About

Diane Goettel has a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and an MA in English from Brooklyn College. She co-edited the anthologies Feast: Poetry & Recipes for a Full Seating at Dinner and Art & Understanding: Literature from the First Twenty Years of A&U. She lives in Mount Vernon, New York with her husband and daughter.

Kit Frick is a MacDowell fellow and ITW Thriller Award finalist from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She studied creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College and received her MFA from Syracuse University. She is the author of the suspense novel The Split and the young adult thrillers Before We Were Sorry (originally published as See All the Stars), All Eyes on Us, I Killed Zoe Spanos, Very Bad People, and The Reunion. She is also the author of the poetry collection A Small Rising Up in the Lungs and two poetry chapbooks.

Angela Leroux-Lindsey (she/her/hers) has degrees from Ithaca College and NYU. Her writing has been featured by publications and institutions including WIRED, the World Science Festival, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Kirkus Reviews, Columbia Magazine, NY Metro, NYU Langone Health, Kessler Foundation, and others. She was editor-in-chief of The Adirondack Review for ten years. She lives in the Hudson Valley with her family where you can find them running around all the sculpture parks.

Daniele Pantano is a Swiss poet, essayist, literary translator, critic, editor, and artist born of Sicilian and German parentage in Langenthal (Canton of Berne). He has published over twenty volumes of poetry, essays, translations, and conceptual literature, and his work has been translated into a dozen languages. Pantano is Associate Professor (Reader) and Programme Leader for the MA Creative Writing at the University of Lincoln. For more information, please visit www.pantano.ch.

Sylvia Jones is a writer, editor, and prison abolitionist. At the moment, she works as an associate editor for WEST BRANCH and is a 2021-22 literary editing fellow at The Stadler Center for Poetry & Literary Arts at Bucknell University. Sylvia's writing has appeared or is forthcoming in DIAGRAM, Shenandoah, Windfall Room, New York City’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center, The Hopkins Review, Poet Lore, and elsewhere. She earned her MFA at American University in Washington D.C. She lives in Baltimore, near the train station with her partner, and their buff tabby.

Nina Smilow received an MFA in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College and a BFA in Theatre from NYU Tisch. She is a writer of all genres and her fiction, poetry, and non-fiction can be seen in Literary Mama, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Porridge, and Pacifica Literary Review. She splits her time between New York and Portland, OR.

Ani Jones is a poet, editor, and workshop host in the Midwest. They hold a BA from the University of Cincinnati, and their first chapbook, Iris, debuted in October, 2023. They are a 2025 Pushcart Prize nominee, and their poems can be seen in Tiny Spoon Magazine and Auskleiden Magazine, among others.

Abayomi Animashaun is an immigrant from Nigeria. He has an MFA from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and a PhD from the University of Kansas. His poems have appeared in such print and online journals as Poetry Ireland Review, Diode, TriQuarterly, The Cortland Review, African American Review, The Adirondack Review, Ruminate Magazine, and Versedaily. A winner of the Hudson Prize and a recipient of a grant from the International Center for Writing and Translation, Animashaun is the author of three poetry collections, Seahorses, Sailing for Ithaca, and The Giving of Pears, and editor of three anthologies, Far Villages: Welcomes Essays for New and Beginner Poets, Others Will Enter the Gates: Immigrant Poets on Poetry, Influences, and Writing in America, and Walking the Tightrope: Poetry and Prose by LGBTQ Writers from Africa (edited with Spectra, Tatenda Muranda, Irwin Iradunkunda, and Timothy Kimutai). Abayomi Animashaun is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh and a poetry editor at The Comstock Review. He lives in Green Bay, Wisconsin with his wife and children.

Ewa Chrusciel is a poet, translator, and educator. She has three books of poems in English: Of Annunciations (Omnidawn 2017), Contraband of Hoopoe (Omnidawn 2014), Strata (Emergency Press 2009, reprinted by Omnidawn, April 2018), as well as three books in Polish: Tobołek (2016) Sopiłki (2009), and Furkot (2003). Her book Contraband of Hoopoe was translated into Italian by Anna Aresi and came out in Italy with Edizioni Ensemble in May 2019. She also translated selected books by Jack London, Joseph Conrad, I.B. Singer as well as the book of selected poems by Jorie Graham, and selected poems of Kazim Ali, Lyn Hejinian, Cole Swensen and other American poets into Polish. She is an Associate Prof. of Humanities at Colby-Sawyer College. Her newest book Yours, Purple Galinulle is scheduled for publication in 2022 by Omnidawn Press.

