Over 100 contemporary American poets, well-known and unknown, share an anguished cry against the scourge of poverty.
CONTRIBUTORS NOTES
Imali Abala was born in Western Kenya and is currently living in Ohio. Her publications include Drum Bits of Terror (2014), A Fallen Citadel (poetry, 2012), The Dilemma of Jahenda, the Teenage Mother (2010), The Disinherited (2007). and Move on, Trufosa (2006). Some of her other works have appeared in A Thousand Voices Rising, and Reflections: An Anthology of African Women Poets (2013).
Cona F. (Faye) Gregory-Adams is an award-winning writer or poetry, childrens books, nonfiction, and short fiction. She has been published in poetry journals and anthologies in the US, UK, Korea and Canada. Faye served as Missouris senior poet laureate. View her work at www.fayeadams.com.
Julia Alvarez is a Dominican-American poet, novelist and essayist, author of the novel, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents and the poetry collections, Homecoming: New and Selected Poems and The Woman I Kept to Myself. She has received grants from the National Endowment of the Arts and the Ingraham Foundation. She is the writer in residence at Middlebury College, VT.
Elvis Alves has written poetry that has appeared in The Caribbean Writers Journal, Colere, Magazine De L Mancha, First Reads, St Somewhere Journal, The Shine Journal and Small Axe Salon. He lives and works in New York City.
Onleilove Alston is a graduate of the Master of Divinity/Master of Social Work program at Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University School of Social Work. As a member of the Poverty Initiative she co-developed the Mary Magdala Welfare Queen Project. Onleilove is a contributing writer for Sojourners Magazine and Blogging Specialist at Ecumenical Women at the United Nations. She lives in New York City.
Bobbi Arduini hold an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from St. Marys College where she received the Chester Aaron Scholarship for excellence in writing. Her work has appeared in Women Reinvented, Good Dogs Doing Good, and Sacred Fools. She also makes music and teaches high school English. She lives in Santa Monica, CA.
Cynthia Aretz, who died in 2012, lived in public housing in Minneapolis.
Peggy Aylsworths poetry has appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, The Alembic, The MacGuffin, Ars Interpres (Sweden), Chiron Review, Rattle, Poetry Saltzburg Review and numerous other journals in the U. S. and abroad. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2012. A retired psychotherapist, she lives in Santa Monica, CA.
Reed Banks is an artist and a retired administrator of services for the mentally challenged in Albemarle County, Virginia. He lives in Charlottesville, VA.
Melissa Barber, a native of the Bronx, NY, is a single mother of an autistic daughter, and recently weathered and survived the NYC homeless shelter system. She trained and graduated as a medical physician from the Latin American School of Medicine in Havana, Cuba and is currently studying for her US licensing exams.
Glenda Barrett, a native and resident of North Georgia, is an artist, poet and writer. Her work has been published widely in such places as Womans World, Farm and Ranch Living, Country Woman, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and Journal of Kentucky Studies. Her first chapbook was published by Finishing Line Press.
Allie Marini Batts came here to kick ass and chew bubblegum and shes ALL out of bubblegum. She is an alumna of New College of Florida. Her work has appeared in over 40 literary magazines. She is a research writer by day and is pursuing her MFA degree through Antioch University of Los Angeles. She calls Tallahassee home.
Starr Cummin Bright lives and works as a writer, farm manager (Pennsylvania) and director of a youth sailing program (Maine). She finds her way in woods, fields and on rivers and the sea, bringing physical and mystical observations to paper.
Polly Brody is the author of four books: Other Nations, The Burning Bush, At the Flower's Lip, Stirring Shadows. At the Flower's Lip was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Polly's other métier is environmentalist/birder. As Chairwoman of the Newtown Conservation Commission she was instrumental in conserving a 790 acre peninsula as a CT State Forest.
