Kwame Dawes is author of eighteen collections of poetry; two novels; several anthologies; and plays. He has won a Pushcart Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an Emmy Award. At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, he is a Chancellor's Professor of English and Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner.

David Lynn has been the editor of the Kenyon Review since 1994. His most recent book is Year of Fire, short stories.

Quincy Troupe is the editor of Black Renaissance Noire at New York University. He has authored twenty books, ten volumes of poems, and three children’s books. His work has been translated into over thirty languages. Castor Astral will publish Errançities and Other Poems translated into French in 2015. 

Kirby Johnson is the founding editor of NANO Fiction and the editor of Black Warrior Review. She has previously been an administrator for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Gulf Coast; and Arte Publico Press.