recently retired university administrator, he has published his work in the Solstice Magazine Features Blog, WBUR’s Cognoscenti, Wordpeace Journal, Pride and a Paycheck, and Pangyrus.
Ted Jean is a carpenter who writes, paints, plays tennis with Amy Lee. His work appears in 32 Poems, Beloit Poetry Journal, PANK, DIAGRAM, North American Review, Blue Earth Review, and elsewhere.
Julia Spicher Kasdorf received the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize, a Pushcart Prize, and an NEA Fellowship. Her most recent books are As Is (Pitt Poetry Series) and Shale Play: Poems and Photographs from the Fracking Fields. As Liberal Arts Professor of English at Penn State University, she directs the creative writing program.
Emilee Kinney hails from the small farm-town of Kenockee, Michigan. She received her MFA in poetry at SIU Carbondale and currently teaches at the University of Southern Mississippi while pursuing her PhD. Her work has been published in Passages North, West Trestle Review, THE SHORE, SWWIM, and elsewhere. https://www.emileekinneypoetry.com/
Dorian Elizabeth Knapp is the author of three poetry collections: Causa Sui (2025), winner of the Three Mile Harbor Book Award; Requiem with an Amulet in Its Beak (2019); and The Spite House (2011). She is the founding director of the Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing at Hood College. https://dorianelizabethknapp.com/
Dorian Kotsiopoulos has published her work in various literary and medical journals, including Poet Lore, Salamander, New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, On the Seawall, Smartish Pace, and The Westchester Review. She is a reviewer for the Bellevue Literary Review.
Richard Krawiec has published poetry, essays, plays, and five novels in France, most recently Croire en Quoi? (Tusitala Press), winner of the Libr'à Nous 2025 Award for Best Foreign Novel and the Michelin Award. He directs Jacar Press, a Community Active poetry publisher. His awards include an NEA grant and two North Carolina Arts Council grants.
Haley Lasché is the co-owner, co-founder and co-editor of Beauty School Editions and the founder, editor, and designer of Concision Poetry Journal. She teaches college writing and literature and has two chapbooks: Where It Leads and Blood and Survivor. Her debut poetry collection ONE was published in 2023.
Viola Lee received her MFA in Poetry from NYU and is the author of Lightening after the Echo (Another New Calligraphy). Recent poems appear in Barrow Street, Bellevue Literary Review, Mississippi Review, and elsewhere. She lives in Chicago and teaches 4th, 5th and 6th graders at Near North Montessori School in Chicago.
Jean Liew is a rheumatologist and clinical researcher at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center.
Alison Luterman writes poems, plays, song lyrics, and personal essays. Her latest books are In the Time of Great Fires and Hard Listening. She has taught at New College, The Writing Salon, Catamaran, and workshops around the country, and has worked as a California poet in the schools. www.alisonluterman.net
Marjorie Maddox is Commonwealth University Professor Emerita English, Presence assistant editor, and host of WPSU-FM’s Poetry Moment. She has published seventeen collections of poetry, most recently Small Earthly Space and Seeing Things, as well as a story collection, four children’s books, and the anthologies Common Wealth and Keystone Poetry (co-editor). www.marjoriemaddox.com
Rachel Mallalieu is an emergency physician and mother of five. She is the author of the chapbook A History of Resurrection (Alien Buddha Press 2022). Some of her recent work is featured in Rattle, Chestnut Review, Westwind and Whale Road Review.
M.R. Mandell is a poet based in Los Angeles. You can find her words in The McNeese Review, HAD, and others. She is the author of Don’t Worry About Me (Bottlecap Press) and The Last Girl, forthcoming in September 2025 (Finishing Line Press). She is a Pushcart nominee.
Sandra Marchetti is the author of three books of poetry—DIORAMA (Stephen F. Austin State UP, 2025), Aisle 228 (SFA UP, 2023), Confluence (Sundress Publications, 2015)—and four chapbooks. Her poetry appears in Ecotone, Poet Lore, Southwest Review, Subtropics, and elsewhere. She is Poetry Editor Emerita for River Styx Magazine.
Annie Marhefka is Executive Director at Yellow Arrow Publishing. She has a BA in English/creative writing from Washington College and an MBA. She is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Baltimore. When not writing, she is usually trying to find her way back to the water. www.anniemarhefka.com.
Steve McCown has published multiple books of poetry, including a collaborative anthology called We Look West. After teaching English in California and Arizona, he now resides in Northfield, Minn., where five of his poems are stamped in the sidewalks.
Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564), known as “Michelango,” was an Italian sculptor, painter, poet, and architect whose most notable works include the sculpture “David” and scenes painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. This translation by John Addington Symonds is from 1904 (The Sonnets of Michel Angelo Buonarroti, Smith, Elder & Co., 2nd edition). Readers may also be interested in a contemporary translation by Gale Mazur in Zeppo’s First Wife (University of Chicago Press, 2005).
Jane C. Miller is the author of Canticle for Remnant Days (2024) and coauthor of Walking the Sunken Boards (2019). Her poetry has appeared in RHINO, Colorado Review, UCity Review, and Bear Review, among others. She co-edits the online poetry journal Quartet and lives in Wilmington, Del. www.janecmiller.com
Leslie F. Miller is a lifelong poet who lives in an “ingredients house.” She likes to break things and put them back together in a random, yet tasteful, order. Her first nonfiction book was published by Simon & Schuster; it’s about cake.
Geraldine Mills is a poet and short story writer who lives on the west coast of Ireland. She has published six collections of poetry, three of short stories and two children's novels. She has won numerous awards and fellowships. She is currently working on her next short story collection.
Michael Minassian is a Contributing Editor for Verse-Virtual, an online poetry journal. His poetry collections are Time is Not a River, Morning Calm, A Matter of Timing, and Jack Pays a Visit. His collection A Thousand Pieces of Time will be released this year by Sheila-Na-Gig, Inc. https://michaelminassian.com
Wyatt Mischler is the 26-year-old janitor of a gay sex club.
Erik Moyer is a writer and data engineer. He holds a PhD from the University of North Texas, an MFA from the University of California, Irvine, and a BS from the University of Virginia. His work appears in Columbia Journal, Oxford Poetry, Penn Review, The Pinch, The Rumpus, and elsewhere.
Simone Muench is a recipient of an NEA Fellowship and the author of seven full-length books, including Lampblack & Ash (Sarabande; Kathryn A. Morton Prize) and Wolf Centos (Sarabande). She is faculty advisor for Jet Fuel Review, a senior poetry editor for Tupelo Quarterly, and poetry editor for Jackleg Press. www.simonemuench.com
Zita Murányi is a Hungarian writer. She graduated from the University of Szeged with a degree in communication. She is the author of three books of poems and four novels, including Mirrorpalace (Tükörpalota), winner of the Sandor Bródy Prize, and On Mr. Darcy’s Sofa.
Erin Murphy (Contributing Editor) is the author or editor of more than a dozen books, most recently Swoon: New and Selected Poems (2026), Mother as Conjunction: Lyric Essays (2026), and Human Resources (2025). Her collection of documentary poetry co-edited with Kwoya Fagin Maples is forthcoming from Wesleyan University Press. Two of her previous anthologies received Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards. She is poetry editor of The Summerset Review and professor of English at Penn State University where she been named the 2026-27 Penn State Laureate. www.erin-murphy.com
Renée K. Nicholson is a writer based in Morgantown, W.Va. She is the author of Fierce and Delicate: Essays on Dance and Illness and three books of poems. www.reneenicholson.com
Benjamin Niespodziany is a Chicago-based writer whose work has appeared in Indiana Review, Fence, Booth, Conduit, Bennington Review, and elsewhere. His writing has been featured in the Wigleaf Top 50 and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best Microfiction, and Best of the Net. neonpajamas.com
Mark Nowak is the author of Shut Up Shut Down, Coal Mountain Elementary, Social Poetics, and …AGAIN (forthcoming), all from Coffee House Press. He has been awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim, Lannan, and Creative Capital foundations. He is founding director of the Worker Writers School.
Jon Obermeyer has published fourteen poetry collections and is a three-time finalist for the Applewhite Poetry Prize. He earned an MFA from UNC Greensboro. His poems have appeared in The Greensboro Review, NC Literary Review, Northern Virginia Review, and elsewhere. https://jonobermeyer.wixsite.com/mysite
Gloria Ogo is an American-based Nigerian writer with multiple published novels and poetry collections. Her work has appeared in Brittle Paper, Metastellar, The Easterner, Daily Trust, and elsewhere. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Old Dominion University and was the winner of the Brigitte Poirson 2024 Literature Prize. https://glriaogo.wixsite.com/gloria-ogo
Kathleen Ossip teaches at The New School and at Princeton University and has been a fellow at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute. Her most recent collections of poetry include July, one of NPR's best books of 2021, and Little Poems, a chapbook.
