Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor is the author of a book of poetry, Imperfect Tense, and two books about arts-based education. She was awarded NEA Big Read grants in 2015 (Robinson Jeffers) and 2016 (Edgar Allan Poe). She is professor of language and literacy education at the University of Georgia.

Kimiko Hahn finds material from disparate sources: black lung, Japanese zuihitsu, and science as in Brain Fever, one of her nine collections. Her awards include a Guggenheim fellowship. She teaches in the MFA program in creative writing and translation, Queens College, CUNY and is President of the Poetry Society of America.

Amy Stolls is the Director of Literature at the National Endowment for the Arts.

Lisa Bowden is publisher and cofounder of Kore Press. She has developed Kore's twenty-four-years-long list of authors and award-winning programming as a literary activist, artist, and feminist culture worker. She has won awards for her poetry and for her creative activism in the literary community.

Joy Harjo has published eight books of poetry, most recently Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings; the memoir Crazy Brave; four CDs of music; and books for children and young adults. Among her many honors are the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, a Guggenheim fellowship, and a NAMMY.