Deema K. Shehabi is the author of Thirteen Departures from the Moon and coeditor with Beau Beausoleil of Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here, for which she received the NCBR Recognition Award. She's also coauthor with Marilyn Hacker of Diaspo/Renga. She won the Nazim Hizkmet Poetry Prize in 2018.

Shadab Zeest Hashmi, author of Ghazal Cosmopolitan, Comb, Kohl & Chalk and Baker of Tarifa, is the winner of the San Diego Book Award, Nazim Hikmet Poetry Prize, and the Hybrid Book Prize from Sable Books. Her work has been published worldwide. She has an MFA from Warren Wilson.

Adeeba Shahid Talukder is a Pakistani American poet and translator. Her collection of poems, Shahr-e-jaanaan: The City of The Beloved, is a winner of the Kundiman Poetry Prize. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan and fellowships from Kundiman and Poets House.

Persis Karim is a poet, editor, and professor of comparative and world literature at San Francisco State where she also directs the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies. She is the editor of three anthologies of Iranian diaspora literature and has published poetry in national literary magazines.

Zeina Hashem Beck is a Lebanese poet. Her books include O, Louder than Hearts, and To Live in Autumn. Her poems have appeared in the New York Times, Poetry, Ploughshares, and The Nation, among others. She's the cohost of Maqsouda, a podcast in Arabic about Arabic poetry.