Jimmy Pappas won the Rattle Chapbook Contest with Falling off the Empire State Building and won the Rattle Readers’ Choice Award for “Bobby’s Story.” A multiple Pushcart Prize nominee, he moderates a weekly, themed Zoom event called “A Conversation with Jimmy and Friends” that encourages audience participation.
Kasun Pathirage (translator) is a freelance writer and translator based in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He is currently working on his first book, a collection of Lovecraftian horror with a Sri Lankan twist.
Kenneth Pobo (he/him) is the author of twenty-one chapbooks and nine full-length collections, most recently Bend of Quiet (Blue Light Press), Loplop in a Red City (Circling Rivers), and At The Window, Silence (Fernwood Press). His work has appeared in Asheville Poetry Review, Amsterdam Quarterly, Nimrod, Hawaii Review, and elsewhere.
samodH Porawagamage (translator) is the author of the poetry collections becoming sam (Burnside Review Press) and All the Salty Sand in Our Mouths (forthcoming from Airlie Press).
T. R. Poulson, a University of Nevada alum, works for UPS in Woodside, California. Her work has appeared in Best New Poets, Quarterly West, Gulf Coast, Barrow Street, and more. She is currently seeking a publisher for her first manuscript, tentatively titled Broken Feasts, Broken Forms. www.trpoulson.com
Stephanie Powell is a poet based in Melbourne, Australia. Her latest collection of poems is Invisible Wasp (Liquid Amber Press, 2024). atticpoet.com
Vivian Faith Prescott was born and raised in Wrangell, Kaachxana.áak’w, a small island in Southeast Alaska. She lives at her fishcamp on the land of the Shtax’heen Kwáan. She’s a member of the Pacific Sámi Searvi and a founding member of Community Roots, the first LGBTQIA+ group on the island.
Mike Puican is the author of Central Air (Northwestern University Press, 2020) and 30 Seconds (Tia Chuca Press Chapbook winner, 2004). His poems appear in Poetry, Michigan Quarterly Review, New England Review, and elsewhere. He teaches creative writing to incarcerated individuals at the Federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago.
Ruben Quesada is a poet, translator, and editor. Publications include Best American Poetry series, New York Times Magazine, Orion Magazine, Harvard Review, The Believer, and Poetry Foundation. His poetry collection Brutal Companion won the Barrow Street Editors Prize. It was recognized as A Notable Book by the University of California. www.rubenquesada.com
Christine Rhein is the author of Wild Flight (Walt McDonald Book Prize; Texas Tech University Press). Her poems have appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Rattle, and The Southern Review, and in anthologies including Best New Poets and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. A former automotive engineer, Christine lives in Brighton, Michigan.
Susan Rich has authored nine books including Blue Atlas (Red Hen Press) and Gallery of Postcards and Maps: New and Selected Poems (Salmon Poetry). She is editor of Birdbrains: A Lyrical Guide to Washington State Birds (Raven Chronicles Press). Her work appears in Harvard Review, One Art, Ploughshares, and elsewhere.
R. Joseph Rodríguez is the author of This Is Our Summons Now: Poems (Flowersong Press, 2022). He teaches at an early college high school in Texas where he and his students read banned, challenged, and confiscated books, which include classical works and contemporary classics. @escribescribe
Sara Rosenberg is a graduate of Hollins University and Emerson College. Her poems have appeared in or are forthcoming from SWWIM, Radar Poetry, Tar River Poetry, Pine Row, Passengers Journal, MER, Literary Mama, and the Ocotillo Review. She lives in Austin, Texas.
Francine Rubin, a stay-at-home mom to her three young children, is the author of the chapbooks If You're Talking to Me: Commuter Poems (dancing girl press), City Songs (Blue Lyra Press), and Geometries (Finishing Line Press) francinerubin.tumblr.com
Turab Saiyed is a content writer from Canada who loves reading and writing poems in his spare time. @scribblesbyturab
David Salner worked as iron ore miner, steelworker, librarian, baseball usher. His recent poetry collections are The Green Vault Heist and Summer Words: New and Selected Poems. His award-winning novel is A Place to Hide (2021). His poetry also appears in Threepenny Review, North American Review, Ploughshares, and One Art.
Moudi Sbeity is a first-generation graduate student from Lebanon studying Transpersonal Counseling at Naropa University. Prior to Naropa, they operated a restaurant in Salt Lake City, which served as a queer safe space. As a person who stutters, they are as passionate about writing and poetry as practices in self-expression and relational healing.
