The 30/30 Project: Volunteer Poets

Jennifer Browne falls in love easily with other people’s dogs. She is the author of American Crow (Beltway Editions, 2024) and the poetry chapbooks Before: After (Pure Sleeze Press, 2025), In a Period of Absence: a Lake (Origami Poems Project, 2025), whisper song (tiny wren publishing, 2023) and The Salt of the Geologic World (Bottlecap Press, 2023). Her work has recently appeared in Poets for Science, Humana Obscura, Trailer Park Quarterly, and One Sentence Poems. She lives in Frostburg, Maryland, where she serves as director of the Frostburg State University Center for Literary Arts.

John Burroughs of Cleveland served as the 2022-2023 U.S. National Beat Poet Laureate and is the author of The Wrest of the Worthwhile [2023, Far Queue Press], Rattle & Numb [2019, Venetian Spider Press] and numerous poetry chapbooks. He previously served for two years as Ohio’s Beat Poet Laureate. Since 2008, Burroughs has been the founding editor and publisher for Crisis Chronicles Press. Find him at https://linktr.ee/johnburroughs.

Brigid Cooley (she/her) wrote her first poem when she was 7 years old and hasn’t been able to stop since. Her debut collection of poems, “family recipes,” was published by Kelsay Books in 2023. While her work has been published internationally, she takes special pride in having grown up a “San Antonio poet.” She participated in the Tupelo Press 30/30 Project in November of 2023. Brigid now lives with her husband, Zach, and loves to go bouldering, read books, participate in musical theatre and teach poetry workshops in her free time.

Lane Falcon’s poems from have been published in American Poetry Journal, The Carolina Quarterly, The Chattahoochee Review, Cream City Review, Harbor Review, The Healing Muse, The Journal, Mayday Magazine, Medical Literary Messenger, Medmic, The Messenger, New York Quarterly, Pawling Magazine, Poet Lore, Poetry South, Presence, Rust & Moth, Sheila-Na-Gig, Spoon River Poetry Review, Swimm Everyday, Tar River Poetry, Vita Poetica, WWPH Writes, and more. Her first manuscript, Deep, Blue Odds, was selected as a finalist for the 2022 and 2023 Black Lawrence Press Hudson Prize, as well as a semi-finalist for the 2022 Tupelo Press Berkshire Prize. It will be published by Sheila-Na-Gig Editions early 2026.

Deirdre Garr Johns resides in South Carolina with her family. Nature is an inspiration, and poetry is a first love. Much of her work is inspired by memories of people and places. Her poetry has appeared in Sylvia Magazine, South Carolina Bards Poetry Anthology, Eunoia Magazine, Nymeria Magazine, Sasee Magazine, Silver Birch Press, and more. Fallen Love (Finishing Line Press) is her first collection of poems, and Weathering the Storm (Palmetto Publishing) is her first children’s book. Deirdre’s website is www.amuseofonesown.com.

Francesca Preston is a writer and visual artist based in Petaluma, CA. Author of the chapbook If There Are Horns and hybrid microchap This Was Like I Said All Gone, her work appears in Fence; Feral; Fron/tera; LEVITATE; Phoebe; RHINO; The Ekphrastic Review, & elsewhere. She is a guest editor for Naoko Fujimoto’s Working On Gallery, and interviews artists working in hybrid genres. w. francescapreston.com. instagram: @francescalouisepreston

Robert Eric Shoemaker (he/him) is a poet, translator, and interdisciplinary artist. His book of essays, Magical Poetics: The Magic of Language and Real-World Effect Poetry, is forthcoming from Bloomsbury. He is the author of Ca’Venezia (Partial Press, 2021), an artist’s book of hybrid writing and visual art; We Knew No Mortality (Acta Publications, 2018), poetry and memoir; and the poetry chapbook 30 Days Dry (Thought Collection Publishing 2015).

Eric’s work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best New Translation, and he has won honorable mention in Spoon River Poetry Review’s Editor’s Prize. His writing is published with Rain Taxi, Zone 3, Tupelo Quarterly, Spoon River Poetry Review, Jacket2, ANMLY, the Poetry Foundation, Rattle, Asymptote, Exchanges, Signs and Society, Entropy, Call Me [Out], Miracle Monocle, Gender Forum, Columbia Journal, Plath Profiles, the Louisville Review, Transom, Tiny Spoon, Call Me [Stranger], Analogies & Allegories, Bombay Gin, Barely South Review, and others.
Eric earned a PhD in humanities from the University of Louisville, an MFA in creative writing and poetics from Naropa University, and a BA in theatre and performance studies from the University of Chicago. Eric has been a featured speaker on PBS’s Remember Them with Steve Adubato as well as the podcasts PoemTalk, Perks of Being a Book Lover, and Business Boss. He has performed and lectured at venues including Speed Art Museum and the Frazier Museum in Louisville, Kentucky; the Fox Theater in Boulder, Colorado; Remy Bumppo Theater; the Chicago Public Library’s Poetry Day; and many others. His installations and artwork have been exhibited at East Window gallery and Naropa University, as well as other venues. Eric’s award-winning plays, including translations of The House of Bernarda Alba and Barrens by Federico García Lorca and his musical PLATH/HUGHES, have been produced in Chicago and New York. Follow Eric at reshoemaker.com.

