Kim Stafford is the author of a dozen books of poetry and prose, including 100 Tricks Every Boy Can Do: How My Brother Disappeared; The Muses Among Us; and Early Morning: Remembering My Father, William Stafford. He directs the Northwest Writing Institute at Lewis & Clark College.

Brian Turner (author of Here, Bullet and Phantom Noise; co-editor of The Strangest of Theatres) received a USA Fellowship, an NEA Fellowship, the Amy Lowell Traveling Fellowship, the Poets’ Prize, and a Fellowship from the Lannan Foundation. He directs the low-residency MFA at Sierra Nevada College.

Toi Derricotte's most recent book is the Undertaker's Daughter. Her honors include the 2012 Paterson Poetry Prize for Sustained Literary Achievement and the 2012 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry. Her poems have appeared in American Poetry Review and the Paris Review. She co-founded Cave Canem in 1996.

Coleman Barks has taught poetry and creative writing at the University of Georgia for thirty years. He is the author of numerous Rumi translations. His work with Rumi was the subject of an hour-long segment in Bill Moyers's Language of Life series on PBS, and he is a featured poet and translator in Bill Moyers's poetry special, "Fooling with Words." His own books of poetry include Winter Sky: Poems 1968-2008.