Renee Ellen Olander is a longtime teacher of poetry and poetry pedagogy at university and K-12 levels. Her poems have appeared in journals and anthologies, and in the chapbook A Few Spells. She has also published reviews, essays, and interviews with writers. She earned an MFA from the University of Southern Maine and is an associate vice president at Old Dominion University.

Tim Seibles is the author of several collections of poetry, including Hammerlock, Buffalo Head Solos, and most recently, Fast Animal, which was nominated for a National Book Award in 2012. He is a professor of English at Old Dominion University and visiting faculty for the Stonecoast MFA program at the University of Southern Maine.

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.

Jan Freeman is a poet and the author of Simon Says, nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award; Hyena; Autumn Sequence; a new manuscript, Blue Structure; and a chapbook, Silence. She directs Paris Press, which she founded in 1995 to bring back into print The Life of Poetry by Muriel Rukeyser.

Dennis Nurkse (D. Nurkse) is the author of ten books of poetry, including A Night in Brooklyn, The Border Kingdom, Burnt Island, and The Fall, and Voices over Water. His poetry has appeared in the New Yorker, Poetry, The Times Literary Supplement (UK), and the Paris Review.