Jeff Schwartz grew up in Ohio and lives in Connecticut, where he taught for 35 years. His first book was published by Alice James Books and his next will appear in 2025. He has also written for books and journals on student-centered learning, including his co-edited Students Teaching, Teachers Learning.
Sean Sexton lives on his family’s Treasure Hammock Ranch outside Vero Beach, Fla., where he paints, writes, and manages a 700-acre cow-calf operation. He is the author of three full poetry volumes including Portals, (2023) Press 53. He regularly performs at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, NV.
Marcus Silcock is an Irish writer who co-edits surreal-absurd for Mercurius magazine. His poetry has been translated into Slovak, Turkish, Polish and Danish. His book of prose poems and microfictions, Dream Dust, is available from Broken Sleep Books. www.nevermindthebeasts.com
Michael Simms lives in the old Mount Washington neighborhood of Pittsburgh. His poetry collections include Jubal Rising (Ragged Sky, 2025.) He is the founding editor of Autumn House Press and Vox Populi. In 2011, the Pennsylvania legislature awarded Simms a Certificate of Recognition for his service to the arts.
Ashleigh Smith is a writer of creative nonfiction, advocacy journalism, memoir and poetry. She is a B.A. student in Eastern Michigan University’s College in Prison Program. She was recently awarded the Jury's Choice Honor from Cellar Roots magazine.
Anna Egan Smucker, a Pushcart nominee, is the author of nine books, including No Star Nights (Knopf), winner of the International Reading Association Children's Book Award. Her chapbook Rowing Home was published by Finishing Line Press. She lives in Bridgeport, W.Va.
Jennifer A. Sutherland is the author of Bullet Points: A Lyric, finalist for the Eric Hoffer Medal Provocateur and Foreword Indies Poetry Book of the Year, and House of Myth and Necessity (forthcoming). Her work has appeared in Plume, Hopkins Review, Best New Poets, Denver Quarterly, and elsewhere. She lives in Baltimore.
Dustin Triplett is a poet whose work scrapes against the grime of labor, memory, and survival, blending grit with lyricism. He writes from the Midwest, where the walls hum, the belts never stop, and something’s always crawling just out of view.
Rabelani Tshidino is a South African trade unionist, poet, and final-year LLB student. Based in Soweto, he writes poetry rooted in working-class struggle, African identity, and justice. His work weaves law, labor, and lived experience into lyrical resistance. He believes in the dignity of both word and worker.
Veronica Tucker is a lifelong New Englander, physician, and mother of three whose poetry explores the intersections of medicine, family, and being human. Her work appears in redrosethornes, Pulse, and Paddler Press, and elsewhere.
Cindy Veach is the author of three poetry collections: Monster Galaxy (MoonPath Press); Her Kind (CavanKerry Press), an Eric Hoffer Montaigne Medal finalist; and Gloved Against
Blood (CavanKerry Press), a Paterson Poetry Prize finalist and Massachusetts Center for the Book “Must Read.” She is poetry co-editor of MER. Poem originally published in Sou’wester. From Gloved Against Blood (CavanKerry Press, 2017). Reprinted with permission of CavanKerry Press.
Ryan Vine is the author of The Cave and To Keep Him Hidden, winner of the Northeastern Minnesota Book Award, and two chapbooks. His poems have appeared in the American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Poetry Daily, and The Writer’s Almanac. He is professor of English at the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, MN.
Jade Wallace (they/them) is a queer and disabled poet, novelist, and critic. Their most recent books include a genderless novel, ANOMIA, and a collaborative poetry collection, ZZOO, both from Palimpsest Press. Wallace's poetry collection The Work Is Done When We Are Dead will be out with Guernica Editions in 2026.
Jennifer Elise Wang (they/she) is a nonbinary femme in STEM and punk rock pretty boi poet from Dallas, Texas. When they’re not in lab or writing, they enjoy action sports, cosplay, dancing, and volunteering at the animal shelter. Their work has appeared in FERAL, Penumbric, and Bethlehem Writers Roundtable.
Jim Washington lives in Hanover, NH, with his wife, MaryLucille. His poetry was inspired by Countee Cullen’s “Incident.” His mentors include Charles Simic, Rena Mosteirin, and Vievee Francis. His poems have appeared in The Anthology of New England Writers, Evansville Review, Main Street Rag, Obsidian, Rattle, Touchstone, and elsewhere.
