Joanna Grant has lived and worked all over the world in her capacity as an instructor teaching college courses to deployed American servicemembers. To date, she has taught in Japan, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Djibouti, South Korea, Jordan, Bahrain, and Qatar. She is the author of one monograph on British and American Middle Eastern travel narratives and four collections of poems, the last of which is due out from Sheila-na-Gig Press in 2026.

Judit Hollos is an emerging poet, playwright, essayist and journalist. Some of her short stories, poems, translations and articles have been featured in English and Swedish in literary magazines, periodicals and anthologies. She is the author of two chapbook collections of Japanese-style poetry and short prose. Her monologues and short plays have been produced and received staged readings at theaters and festivals in Glasgow, San Francisco, London, Leicester, Liverpool, Birmingham and Kyiv.

Zach Hauptman is trained reference and research librarian, a genderfluid transmasc dyke, and an award-winning poet. Along with their writing group, Truth Sans Justice, they run panels on queer history, misogyny, and pop culture, and write interactive literature events for SF Bay Area conventions.

Brice Maiurro is a Colorado poet, workshop facilitator, storyteller and artist. He is the Editor-in-Chief of South Broadway Press and has taught workshops for Lighthouse Writers and Columbine Poets. He has authored four collections of poetry, including The Heart is an Undertaker Bee, published by Middle Creek Publishing. His work has been published by Voice & Verse, Marrow Magazine, and the Denver Post. Themes of his work include human connection, ecology, and finding the divine in the mundane.

Kim  O’Connor was born and raised in North Carolina and now lives in Golden, Colorado. Her first book White Lung (Saturnalia Books, 2021) was a finalist for the 2021 Colorado Book Award. Kim has 20 years of experience teaching writers of all ages and is currently an adjunct instructor for Colorado School of Mines and Community College of Denver. She received an MFA from the University of Maryland in 2009, where she won both the Academy of American Poetry student prize and the AWP Intro to Journals contest. Her poetry has been published in B O D Y, Copper Nickel, Colorado Review, Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, MoonPark Review, Slice, storySouth, THRUSH, and elsewhere.

Michael Lee Schad is often called a “Jack of all trades”. He has worked a variety of occupations from Baker to English teacher, and still writes. He holds a PhD in Education from Virginia Commonwealth University and an MFA from Hollins University.

Kashiana Singh is the author of, most recently, The Witching Hour (Glass Lyre Press, 2024). Kashiana’s full-length collection Woman by the Door was published in 2022 with Apprentice House Press. Kashiana’s TEDx talk was dedicated to her life mantra of Work as Worship. Kashiana serves as the President of the North Carolina Poetry Society and as Managing Editor of Poets Reading the News. Her poetry ambassadorship is centered within her work at Poets Reading the News, North Carolina Poetry Society, and Matwaala Collective amongst many others. She has led multiple panels and workshops on the topic of how food invokes and intersects with poetry.

Elizabeth S. Wolf has published 5 books of poetry. Her chapbook Did You Know? was a 2018 Rattle Prize winner. Rattle Summer 2022 featured her project with Prisoner Express. In 2023 Elizabeth taped readings at the White House, Supreme Court, and US Capitol as part of The Scheherazade Project. Her video poem April 1999 (first drafted during Tupelo 30/30 August 2022!) was screened at the Poetry in Motion Festival 2024 in Colorado Springs. Several stories and poems are included in the Lunar Codex archived on the moon. A full-length manuscript of braided poetry is out in submission. Elizabeth is currently working on a novel in verse, her first foray into fiction.