Sayantika Mandal (she/her) is an Indian writer. She completed her MFA from the University of San Francisco and is pursuing her PhD in English (creative writing) from the University of Georgia. Her writing has appeared in The Citron Review, Indian Literature, Cerebration, Times of India, and others.

Kathryn Kysar is the author of two books of poetry, Dark Lake and Pretend the World, and she edited Riding Shotgun: Women Write about Their Mothers. A previous AWP board member, Kysar is the founder of the creative writing program at Anoka-Ramsey Community College in Minneapolis.

Denise Low, Kansas Poet Laureate 2007–9, is author of The Turtle’s Beating Heart: One Family’s Story of Lenape Survival and Shadow Light (poems, a Red Mountain Press award). She is a Midwessay curator for Essay Daily. A former AWP board president, she is on the board of Indigenous Nations Poets.

April Gibson is a Black poet, writer, and educator. Her work has been published in The Kenyon Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Prairie Schooner, Crazyhorse, Literary Mama, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in creative writing and currently teaches English at Malcolm X College in Chicago.

Sun Yung Shin is the author of four poetry collections including The Wet Hex; editor of three anthologies: What We Hunger For: Refugee & Immigrant Stories about Food & Family; A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota; and Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption, and author of two picture books.