Mobi is the translator from Vietnamese of several books by Thich Nhat Hanh including The Miracle of Mindfulness; Old Path White Clouds; and Fragrant Palm Leaves.  She is a 2013 30/30 alumna, 2015 short poem winner for Blue Lyra Press (with a poem written during her first 30/30), and was selected as one of 30 Tricentennial Poets for the City of San Antonio in 2017.  Her poems have been featured multiple years on San Antonio Public Transit buses as part of the Poetry on the Move project. As a member of the Haiku Troupe, she joins four other poets every year to give a reading and workshop at the San Antonio Botanical Garden. This April, her ekphrastic poem, Divine Foxes, will be featured at the San Antonio Museum of Art. Mobi is the co-founder of a regional Environmental Writers and Artists collective, Stone in the Stream/Roca en el Rio, and for fifteen years, as a Texas Master Naturalist as well as poet, she has led annual poetry hikes, offering a writing experience at a nature sanctuary. Passionate about insects, Mobi’s essay “Cicadas Still Sing” is featured in Orion Magazine’s The Book of Bugs anthology. 

Her poems have been published in a number of journals and anthologies. She is the author of a poetry chapbook Thread and Nectar (Finishing Line Press, 2020) and a 2019 YA novel The Bee Maker. As a puppet artist, Mobi often performs “p(uppet)-oems” (poems performed by a puppet) at poetry readings. 

Nicole Zwolinski earned her BA in Creative Writing with a focus in poetry at St. Cloud State University (SCSU). She continued her education by taking courses through The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis and attended the Mississippi River Creative Writing Workshop at SCSU. She’s had pieces published in Firewords Quarterly, Flash Fiction Magazine, NEAT., Feminine Collective, Alternate Routes No.2, and more.

Nicole was a poetry reader for JaxbyJax XI, a Literary Arts Festival in 2024. Happy Tapir Press selected her a chapbook of poems titled The minor inconveniences of infidelities for publication in 2024. Dresses without pockets and other disappointments was selected as a finalist in Quillkeepers Press 2025 Spring Chapbook Competition.

On Karen’s literary journey she has been Poet-in-Residence at Montpelier Cultural Arts Center, Laurel, MD; created moderated veteran’s reading and discussion groups originated by Maryland Humanities; has taught at universities in the US, Sweden, and Norway; taught creative and memoir writing workshops. Karen has a masters and Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, where she also served as a Master Teacher and Assistant Director of Freshman Composition. Her poetry can be found in Border Crossings (1998), Looking for Disappearance (Finishing Line Press 2023), Slant, Connecticut Review, Evening Street Press, Trajectory, Vesper I (bilingual issue), For Ukraine from Women of the World, Farmer-ish and other independent journals. Midwest roots gave her a love of open skies, light and space. Karen’s love for Atlantic shores from Maine to my Maryland home echo that immersion. Her house is full of driftwood and rocks!

Zoe Berger is a queer, Filipino-Jewish writer based in Brooklyn. Her poems have been published in The Poetry Society of New York’s journal Milk Press, Antiphony Press, Wild Roof Journal, Thimble Literary Magazine, Pinky Mag, and The Naïve Journal, and she recently completed a residency with Tupelo Press to refine her manuscript for a forthcoming book of poems. She is interested in poetry of the natural world, queer and Asian-American literature, ekphrastic poetry, centos, and literary bricolage. She can be found on Instagram @sadspot.

Durin Chappe began a seafaring career at nineteen and over the course of 24 years, worked on merchant ships hauling cargoes as diverse as molasses (from Karachi to Dublin), liquid fertilizer (from Morocco to India), and soybean (from Tacoma to Jakarta); additionally, from 2003 to 2013, he served as mate and captain on longliners, fishing for cod in the Bering Sea.

 Along the way he studied Arabic in Cairo and built his own house in Down East Maine. Though writing his own “Lord Jim” was always in the back of his mind, it took becoming a landlubber ten years ago, to set gears in motion and for the writing to commence. His essays – and the occasional poem – have been published in Positively Filipino, local Maine newspapers, and in the Ideas section of The Boston Globe.