Ashley Bryan is a renowned illustrator and author of numerous childrens books including Sing to the Sun, Beautiful Blackbird, The Dancing Granny, The ABCs of African-American Poetry and his autobiography, Words to My Lifes Song. He has twice won the Coretta Scott King Award and won the Laura Ingalls Wilder Lifetime Achievement award. He lives on an island in Maine.
Deborah Byrne is retired from the field of Special Education and Culinary Arts and Hospitality. After a divorce, she was unable to find affordable housing while completing her degree in the Boston area. Homeless for a year, she has published poetry, photography, and articles on how poverty affects survivors of abuse. She lives in Wyoming.
Patricia Frisella, past President of the Poetry Society of New Hampshire, has a collection of poems published most recently in Liberation Poetry: An Anthology, edited by Tontongi and Jill Netchinsky (Trilingual Press, 2011). She won the 2012 International Merit Reward from Atlanta Review.
Lydia Caros is a pediatrician working with Native Americans in Minneapolis, MN. She is a member of the Twin Cities Friends Meeting.
Deborah Brody Chen, who writes under the name, miaokuancha, has lived long enough that it won't fit into a nutshell. New England, Taiwan, and Hawaii have all been called home. She writes, If it catches my eye or my heart it will probably end up in ink or pixels. I mother. I nurse. I teach. I write. I feel. I see. I am.”
Sharon Chmielarz has had seven books of poetry published including Calling, a finalist for the Indie Book Awards, 2011, and The Other Mozart. Her most recent book is Love From the Yellowstone Trail. Shes had poems published in magazines like Notre Dame Review, The Iowa Review, Salmagundi, North American Review and Prairie Schooner. She was awarded the Water-Stone Reviews 2012 Jane Kenyon Prize.
Jayne Cortez, who died in 2012, was a performance poet and jazz musician whose work was marked by outrage and protest. She founded the Watts Repertory Company and lived in New York and Senegal at the time of her death. Winner of an American Book Award, she received many fellowships including one from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Mary Cowette is an artist and a writer. She is a single mom and lives in St. Paul, MN with her kids and cats.
Brian Daldorph teaches at the University of Kansas and Douglas County Jail. He edits Coal City Review. His most recent books of poetry are From the Inside Out: Sonnets (Woodley Publishers, 2008) and Jail Time (Original Plus Publishers, 2009).
Ungelbah Daniel-Davila earned a BFA from the Institute of American Indian Art in Santa Fe, NM. Her lineage can be traced to the outlaws of the American West, the Spanish land-grant people, and the Ashihi clan of the Dine. She is the recipient of the Truman Capote Scholarship and is the creator and editor of the on-line publication La Loca Magazine.
Ann Marie Davis is a life-long resident of the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2009, after sustaining a job-related injury, she decided to spend her life pursuing a creative path. Today, she is a writer, painter and poet and is working on her first novel tentatively titled You Were Always Waiting for This Moment, as well as her first collection of poetry.
Margo Daviss poetry has appeared in Texas Poetry Calendar, New Orleans Review, Maple Leaf Rag, Passages North, The Louisville Review, Negative Capability and Louisiana Literature. More recent poems appear in Surrounded: Living with Islands, The Sows Ear Poetry Review and Calliope. She manages Library Services at a leading law firm in Houston.
Mary Krane Derr is a poet, writer, musician and fourth generation South Side Chicagoan. Her poetry has been nominated for a Best of the Web award, Best American Poetry, and Best Spiritual Writing. She has contributed to literary magazines in the U. S., Ireland, Great Britain, and India as well as anthologies like Hunger Enough: Living Spiritually in a Consumer Society (Pudding House).
Heid Erdrich, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibway, serves as a visiting writer at colleges and universities around the country. She is the author of the poetry collections Fishing for Myth, National Monuments (2008), and Cell Traffic (2012). She also authored The Mothers Tongue and co-edited Sister Nations: Native American Women on Community.
Mike Essig was a poet, writer, teacher, tutor, and gardener who lived in Mechanicsburg, PA. He died in 2013.
