Evie Shockley is the author of two books of poetry—the new black (Wesleyan, 2011), winner of the 2012 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in Poetry, and a half-red sea (Carolina Wren Press, 2006)—and a critical study,Renegade Poetics: Black Aesthetics and Formal Innovation in African American Poetry (Iowa, 2011).  Her poetry and essays appear widely in journals and anthologies, and her work has received such recognition and support as the 2012 Holmes National Poetry Prize and residencies at Hedgebrook, MacDowell, and the Millay Colony for the Arts.  Currently serving as creative editor on the Feminist Studies editorial collective, Shockley is Associate Professor of English at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. 

Brett Price lives and writes in Brooklyn, NY.  He is an editor and co-founder of American Books (americanbooksusa.wordpress.com).

Winner of an Amy Lowell scholarship, a Whiting award, and fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Fine Arts Work Center, Yaddo, and MacDowell, Elizabeth Arnold has published four books of poems: Life, The Reef, Civilization, and Effacement. She is on the MFA faculty at the University of Maryland.

Steven Karl is the author of Dork Swagger, winner of the Joanna Cargill Prize for a First Book (Coconut Books). You can view the book trailer here. His second book, Sister, is forthcoming from Noemi Press. He is the features editor for Coldfront Magazine and a poetry editor for Sink Review. Recent writings have appeared in jubilat, Sprung Formal, and The First Time I Heard My Bloody Valentine. He lives in Miami, Florida.