Christi Krug is a Pushcart-nominated poet with work published around the globe, most recently in Alchemy and Miracles Anthology, The Dewdrop, GRIFFEL, and The Kerning. She lives at the Oregon Coast where she also writes literary fantasy, with recent stories in GigaNotoSaurus and Dappled Things. When not wearing a writer’s hat, she has others: community educator, writing coach, yoga instructor, life partner, mom and stepmom, outdoor enthusiast, and retreat leader. Sometimes, she wears two, three, or four hats at once. It gets interesting, and her ears stay warm.

Glynis recently retired from student support services in the Writing, Reading, and Speech Area at the local community college. She taught composition, poetry, literature, and writing-to-learn workshops to students in high school, college, and to in-service educators for many years before working as a consultant for community college students. She wrote poetry at an early age but didn’t focus on it until she worked on her Masters in Creative Writing at University of Colorado Boulder many years ago. Since then, she has written poetry steadily but hasn’t sent a lot out for publication. She is hoping to change that.

Dr. Kathleen P. Decker is an award-winning poet (The Poetry Society of Virginia, National Federation of State Poetry Societies), fiber artist, physician, and musician. She is a past president of the National League of American Pen Women, Seattle Branch, and Vice President of the Poetry Society of Virginia, Eastern Region from 2019-2023 and 2024-current. Dr. Decker was a member of the Williamsburg Poetry Guild from 2018-2022, and Haiku Society of America since 1996. She authored several books of poetry including Russian Reverie, Whispers on Paper, Essence of Woman, Updraft, and Fishmas: Twelve Days of Christmas by the Sea, in addition to multiple poems published in national and international publications. She edited and published an online and print international haiku journal called Chiyo’s Corner and was an editor for the World Haiku Association. She edited two haiku anthologies: My Neighbor’s Life (Laughing CyPress, Seattle, WA, 1999) and On Crimson Wings (Laughing CyPress, Seattle, WA, 2001). With three other poets, she created a poetry/music/art film Shedding Winter Coats from a 100-line renku. She has edited three anthologies for the Poetry Society of Virginia: Quilted Poems, Views of Virginia, and Blended Voices.

Seattle poet and teaching artist Laura Gamache is a third-time Tupelo 30/30 poet! She has published in journals and anthologies, including Nixes Mate Summer/Fall 2023, Passager Journal 2022, Vermillion Flash Issue #7, Rattle, Altered Syntax, So, Dear Writer, and WA 129, as well as her chapbooks, Never Enough and Nothing to Hold Onto. She has worked in classrooms from north of Bellingham, Washington to Chiloquin, Oregon, and as far east as Bridge of Earn, Scotland.

Doctor, poet, and small business owner Joanna Lee is a founder of local writing community River City Poets. Her work has been published in JAMA, Rattle, Contemporary American Voices and elsewhere. She is the author of Dissections (2017) and co-editor of the anthology Lingering in the Margins (2019); more recently, she collaborated with the Richmond Symphony to create “Letter to the City,” which premiered at the Carpenter Theatre to sold out crowds in February 2024. She is the current Poet Laureate for the city of Richmond.

Jeffrey Levine founded Tupelo Press 25 years ago, and in this time he has succeeded in firmly establishing Tupelo Press as one of the preeminent literary publishers in the country. Jeffrey, now 75 years old, sees this long-lived enterprise as the highlight of his career. In addition to his work as a translator (Neruda’s Canto General), he himself is a nationally recognized poet, with three published books of poetry (and one on the way), many awards from magazines and journals, and 23 Pushcart Prize nominations. Jeffrey Levine is so very gratified to be entering into his 26th year as Publisher & Artistic Director of Tupelo Press. 

Isaac Randel’s childhood was split between Union County, NJ and San Diego, although his mind wandered far from both these places. A lifelong poet, he studied English literature and Creative Writing at Pepperdine University and received an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from The New School in 2020. He lives in Tuckahoe, NY with his wife and two dogs and teaches English literature and composition courses at universities across the tristate area. His writing has appeared in Foreword Reviews, Open Letters Review, and Expressionists, and he runs a half-defunct blog fittingly titled “The Procrastinating Poet” (https://isaacrandel.blog). He served as a 30/30 Volunteer Poet in November 2020.

Ina Roy-Faderman (she/her) is a returning Tupelo 30/30 participant. Her writing can also be found in Pigeon Papers, The Rumpus, Trash Panda, and others. A first generation Bengali-American, she was born in Nebraska and educated at Stanford (BA, MD) and U.C. Berkeley (PhD), lives in northern California with several mammals (some human), and drinks a lot of coffee. She teaches biomedical ethics at university and serves as a poetry editor for Right Hand Pointing and chair of the Poetry Postcard Fest board.

Sristi Segnupta is  disgustingly in love with literature in translation, so everything she writes carries a bit of how to speak in her mother tongue – banglaa. As a neurodivergent person on the autism spectrum there are certain sensations that she can only share with the world through poems. Sristi is 23 and would love to travel outside of her country, and read her poems to as many people as she can. She loves waterfalls and cats, very separately.