Cynthia Dewi Oka is author of two books of poems, Salvage and Nomad of Salt and Hard Water. A Pushcart Prize Nominee, she has received the Fifth Wednesday Journal Editor's Prize in Poetry and an artist grant from Vermont Studio Center. Her poetry appears in various print and online publications.

Jeffery Renard Allen is the author of five books of fiction and poetry, most recently the novel Song of the Shank. He teaches in the creative writing program at University of Virginia. He has received many accolades for his work, including a Whiting Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Rickey Laurentiis is the author of Boy with Thorn, selected by Terrance Hayes for the 2014 Cave Canem Poetry Prize. His honors include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation in Italy, and a Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation.

Seema Reza is the author of When the World Breaks Open, a memoir in essays and poetry and coordinates and facilitates a unique multihospital military arts program in Washington, DC. She is a VONA alumna and serves as a council member at large for the Transformative Language Arts Network.

Vincent Toro is winner of the Sawtooth Poetry Prize and the Metlife Nuestras Voces Playwriting Award. He is recipient of poetry fellowships from the Poet's House and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Vincent has an MFA in poetry from Rutgers. He teaches at Bronx Community College.