Dilruba Ahmed’s debut book, Dhaka Dust (Graywolf Press, 2011), won the Bakeless Prize. Her poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Blackbird, Alaska Quarterly Review, New England Review, and Poetry. New work is forthcoming in Agni, Kenyon Review, Copper Nickel, 32 Poems, and Ploughshares. Her poems have also been anthologized in Literature: The Human Experience (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2016), Indivisible: An Anthology of Contemporary South Asian American Poetry (University of Arkansas, 2010), and elsewhere. Ahmed is the recipient of The Florida Review’s Editors’ Award, a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Memorial Prize, and the Katharine Bakeless Nason Fellowship in Poetry awarded by the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. Find her at www.dilrubaahmed.com.

Bedelgeuse is an anatomical collage artist. Work created under the Bedelgeuse alias includes cut paper collage, digital collage, and mixed media sculptural collage all centered around the human anatomy. All of the source material comes from old science and medical books that are in the public domain. He makes both physical cut paper and digital collages that form into a wild amalgamation of botanical, zoological, and anatomical imagery. These compositions produce synergetic visuals that represent humanity’s inherent relationship to nature. Bedelgeuse currently resides in San Francisco, California and has studied audio engineering and sound design, but has received no formal visual arts education. He has had artwork in group and solo exhibitions worldwide, including Tokyo, New York, and London. Bedelgeuse has also had features in various magazines and online globally including Instagram, Tumblr, Juxtapoz, Culture Magazine, Creativ, and other independent publications. He has also done installation work in Brooklyn, NY, Phoenix, AZ and his paste-up collages are hidden throughout San Francisco.

Evan Bauer, originally from Santa Cruz, CA, is an undergraduate student studying English, creative writing, and Japanese at UC Berkeley. His poetry has appeared in Catamaran Literary Reader, Glassworks, and Cimarron Review.

Zeina Hashem Beck is a Lebanese poet with a BA and an MA in English Literature from the American University of Beirut. Her first collection, To Live in Autumn, won the 2014 Backwaters Prize. It was also runner-up for the 2014 Julie Suk Award, category finalist for the 2015 Eric Hoffer Awards, and has been included on Split This Rock’s list of recommended poetry books for 2014. Her chapbook, 3arabi Song, won the 2016 Rattle Chapbook Prize. Another chapbook, There Was and How Much There Was, was a 2016 Laureate’s Choice, chosen by Britain’s Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, and published by smith|doorstop. Her second full-length collection, Louder than Hearts, has won the 2016 May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize.

Tara Betts is the author of Break the Habit and Arc & Hue. Her work has appeared in POETRY, American Poetry Review, Essence, NYLON, ESPNW and numerous anthologies. Tara is also one of the co-editors of The Beiging of America: Personal Narratives About Being Mixed Race in the 21st Century. She teaches at University of Illinois-Chicago.

Bill Brown is the author of ten poetry collections and a writing textbook. His newest books are Late Winter (2008, Iris Press), The News Inside (2010, Iris Press) Elemental (2014, 3: A Taos Press) and Morning Window (2017, Iris Press). The National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts awarded him The Distinguished Teacher in the Arts. He has been a Scholar in Poetry at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, a Fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and a two-time recipient of Fellowships in poetry from the Tennessee Arts Commission. Brown has published hundreds of poems and articles in college journals, magazines and anthologies. The Tennessee Writers Alliance named Brown the 2011 Writer of the Year. He lives with his wife, Suzanne, and a tribe of cats in the hills north of Nashville.   

Jeremy Packert Burke lives in Massachusetts. He has previously had work in Reservoir, The Adroit Journal, and Day One, among other places.

Lauren Camp is the author of three books, including One Hundred Hungers (Tupelo Press, 2016), which won the Dorset Prize. Her poems have appeared in many journals, including New England Review, Split This Rock, Poetry International, Boston Review, Beloit Poetry Journal and the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day. Other literary honors include the Margaret Randall Poetry Prize, the Anna Davidson Rosenberg Award, prizes from RHINO and Western Humanities Review, and a Black Earth Institute Fellowship. She is a staff writer for Poets Reading the News and the producer/host of “Audio Saucepan” on Santa Fe Public Radio, a program that interweaves music with contemporary poetry.

Paul Crenshaw’s stories and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Best American Essays, Best American Nonrequired Reading, The Pushcart Prize, anthologies by W.W. Norton and Houghton Mifflin, Oxford American, Glimmer Train, Ecotone, North American Review and Brevity, among others. He teaches writing and literature at Elon University.

jayy dodd is a blxk question mark from los angeles, california– now based on the internet. they are a professional writer & literary editor. their work has appeared / will appear in Broadly, The Establishment, Assaracus, Winter Tangerine, Guernica, & Yes, Poetry  among others. they’re the author of [sugar in the tank]  (Pizza Pi Press 2016) & Mannish Tongues (Platypus Press 2017). they are a Pushcart Prize nominee; their work has been featured in Teen Vogue & Entropy; their a co-editor of Bettering American Poetry & a 2017 Lambda Literary Fellow. find them talking trash or taking a selfie.