Susan Weaver edits Ribbons, journal of the Tanka Society of America. In addition to tanka and tanka prose, she writes free verse, including poems on her work with abuse survivors at a local shelter. A former bicycling and travel writer, she lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two cats.
Sean Webb is a past Poet Laureate of Montgomery County, Pa. He was recently awarded the Asheville Poetry Review William Matthews Poetry Prize and the Tucson Festival of Books Literary Award for Poetry. His work has appeared in North American Review, Prairie Schooner, The Quarterly, Nimrod, and elsewhere. seanwebbpoetry.com
William Webb lives in Berkeley, Cal. with his husband and their dog, Turnip. He is a Faculty Associate and is on the Advisory Board of the Institute of Writing and Thinking at Bard College where he teaches educators how to create and sustain a writing-based classroom.
Gabriel Welsch writes fiction and poetry and is the author of four collections of poems, most recently The Four Horsepersons of a Disappointing Apocalypse. His first collection of short stories, Groundscratchers, was published in October 2021. He lives in Pittsburgh, Pa., with his family and works at Duquesne University.
Ed Werstein, a member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, spent his working career in manufacturing, workforce development, and union activity. He published his first poem at the age of sixty when his muse awoke and dragged herself out of bed. edwerstein.com
Dick Westheimer lives in rural southwest Ohio with his wife and writing companion, Debbie. He is winner of the 2023 Joy Harjo Poetry Prize, a Rattle Poetry Prize finalist, and a Best New Poets of 2025 nominee. His poems have appeared in ONLY POEMS, Rattle, and Whale Road Review, among others. www.dickwestheimer.com
Karen J. Weyant is the author of two chapbooks, Stealing Dust (Finishing Line Press), Wearing Heels in the Rust Belt (Main Street Rag), and a full-length collection, Avoiding the Rapture (Riot in Your Throat Press). Her poems have been published in Chautauqua, Copper Nickel, Harpur Palate, Rattle, and elsewhere.
Corrie Lynn White has published poetry and nonfiction in Oxford American, Arkansas International, and Terrain.org, and elsewhere. Her poetry collection Gold Hill Family Audio won the 2021 Cowles Poetry Prize and is distributed through Bull City Press. She lives in Chattanooga with her husband and son.
Jackie K. White is the co-author, with Simone Muench, of Hex & Howl (Black Lawrence Press, 2021), a Society of Midland Authors Honoree, and The Under Hum (Black Lawrence Press, 2024). Her collaborations have appeared in American Poetry Review, Bennington Review, Ecotone, Salamander, Pleiades, Shenandoah, Phoebe, and elsewhere.
André Le Mont Wilson is a Black Queer poet whose poems on essential workers have appeared in Workers Write! Literary Journal, Rattle, and Quiet Lightning (a Pushcart Prize nominee). He teaches the Ability Write Now writers’ workshop for adults with developmental and physical disabilities at Ability Now Bay Area, Oakland.
Erin Wilson has published poems in Atlanta Review, Lake Effect, BODY, EVENT, Fiddlehead, Verse Daily, and elsewhere internationally. She has won a Pushcart, a Silver Medal with the National Magazine Awards in Canada, and will appear in Best Canadian Poetry 2026. She lives a small life in Northern Ontario, Canada.
Tarn Wilson is the author of The Slow Farm, In Praise of Inadequate Gifts (Wandering Aengus Book Award), and 5-Minute Daily Writing Prompts. She is taking a break from prose and shamelessly flirting with poetry. She has been published in Only Poems, Pedestal, Potomac Review, and Sweet Lit, and elsewhere. www.tarnwilson.com
Francine Witte is the author of Café Crazy and The Theory of Flesh (Kelsay Books), along with several award-winning chapbooks. Her full-length poetry collection, Some Distant Pin of Light, was recently published by Červená Barva Press. She lives in New York City and is also widely published in flash fiction.
Carolyne Wright received a 2022-2024 Fulbright fellowship to Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. Her latest books are Masquerade: A Memoir in Poetry (Lost Horse Press, 2021) and This Dream the World: New & Selected Poems (Lost Horse Press, 2017), whose title poem received a Pushcart Prize and appeared in The Best American Poetry.
Allison Zaczynski (she/her) is a deaf poet. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Epistemic Lit, SWWIM, Yoga Journal, and Freshwater Poetry Journal. She placed in the Asnuntuck Community College Student Poetry Contest in 2011 and 2012.