Jason Koo: Named one of the "100 Most Influential People in Brooklyn Culture" by Brooklyn Magazine, Jason Koo was born in New York City and grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. He is the author of two collections of poetry, America's Favorite Poem (C&R Press, 2014) and Man on Extremely Small Island (C&R Press, 2009), winner of the De Novo Poetry Prize and the Asian American Writers' Workshop Members' Choice Award for the best Asian American book of 2009. He is also the editor of Poems for Kobe, a private limited edition of poems presented as a retirement gift to Kobe Bryant by the Brooklyn Nets and Brooklyn Poets, and coeditor of the forthcoming Bettering American Poetry anthology and Brooklyn Poets Anthology. He has published his poetry and prose in the Yale Review, Missouri Review and Village Voice, among other places, and won fellowships for his work from the National Endowment for the Arts, Vermont Studio Center and New York State Writers Institute. He earned his BA in English from Yale, his MFA in creative writing from the University of Houston and his PhD in English and creative writing from the University of Missouri–Columbia. An assistant teaching professor of English at Quinnipiac University, Koo has also taught writing at NYU and Lehman College–CUNY, where he served as the director of the graduate program in English, and as a senior writer-in-residence for Writers in the Schools. He is the founder and executive director of Brooklyn Poets and creator of the Bridge. He lives in Brooklyn.

Shira Erlichman: In Hebrew SHIRA means “song” & “poem.” Born in Israel, living in Brooklyn, SHIRA is a songwriter, producer, writer & visual artist. She has shared stages with CocoRosie, Mirah, TuNe-YaRdS & Andrea Gibson. A three time Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has been published in PBS Poetry, Buzzfeed Reader, The Huffington Post, BUST Magazine, Winter Tangerine, The Massachusetts Review, as well as alongside Patricia Smith in Bull-Gouging the Matador, in the anthology Courage: Daring Poems for Gutsy Girls and the Lambda award winning LGBTQ anthology Glitter and Grit. She received her BA from Hampshire College, a Millay Colony Fellowship & a James Merrill Fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center. Her latest album “Subtle Creature” is forthcoming in August 2016. 

Jayson P. Smith: Jayson P. Smith is a freelance writer, editor, & curator. Their poems & interviews appear / are forthcoming in journals such as Nepantla, Vinyl, fields magazine, The Offing, The Rumpus, & boundary2. Jayson has been the recipient of fellowships from The Conversation, Millay Colony for the Arts, & Callaloo as well as scholarships from Cave Canem & The New Harmony Writers' Workshop. Currently a Mentor at Urban Word NYC & Creative Director for The Other Black Girl Collective, Jayson is also the founder of NOMAD, a Crown-Heights based performance series. Jayson lives in Brooklyn & through various selfies.

Brynne Rebele-Henry: Brynne Rebele-Henry’s poetry and fiction have appeared in such journals as Denver Quarterly, Prairie Schooner, The Volta, So to Speak, and Fiction International. She was named the runner-up for the Adroit Prize for Poetry by Tarfia Faizullah and the winner of the 2015 Louise Louis/Emily F. Bourne Award by Aimee Nezhukumatathil. Her debut book Fleshgraphs has just been released by Nightboat Books. She is the Editor-in-chief of Fissure Magazine, an online LGBTQ+ literary journal. She was born in 1999 and lives in Richmond, Virginia.