Amendu Evans has served as a member of the Philadelphias Media Mobilizing Projects Executive Committee and Labor Committee, as a site organizer for the MMP and Logan CDC Carlton Simmons Technology Keyspot Computer Center, and the coordinator of MMP's Labor Justice Radio. A hip-hop artist, stand-up comic, lifetime resident of Philadelphia, he is also a shop steward representing maintenance workers.
Patricia Fargnoli is an award winning poet and retired psychotherapist. Author of six poetry collections, including Lives of Others, Duties of the Spirit, and Winter, she was New Hampshires poet laureate from 2006-2009. She is the recipient of a Macdowell Colony fellowship. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, The Indiana Review, Nimrod, and others.
Ann Filemyr is a poet and writer who serves as the Academic Dean at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. Her recent books of poetry include: On the Nature of Tides (LaNana Creek Press 2012); The Healer's Diary (Sunstone Press 2012); Growing Paradise (LaNana Creek Press 2011), and Love Enough (Red Mountain Press, 2013). She believes in the power of creativity to transform our lives.
Deborah Finklestein has an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College. Her poetry has been published in anthologies, literary magazines, and newspapers in Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Serbia and the U. S., as well as in online publications. She teaches creative writing in Boston, MA.
Patricia Frisella, past President of the Poetry Society of New Hampshire, has a collection of poems published most recently in Liberation Poetry: An Anthology, edited by Tontongi and Jill
Netchinsky (Trilingual Press, 2011) She won the 2012 International Merit Reward from Atlanta Review.
Brendan Galvin is the author of 12 collections of poetry including, Atlantic Flyway, Hotel Malabar (Iowa Poetry Prize), Habitat (National Book Award Nominee), and Ocean Effects. Other awards and prizes include two NEA fellowships, a Guggenheim Fellowship, The Sotheby Prize, and Poetrys Levinson Prize. Retired from 40 years of college teaching, he lives in Truro, MA.
Michael Glaser served as Poet Laureate of Maryland from 2004-2009 and is Professor Emeritus of St. Marys College in St. Marys City, MD. Over 500 of his poems have been published in magazines and journals. His most recent collections of poetry include: Being a Father (2004), Fire Before the Hands (Anabiosis Press, 2007), Remembering Eden (Finishing Line Press, 2008), and Disrupting Consensus (The Teachers Voice, 2009).
Meri Harary is an MFA candidate at Southern Connecticut State University. She received the Leo Conellan Award from the Connecticut State Arts Board and is working on her third chapbook.
Markita Hawkins is a resident of Nicollet Square, a Beacon Foundation housing project for formerly homeless youth in Minneapolis, MN.
Roberta Hill is an enrolled member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin. A poet, fiction writer and scholar, she has been published in anthologies such as Sing: Poetry from the Indigenous Americas (Sun Tracks, 2011), and Bringing Gifts, Bringing News (DownStairs Press, 2011). Her poetry collections have been Star Quilt (1984), Philadelphia Flowers (1996) and Cicadas (2013). She is a professor in the English department and the American Indian Studies Program of UW, Madison.
Tanya Hough is a member of Poor Voices United. Poor Voices United, located in the Atlantic City area, is working to end poverty by uniting poor people through stories, service, advocacy and action. They help fight for the human rights to housing, health care, a living wage, education, and food.
Scott Hutchisons work has appeared in numerous publications, with new work forthcoming in The Medulla Review, The Coe Review, and The Tulane Review. He is poet laureate of Gilford, NH.
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Zehra Imam is currently a high school teacher in the South Bronx. Zehra is an alumna of the University of Michigan-Dearborn, and is the founder/director for the Illuminated Cities Project, an interfaith, multi-racial experiential learning fellowship for student leaders in segregated cities.
Jim Johnsons poetry is closely tied to his roots in Northern Minnesota and reveals concern for the environment and the people and creatures in it. His books include Finns in Minnesota Winter, A Field Guide to Blueberries, and Wolves. His books Dovetailed Corners and The Coop Label were in collaboration with photographer Marlene Wisuri. He has taught in Duluth, MN public schools.
