Amy Swauger has been director of Teachers & Writers Collaborative, a literary arts education organization in New York City, since 2005. She previously served as executive director of the National Academy of Education and of Washington Independent Writers.

Jeanine Walker manages the Writers in the Schools program at Seattle Arts & Lectures. Her poems have appeared in Cimarron Review, Cream City Review, Narrative, and elsewhere. She emcees Cheap Beer & Prose, awarded third place in LitBridge’s 2013 Best Reading Series contest.

Jen Benka is the Executive Director of the Academy of American Poets. She worked previously as the Managing Director of Poets & Writers and for 826 National. She is the author of Pinko and A Box of Longing With Fifty Drawers.

David Hassler is director of the Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University. His poetry collection, Red Kimono, Yellow Barn, was awarded Ohio Poet of the Year 2006. His nonfiction works include the play, May 4th Voices, based on the Kent State Shootings Oral History Project, and Growing Season: The Life of a Migrant Community.

Stephen Young began at Poetry magazine in 1988 and served as Senior Editor for many years before he became Program Director at the Poetry Foundation in 2003. In his current role, among other things, he plans public events and runs the Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Contest for high school students.