Quraysh Ali Lansana, Julie Marie Wade, Matthew Yeager
Quraysh Ali Lansana is a prolific poet, writer, and editor. His most recent books include The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip Hop, co-edited with Kevin Coval and Nate Marshall (Haymarket Books, 2015) and The Walmart Republic, a collaboration with poet Christopher Stewart (Mongrel Empire Press, 2014). Forthcoming titles include: A Gift from Greensboro (Penny Candy Books, 2016); Clara Luper: The Woman Who Rallied the Children, a collaboration with Julie Dill (Oklahoma Hall of Fame Press, 2017); Revise the Psalm: Work Celebrating the Writings of Gwendolyn Brooks, co-edited with Sandra Jackson-Opoku (Curbside Splendor, 2017) and The Whiskey of Our Discontent: Gwendolyn Brooks as Conscience and Change Agent, co-edited with Georgia A. Popoff (Haymarket Books, 2017). He is a faculty member of the Writing Program of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Our Difficult Sunlight: A Guide to Poetry, Literacy & Social Justice in Classroom & Community (with Georgia A. Popoff) was published in March 2011 by Teachers & Writers Collaborative and was a 2012 NAACP Image Award nominee.
Julie Marie Wade latest poetry collection, Six (Red Hen Press, 2016), was selected by C.D. Wright as the winner of the AROHO/To the Lighthouse Poetry Prize. Her earlier books of poetry include When I Was Straight (A Midsummer Night’s Press, 2014) and Catechism: A Love Story (Noctuary Press, 2010). Her lyric essay collection, Wishbone: A Memoir in Fractures (Colgate University Press, 2010; Bywater Books, 2014), won the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir. Julie teaches in the creative writing program at Florida International University and reviews regularly for The Rumpus and Lambda Literary Review. She is married to Angie Griffin and lives on Hollywood Beach.
Matthew Yeager is the author of Like That (H_NGM_N Books, 2016). His poems have appeared in Sixthfinch, Gulf Coast, Minnesota Review, Bat City Review, and elsewhere, as well as in The Best American Poetry 2005 and The Best American Poetry 2010. His short film “A Big Ball of Foil in a Small NY Apartment” was an official selection at thirteen film festivals, picking up three awards. Other distinctions include the Barthelme Prize in short prose and two MacDowell fellowships. With John Deming, he is the co-curator of the long running KGB Monday Night Poetry Series.