Lisa Kang has an MFA from Lindenwood University in St Charles, MO. She teaches Chinese and Asian Philosophy at universities and community colleges in the St Louis area. Her poetry has appeared in Earths Daughters, Calliope, Haydens Ferry, Spillway, Greatest Uncommon Denominator and The View from Here.
Kathryn Kerr is the author of four chapbooks, most recently Turtles All the Way Down from Finishing Line Press. Recent poems are in Big Muddy: A Journal of the Mississippi Valley, Illinois English Bulletin, WordRiver, Earths Daughters, Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment, and Blue Line. She teaches at Illinois State University.
Susan Deborah King is the author of five collections of poetry including, Coven, One-Breasted Woman, Bog Orchids, and Dropping into the Flower. Her poems have appeared in numerous publications including Tar River Poetry, Prairie Schooner, and The Willow Review. She teaches creative writing and leads retreats on spirituality and creativity in Minneapolis and Maine.
Jonathan Langley is a poet living in the United States.
Luis Larin is a leadership organizer for The United Workers, a human rights organization in the Baltimore, MD area, led by low-wage workers who are leading the fight for fair development, which respects human rights, maximizes public benefits and is sustainable.
James P. Lenfestey is a former editorial writer for the Minneapolis StarTribune, where he won several Page One Awards for excellence. Since 2000, he has published a collection of essays, five collections of poems, a poetry anthology and co-edited Robert Bly in This World, University of Minnesota Press. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife of 47 years, the political activist Susan Lenfestey. They have four children and seven grandchildren.
Roseann Lloyd is the author of eight books, including four collections of poetry Tap Dancing with Big Mom, War Baby Express, Because of the Light and The Boy who Slept Under the Stars. She teaches at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis and is an adjunct professor at several Twin Cities colleges and universities.
George Ella Lyon is the author of thirty-five books for children and adults. Her books of poetry are Catalpa and Where Im From, Where Poems Come From. Recent books include Don't You Remember? a memoir and Sonnys House of Spies, a novel for young readers. She lives in Lexington, Kentucky and works as a freelance writer and teacher.
Chosen Lyric is a poet, blogger, artist residing in Coram, NY and Port St. Lucie, FL. He has been published in Visions, Voices, Verses, Bards Annual 2012 and 2013, Songs of Sandy, Poetry Path and other anthologies. His main inspiration was watching friends struggle and sometimes die from addiction. He currently specializes in storytelling poetry related to addiction.
Mekeel McBride has published six books of poetry, all from Carnegie Mellon University Press, including her latest book, Dog Star Delicatessen, New and Selected Poems 1970-2006. She has held fellowships at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University, and the McDowell Colony, as well as being a recipient of two NEA grants. Her poems have appeared in the New Yorker, Poetry Field, Seneca Review, Antioch Review, The Nation, Virginia Quarterly Review, Ploughshares, the Georgia Review, and many other places.
Anne McCradys writing appears in her own poetry collections, as well as literary journals, arts magazines and anthologies. She is a frequent literary and motivational speaker and advocate for peace and social justice. Her outreach includes social media and her website, InSpiritry.com. She lives in Tyler, Texas.
Ethna McKiernan is the author of three books of poems, the most recent of which Sky Thick with Fireflies (Salmon Poetry, Ireland). Poems of hers appear in The Notre Dame Anthology of Irish-American Poetry, 33 Minnesota Poets and Beloved on this Earth. She is employed in a non-profit working with the long-term homeless population in St Paul, MN.
Wesley McNair is the poet laureate of Maine and emeritus professor and writer-in-residence at the University of Maine in Farmington. Winner of many fellowships, including the Rockefeller, the Guggenheim, and the National Endowment for the Arts, he is the author of nine books of poetry, the latest of which is Lovers of the Lost. Three collections of prose include a recent memoir, The Words I Chose.
