Moderator:

Ellen McGrath Smith, who has taught with Zoeglossia, works at the University of Pittsburgh. Her poetry has appeared in the Georgia Review, the New York Times, the American Poetry Review, Los Angeles Review, and other journals and anthologies. Books include Scatter, Feed (Seven Kitchens, 2014) and Nobody's Jackknife (West End Press, 2015).

Leroy F. Moore Jr. is the founder of Krip-Hop Nation. A founding member of National Black Disability, he is an activist around police brutality against people with disabilities. His cultural work includes poetry books, the film Where Is Hope: Police Brutality against People with Disabilities, and a children’s book, Black Disabled Art History 101 (Xochitl Justice Press).

Allison Adelle Hedge Coke (2021 George Garrett Award for Outstanding Community Service in Literature winner)'s books include Look at This Blue, Burn, Streaming, Blood Run, and Effigies III. Distinguished professor at UC Riverside, she teaches in creative writing and the School of Medicine, directs UCR Writers Week, Lit Sandhill CraneFest, and Along the Chaparral.

Kay Ulanday Barrett is a poet and writer. K. has featured in New York Times, PBS News Hour, the Rumpus, VIDA Review, and Race Forward. They are a MacDowell and Lambda Literary Fellow. Their book, More Than Organs, received a 2021 Stonewall Honor Award and is a 2021 Lambda Literary Award Finalist.

Saleem Hue Penny is a Black “rural hip-hop blues'' poet, arts educator, and mutual aid advocate with Lowcountry roots, single-sided deafness, and Ramsay Hunt Syndrome. The 2021 Poetry Coalition Fellow at Zoeglossia, an assistant poetry editor at Bellevue Literary Review, and a proud Cave Canem Fellow, Saleem’s writing explores how young people of color traverse wild spaces and define freedom on their own terms. He often punctuates his poetry with drum loops, gouache, and birch bark.