Beth Bachmann is the author of two collections of poetry, Temper, winner of the AWP Donald Hall Prize and Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and Do Not Rise, winner of the PSA Alice Fay di Castagnola Award. Each fall, she teaches in the MFA program at Vanderbilt University.

Yona Harvey is the author of the poetry collection, Hemming the Water, winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. She is an assistant professor in the University of Pittsburgh writing program.

Michael Ryan earned his MFA and PhD at Iowa and taught at Iowa, Princeton, Virginia, and the MFA program for writers at Warren Wilson College before joining UC Irvine's faculty as professor of English and creative writing in 1990. He's currently director of UC Irvine's MFA program in poetry.

Afaa M. Weaver is the author of fourteen collections of poetry. His twelfth collection, The Government of Nature, won the 2014 Kingsley Tufts Award. His newest is City of Eternal Spring. He has also received multiple Pushcarts, as well as Pew and NEA fellowships. He also writes plays.