Lance Larsen, poet laureate of Utah from 2012–2017, is the author of five poetry collections, most recently What the Body Knows. He has won a Pushcart Prize and an NEA fellowship. He serves as department chair at BYU and in the spring will direct a study abroad program in London.

Richard Chess is the author of four books of poetry, Love Nailed to the Doorpost, Third Temple, Chair in the Desert, and Tekiah. He is a regular contributor to Good Letters, the blog hosted by Image Journal. He chairs the English department and directs the Center for Jewish Studies at UNC Asheville.

Nancy Chen Long is a 2017 NEA fellow. Her first book Light into Bodies won the Tampa Review Prize for Poetry. She has a degree in electrical engineering technology, an MBA, and more recently earned an MFA from Spalding University. She works in research technologies at Indiana University.

Matt Sumpter received the Anita Claire Scharf Award from the University of Tampa Press for his first book, Public Land. He completed his MFA at Ohio State University and PhD in creative writing at Binghamton University. He teaches academic and creative writing at Rutgers University.

Jenny Browne's most recent collection is Dear Stranger. She has received the Cecil Hemley Memorial Award from the the Poetry Society of American, and a NEA Fellowship. She teaches at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, and she is the 2017 State of Texas Poet Laureate.