Kyoko Yoshida is the author of a story collection Disorientalism. She also translates prose and poetry from/into Japanese. A PhD from UW-Milwaukee, a 2005 participant of the Iowa IWP, and a former visiting fellow at Brown University, she currently teaches at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto.

Forrest Gander is a writer and translator with degrees in geology and English literature. Recent books include the novel The Trace, and poems: Eiko & Koma; Fungus Skull Eye Wing: Selected Poems of Alfonso D'Aquino, and Core Samples from the World, a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist.

Sawako Nakayasu’s books include The Ants, Texture Notes and Mouth: Eats Color. Her newest translations are The Collected Poems of Sagawa Chika, and Tatsumi Hijikata’s Costume en Face. She has received fellowships from the NEA and PEN, and her poetry has been translated into several languages.

Goro Takano is teaching Japanese literature and English at Saga University Faculty of Medicine, Japan. He has translated (and published) some works of such Japanese modern poets as Yoshiro Ishihara, Bokusui Wakayama, and Shiro Murano. Goro has published his own novel and poetry collection in US.

James Shea is the author of two poetry collections, The Lost Novel and Star in the Eye. His translations of Japanese poetry have appeared in Circumference, Gin’yu, and the Iowa Review. A former Fulbright Scholar in Hong Kong, he is currently an assistant professor at Hong Kong Baptist University.