Mai Der Vang’s book Afterland received the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets. She is the recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship and her poems have appeared in Poetry, Virginia Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. Learn more at Maidervang.com

Born in Zaria, Nigeria, Hafizah Geter’s poems appear in The New Yorker, Tin House, Narrative Magazine, and elsewhere. She serves on the board of VIDA: Women in the Literary Arts and is an editor for Little A from Amazon Publishing.

Hayan Charara is a poet, children’s book author, essayist, and editor. His poetry books are Something Sinister (2016), The Sadness of Others (2006), and The Alchemist’s Diary (2001). His children’s book, The Three Lucys (2016), received the New Voices Award Honor.

Diana Marie Delgado is the author of Late Night Talks with Men I Think I Trust (Center for Book Arts, 2015). She is a recipient of a 2017 NEA Literature Fellowship and received grants and scholarships from The Frost Place and Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference.

Jayson P. Smith is a 2017 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Poetry from the New York Foundation for the Arts. Originally from the Bronx, Jayson lives/works in Brooklyn as founder of NOMAD, a Crown-Heights based performance series.