Marsha Mathews is an author and educator, and a former United Methodist minister. She has published two chapbooks: Sunglow &a Tuft of Nottingham Lace (Red Berry Editions, 2011) and Northbound (Finishing Line Press). Poems of hers have appeared in Kansas Quarterly, Inkwell, Apalachee Review, among others. She teaches writing at Dalton State College, Dalton, GA.
Stephen Mead, a resident of Albany, NY is a published artist, writer and maker of short collage-films. His latest project, a collaboration with Kevin McLeod, is entitled Whispers of Arias,” a two volume CD set of narrative poems set to music.
Marsha Mentzer lives in Carlisle, PA and taught English for thirty-five years at Carlisle High School. Her poetry has been published in Main Channel Voices, Four and Twenty, Ruminate, Relief, Tipton Poetry Journal, Caesura, Hospital Drive, Peeks and Valleys, The Village Pariah, Horticulture, Time to Sing, Seeding the Snow, Pedestal, and Broken Circles.
Afzal Moolla was born in Delhi, India where his South African parents were in exile, working in the African National Congress (ANC) in the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa.
Afzal currently works and lives in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Sharon Lack Munson is the author of the chapbook, Stillness Settles Down the Lane (Uttered Chaos Press, 2010) and a full length book of poems, That Certain Blue. She publishes widely in
literary journals and anthologies and lives in Eugene, OR.
Sheryl L. Nelms is from Marysville, Kansas. An alumna of South Dakota State University with a concentration in Family Relations and Child Development, she has had over 5,000 articles, stories and poems published, including fourteen individual collections of poems. She is the fiction/nonfiction editor of The Pen Woman Magazine, and a Pushcart Prize nominee.
Marilyn Nelson is a three time National Book Award Finalist in poetry. She has received the Poets Prize, The Robert Frost Medal, a Newberry Honor, and three Coretta Scott King Awards. Her books include A Wreath for Emmet Till, Carver, Fields of Praise, Faster than Light, and, most recently, How I Discovered Poetry. She is emerita professor of English from the University of Connecticut.
Kara Newhouse works as a journalist and is an organizer with Put People First! PA, which fights for human rights of all people. She grew up in Millersville, PA and now lives in Duncannon.
Naomi Shihab Nye was born to a Palestinian father and an American mother. She is the recipient of many honors and awards, among them are four Pushcart Prizes, the Jane Addams Childrens Book Award and the Paterson Poetry Prize. Her books include, Fuel, Nineteen Varieties of Gazelle, A Maze Me, and Transfer.
Molly O'Dell is a practicing physician, Alegent Health Medical Director for Healthier Communities, and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Public Health and Pediatrics at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Molly, originally from Roanoke, VA, completed her MFA in poetry in 2008 at University of Nebraska and has poems in Chest, JAMA and other journals.
Gregory Orr is the author of 11 collections of poetry including City of Salt, Concerning the Book That is the Body of the Beloved, and River Inside the River. He is also the author of books of criticism and a memoir, The Blessing. He lives in Charlottesville, VA where he teaches at the University of Virginia, where he founded the MFA program in 1975.
Carl Palmer, twice nominated for the Micro Award and thrice for the Pushcart Prize by poetry magazine editors, is from Old Mill Rd in Ridgeway, VA.He now lives in University Place, WA.
Martha Postlethwaite is a minister in the United Methodist Church and chaplain of United Theological Seminary in New Brighton, MN. She is also a teacher, retreat leader and writer whose pieces have been published in many periodicals and anthologies. She lives in St. Paul, MN.
David Radavich is a socially committed poet, playwright, and essayist. His poetry collections have been Slain Species (Court Poetry, London, 1980), By the Way (Buttonwood 1998), Greatest Hits (2000) and The Countries We Live In (2014). He was 2009 distinguished professor at Eastern Illinois University. He lives in Charlotte, NC.