Alexis Rhone Fancher is the author of How I Lost My Virginity to Michael Cohen and other heart stab poems, (2014), State of Grace: The Joshua Elegies, (2015), and Enter Here (2017). She is published in The Best American Poetry 2016, Rattle, Slipstream, Hobart, Cleaver, The MacGuffin, Poetry East, Plume, Glass, and elsewhere. Her photographs are published worldwide. A multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of The Net nominee, Alexis is poetry editor of Cultural Weekly, where she also publishes a monthly photo essay,“The Poet’s Eye,” about her ongoing love affair with Los Angeles. Find her at: www.alexisrhonefancher.com

Peter Grimes is an assistant professor of English at Dickinson State University, where he directs the creative writing emphasis. His work has appeared in journals such as Narrative, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Mississippi Review, Sycamore Review, and Memorious.

Michael Hurley is from Pittsburgh. His work has appeared in Sycamore Review, New Delta Review, Fourteen Hills, Spoon River Poetry Review, Mid-American Review, and is forthcoming in FIELD, Cimarron Review, Prairie Schooner, and Alaska Quarterly Review.  His chapbook, Wooden Boys, is available from Seven Kitchens Press.

Marlin M. Jenkins was born and raised in Detroit and is a poetry student in University of Michigan’s MFA program. His writings have been given homes by The Collagist, Four Way Review, The Journal, and Bennington Review, among others. You can find him online at marlinmjenkins.tumblr.com and @Marlin_Poet.

Toni Judnitch earned her MFA in fiction from Southern Illinois University, where she worked as an assistant editor for Crab Orchard Review. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Sycamore Review and Ninth Letter.

Su-Yee Lin‘s writing has appeared in Day One, Strange Horizons, The Offing, Okey-Panky, NANO Fiction, Tor.com, and elsewhere. A 2012 Fulbright fellow to China, she has received grants and residencies from The Center for Fiction, Speculative Literature Foundation, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Writers Omi at Ledig House, and others. She lives in New York.

Carly Joy Miller‘s work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Adroit Journal, Blackbird, Boston Review, Gulf Coast, West Branch and elsewhere. She is a contributing editor for Poetry International and a founding editor of Locked Horn Press. Her chapbook, Like a Beast, was the winner of the 2016 Rick Campbell Prize and is forthcoming from Anhinga Press.

Julian Randall is a Living Queer Black poet from Chicago. A Pushcart Prize nominee, he has received fellowships from Callaloo, BOAAT and the Watering Hole and was the 2015 National College Slam (CUPSI) Best Poet. Julian is the curator of Winter Tangerine Review’s Lineage of Mirrors and a poetry editor for Freezeray Magazine. He is also a cofounder of the Afrolatinx poetry collective Piel Cafe. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in publications such as Nepantla, Rattle Poets Respond, Ninth Letter, Vinyl, Puerto del Sol and The Adroit Journal among others. He is a candidate for his MFA in Poetry at Ole Miss.

Kevin Reilly is a writer and artist living in Nashville, TN.  He is the former co-editor of the Nashville newspaper-zine Huis Clos. He spends his days working at Halcyon Bike Shop and his evenings at home pushing a graphic novel up a steep hill.

Jacqueline Sabbagh received her MFA in Poetry at the University of Florida. Her poems have appeared in over twenty journals, including Salamander, Word Riot, and RUST + MOTH, the last of which nominated her for a Pushcart Prize. She’s a trans poet; R.I.P. Jacks*n Sabbagh.

Kelly Grace Thomas is the winner of the 2017 Neil Postman Award for Metaphor from Rattle and a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Kelly was also a 2016 Fellow for the Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop. Kelly’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Boiler, Sixth Finch, Muzzle, Rattle, PANK and more. Kelly’s chapbook, Zersetzung, was a finalist for the 2017 Lorien Prize from Thoughtcrime Press. Kelly works to bring poetry to underserved youth as the Manager of Education and Pedagogy for Get Lit-Words Ignite. She lives in Los Angeles and is working on her debut novel, Only 10,001. For more of her work, visit www.kellygracethomas.com.
 
William Woolfitt is the author of three poetry collections: Beauty Strip (2014), Charles of the Desert (2016), and Spring Up Everlasting (Paraclete Press, forthcoming). His fiction chapbook The Boy with Fire in His Mouth (2014) won the Epiphany Editions contest judged by Darin Strauss. His poems and short stories have appeared in Blackbird, Image, Tin House, The Threepenny Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Missouri Review, Epoch, Gettysburg Review, and other journals.