Sally Wen Mao is the author of Mad Honey Symposium (Alice James Books, 2014). Her second book, Oculus, is forthcoming from Graywolf Press in 2019. Her work has won a 2017 Pushcart Prize and is published or forthcoming in A Public Space, Poetry, Black Warrior Review, Guernica, The Missouri Review, Tin House, The Best of the Net 2014 and The Best American Poetry 2013, among others. The recipient of fellowships and scholarships from Kundiman, the New York Public Library Cullman Center, and Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Mao holds an M.F.A. from Cornell University. She is the 2017-2018 Jenny McKean Writer in Washington at the George Washington University.

 

A.L. Nielsen's new book of poetry is Tray, from Make Now Books. Nielsen was the first recipient of D.C.'s Larry Neal Award for poetry, and has since published the books Heat Strings, Evacuation Routes, VEXT, Mixage, Stepping Razor, Mantic Semantic and A Brand New Beggar. A graduate of the University of the District of Columbia and George Washington University, he is currently the Kelly Professor of American Literature at the Pennsylvania State University. His critical works include Reading Race, Writing between the Lines, C.L.R. James: A Critical Introduction, Black Chant and Integral Music. With Lauri Ramey, he has co-edited two anthologies of innovative poetry by African American writers. Among other awards, he has been presented the SAMLA Studies Prize, the Kayden Prize, an American Book Award and The Josephine Miles Award. His poetry has appeared in both Best American Poems and Best American Experimental Writing.

 

Wesley Rothman is the author of SUBWOOFER (New Issues 2017). Recipient of a Vermont Studio Center fellowship, his poems and criticism have appeared in Boston Review, Callaloo, Crazyhorse, Harvard Review, New England Review, Poetry Northwest, Prairie Schooner, Southern Humanities Review, and The Golden Shovel Anthology, among other venues. He serves as a Teaching Artist for the National Gallery of Art and is pursuing a doctorate in literature.