Helen Klein Ross is a former creative director at top ad agencies in New York who spent over 20 years in the ad business before turning to other kinds of fiction. Her stories, poems and essays have been published by the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and The New Yorker. Her first book, Making It, A Novel of Madison Avenue is a coming-of-middle age story about a woman and a business (advertising).
Carlos Reyes lives and works in Portland, OR. He has read his poetry around the world from India to Ecuador, Ireland to Panama. He has received the Heinrich Boll Fellowship, a fellowship at Yaddo and the Fundacion Valparaiso (Mojacar, Spain). The Book of Shadows: New and Selected Poems was published in 2009 and Pomegranate, Sister of the Heart in 2011.
Lola Rodriguez was a young runaway, a survivor who grew up on city streets. She became a writer she believes she was born to be because of, that is to say, in spite of, what would never, for her, a poverty of spirit.
Pattiann Rogers has published eleven books of poetry and two collections essays. Her most recent collection of poems is Holy Heathen Rhapsody. Firekeeper: New and Selected Poems was a finalist for the Lenore Marshall Prize. Rogers has received two NEA grants, a Lannan Literary Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship and five Pushcart Prizes. She lives in Colorado with her husband, a geophysicist, and is the mother of two sons and three grandsons.
Rose Schwab is an MDiv graduate of Union Theological Seminary in New York and a Work Study Fellow with the Poverty Initiative. She is seminarian in residence at First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Brooklyn and hails from St. Paul, MN.
Karen Seay is settling into the idea of writing seriously after a lifetime of resisting the call. A native of South Carolina, she has made her home in Minneapolis for more than 40 years. She has taught and directed high school theater in public schools and has practiced law. She lives with her husband Ted Allen; they have one daughter, Emilia.
Anne Eleanor Seltz writes to figure out something or just when she has figured it out. Her profession of audiology has gifted her with the opportunity to talk with thousands of people over the last 45 years about their trouble communicating. Her book about her experiences entitled What? is forthcoming in 2014.
Gene Severson attended the University of Minnesota with an interest in architecture. He has worked in mental health human services and contends with Aspbergers. After a period of homelessness, he resides at Lydia Apartments in Minneapolis where he is part of the writers group and performs his work at various functions.
Betsy Sholl is the author of eight volumes of poetry, most recently, Otherwise Unseeable (University of Wisconsin, 2014). She teaches in the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Writing Program, and lives in Portland, Maine. She was Poet Laureate of Maine from 2006 to 2011.
Michael Shorb is a San Francisco-based poet whose work reflects an abiding interest in environmental issue, history and the lyrical form. His poems have appeared in over 100 magazines and anthologies including The Nation, The Sun, Michigan Quarterly Review, Queens Quarterly, Commonweal and Rattle. His collection Whale Watchers Morning came out in 2013.
Marty Silverthorne lives in Greenville, NC. He received the Sam Ragan Fine Arts Award in 1993 and has been awarded several grants from the NC Arts Council. His poems have appeared in The St. Andrews Review, Carolina Literary Companion, Tar River Poetry, Chattahoochee and others. He has published two chapbooks: Dry-Skin Messiah and Pot Liquor Promises.
Claudia Solotaroff was raised in Southern Minnesota and now lives in Minneapolis. She attended the University of Minnesota and lived in Oregon for a while. She has had many different kinds of jobs, is married with 3 stepchildren and one daughter.
Susan Marie Swanson is an author of numerous books for children including Getting Used to the Dark, The First Thing My Mama Told Me, Letter to the Lake and The House in the Night which won her a Minnesota Book Award and the Caldecott Medal. She teaches in the COMPAS poets-in-the-schools program and lives in St Paul, MN.
Aaron Stauffer is a third year MDiv student at Union Theological Seminary, New York, and Associate Director, Religions for Peace, USA.
Madreen Stevens struggled with drug addiction which led to homelessness, but is now in recovery. She makes jewelry and is part of the Chicago/Franklin Arts Collective in Minneapolis. Her work appears in Other Voice, an anthology published by the collective.
