Taylor Mali is one of the most well-known poets to have emerged from the poetry slam movement and one of the original poets to appear on the HBO series Def Poetry Jam. A four-time National Poetry Slam champion, he is the founder of the Page Meets Stage reading series in New York City.

Mark Doty's nine books of poems—most recently, Deep Lane—have received the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the T.S.Eliot Prize. A new prose study of Walt Whitman is forthcoming. A Distinguished Professor at Rutgers University, he lives in New York City.

Anis Mojgani

Shayla Lawson is the author of I Think I'm Ready to See Frank Ocean and the forthcoming essay collection Live Tonight Ms. Diana Ross. She serves as Writer-in-Residence at Amherst College.

Seema Reza is the author of When the World Breaks Open, a memoir in essays and poetry, and coordinates and facilitates a multi-hospital military arts program in Washington D.C. She is a VONA Alumna and serves as a council member-at-large for the Transformative Language Arts Network.