Rigoberto González is the author of eighteen books of poetry and prose including the memoir What Drowns the Flowers in Your Mouth: A Memoir of Brotherhood, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His awards include Lannan, Guggenheim, NEA, NYFA, and USA Rolón fellowships, the PEN/Voelcker Award, the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation, the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets, and the Shelley Memorial Prize from the Poetry Society of America. A critic-at-large for The LA Times and contributing editor for Poets & Writers Magazine, he’s currently Distinguished Professor of English and the director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Rutgers-Newark, the State University of New Jersey.

신 선 영 Sun Yung Shin is an award-winning poet and essayist who was born in Korea, grew up in the Chicago area, and is currently based in Minneapolis. Her work has been published widely in places such as POETRY, BOMB magazine, and the 2021 Gwangju Biennale; she speaks and presents frequently. Her fifth book of poems, Six Tones of Water, an experimental work co-written with Vi Khi Nao, was published by Ricochet Editions in 2024; her four other poetry/essay collections including The Wet Hex and Unbearable Splendor are published by Coffee House Press. She is the editor of three prose anthologies, most recently What We Hunger For: Refugee and Immigrant Stories about Food and Family and is also the author of three picture books including the forthcoming Revolutions Are Made of Love: The Story of James Boggs and Grace Lee Boggs. With poet Su Hwang she co-directs Poetry Asylum in Minneapolis.

Mary Biddinger is the author of numerous books with Black Lawrence Press including Partial Genius: Prose Poems (2019), Department of Elegy (2022), and her debut work of fiction, The Girl with the Black Lipstick (2025). She has received awards and fellowships from the Cleveland Arts Prize, Ohio Arts Council, and National Endowment for the Arts. Biddinger teaches creative writing at the University of Akron and in the NEOMFA program, and serves as poetry editor for the University of Akron Press.

Michal ‘MJ’ Jones (they/he)  is an award-winning poet, parent, and editor living in Oakland, CA. Their poetry has appeared in the American Academy of Poets, Obsidian, Split This Rock, Muzzle Magazine, TriQuarterly Review, ANMLY, & elsewhere. Their debut collection of poetry, HOOD VACATIONS, won the 2024 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry. They are also the author of a chapbook, SOFT ARMOR (2023), from Black Lawrence Press. Often addressing the troubling and haunting aspects of life, violence, and identity, MJ’s poetry blends lyrical, documentary, and confessional modes.

Isaac Pickell is a poet, PhD candidate, editor, and adjunct instructor in Detroit. A Cave Canem Poetry Fellow, Isaac is a graduate of Miami University's Master of Fine Arts program in Creative Writing. He is the author of two collections of poetry, everything saved will be last (Black Lawrence Press, 2021) and It’s not over once you figure it out (Black Ocean, 2023), and his most recent work can be found in Brevity, Cincinnati Review, Copper Nickel, diode poetry journal, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. Isaac’s taken a seat in all fifty states and has so much to look forward to.

David Rigsbee is the author of 23 books and chapbooks, including twelve previous full-length collections of poems.  In addition, he has also published critical works on Carolyn Kizer and Joseph Brodsky, whom he also translated.  He has co-edited two anthologies, including Invited Guest:  An Anthology of Twentieth Century Southern Poetry, a “notable book” selection of the American Library Association and the American Association of University Professors. His work has appeared in AGNI, The American Poetry Review, The Georgia Review, The Iowa Review, The New Yorker, The Iowa Review, The Ohio Review, Poetry, Prairie Schooner, The Sewanee Review, The Southern Review, and many others.  He has been recipient of two creative writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as a NEH summer fellowship to the American Academy in Rome. His other awards include The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown fellowship, The Virginia Commission on the Arts literary fellowship, The Djerassi Foundation and Jentel Foundation residencies, and an Award from the Academy of American Poets.  Winner of a Pushcart Prize, the Vachel Lindsay Poetry Award and the Pound Prize, he was also 2010 winner of the Sam Ragan Award for contribution to the arts in North Carolina. His most recent books are MAGA Sonnets of Donald Trump (2021), a translation of Dante’s Paradiso (2023) and Watchman in the Knife Factory: New & Selected Poems (2024).