Danielle Barnhart is cofounder and managing editor of Village of Crickets: An Online Community of Artists & Writers. She holds an MFA in creative writing, and was awarded the 2015 Donald Everett Axinn Award in Poetry. She teaches writing at Adelphi University and volunteers for PEN America.

John Murillo is the author of the poetry collection, Up Jump the Boogie. His honors include a Pushcart Prize, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Cave Canem Foundation, and the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing.

Sandra Beasley is the author of four books, including Count the Waves, I Was the Jukebox (Barnard Women Poets Prize), and Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life, a memoir. She is a 2015 NEA fellow in poetry. She teaches with the University of Tampa low-residency MFA program.

Mahogany L. Browne is a Cave Canem & Poets House alumna, playwright, poet, and activist. She is the publisher of Penmanship Books, MFA candidate in writing (& activism) at Pratt Institute, and poetry program director at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe.

Jacqueline Jones LaMon is the author of two collections, Last Seen, a Felix Pollak Poetry Prize selection, and Gravity, U.S.A., recipient of the Quercus Review Press Poetry Series Book Award; and the novel, In the Arms of One Who Loves Me. She teaches at Adelphi University.