Melissa Studdard is the author of the poetry collection I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast, the middle grade novel Six Weeks to Yehidah, and more. She is the host of VIDA Voices & Views, a vice president of the Women's Caucus, and a professor for Lone Star College System.

Kaveh Akbar is founder and editor of Divedapper, a premiere home for dialogues with the most vital voices in contemporary poetry. His poems appear in Poetry, Tin House, American Poetry Review, FIELD, Boston Review, Narrative, and elsewhere.

Bao Phi is program director of the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. He has been a spoken word poet since the early '90s. He has performed in numerous venues all over the country, and as an arts administrator, strives to serve different communities of writers locally and nationally.

Lindsay Garbutt is the assistant editor of Poetry. She cohosts the Poetry Magazine Podcast with Don Share.

Hafizah Geter