Tony Stoneburner. (b. NYC, 1926), whose BD (Drew 1950) led him to a decade as a Methodist parish and campus minister in the Midwest and whose PhD (U of MI 1966) led him to a quarter of a century as an academic in OH, summers in ME and winters in MN. GATHERINGS and AFTERMATHS (Limekiln Press, 2006) offers a selection of his poems.
John Thiemeyer was homeless for two decades and got help in Portland, OR where he found subsidized housing and medical coverage. Since finding housing he has written for a bi-weekly publication, street roots, whose focus is homelessness, thus advocating for those still on the street
Kim Tran is currently a graduate student in the Ethnic Studies Program at the University of California, Berkeley. She is originally from San Jose, daughter of a single mother. She has been working with her community of low-income and queer youth and hopes to teach in California public schools.
Natasha Trethewey is The U S poet laureate. She has won a Pulitzer Prize, a Bunting Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship, among other honors. Her books have been Domestic Work, Native Guard, Bellocqs Ophelia and Thrall. She is a professor of English at Emory University in Atlanta.
Connie Walle is a life-long resident of Tacoma, WA. She is president of the Puget Sound Poetry Connection, which she founded 25 years ago. Having published over 100 poems, she founded Our Own Words, a county-wide teen writing contest in its 18th year.
Beverly Welch is the facilitator of that of the Lydia Apartments writers group. She grew up on a farm west of Minneapolis and moved to Minneapolis to go to school and work. She has worked as a pre-school teacher, a journalist and as a volunteer coordinator. She has been the editor of the literary journal, Other Voices. Her poetry has been published in eXpressions Journal, Full Circle, the Southwest Journal and others and has published two books of poetry and one novel.
Colleen Wessel-McCoy has been involved with the Poverty Initiative since 2004 and currently serves as the Fellows Program Coordinator. Originally from Georgia, Colleen a PhD candidate in Christian Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York.
John Wessel-McCoy is a project organizer at the Poverty Initiative. He is originally from Decatur, Illinois. He earned an MA Union Theological Seminary and was awarded the Charles Augustus Briggs Award. Prior to entering the MA program at Union Theological and working with the Poverty Initiative, he was a union organizer.
Dan Williams is a poet of the Sierra Nevada mountains whose work has appeared in many journals, magazines and anthologies.
Tony Williams, also known as Tony the Scribe, is a rapper and college student based in Minneapolis, MN. He is the lyricist half of the group KILLSTREAK, who put out their debut album, Janus” in July 2013. You can learn more about KILLSTREAK at www.killstreak.info
Keith Wilson, who died in 2009, was the author of over 40 volumes of poetry. He was the winner of many awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a PEN center award. His book, Graves Registry, was nominated for a National Book Award in 1992. At the time of his death he was the poet laureate of Las Cruces, NM.
Laura Madeline Wiseman has a doctorate from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where she teaches English. She is the author of five chapbooks including Branding Girls (Finishing Line Press 2011). Her poetry, prose and reviews have appeared in Cream City Review, 13th Moon, Prairie Schooner, Blackbird, Mississippi Review and others.
Carolyne Wright has published nine books and chapbooks of poetry, and four volumes of translation from Spanish and Bengali. Her books include Mania Klepto: the Book of Eulene, and Seasons of Mangoes and Brainfire, which won the American Book Award. She teaches for the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts Whidbey Writers Workshop MFA Program and lives in Seattle.
Pam Wynn is a poet who teaches poetry and creative, liturgical, and expository writing at United Theological Seminary in New Brighton, MN. Author of Diamonds on the Back of a Snake, she has published widely and received support for her work from the Dayton Hudson, Jerome, and General Mills Foundations, and others. She has completed a libretto for an opera based on the Book of Ruth in collaboration with composer Barbara Rogers, which was first performed in April 2008.
Anu Yadav is a dramatist and actor. Much of her work incorporates a social justice component into the theatrical setting. Capers is a solo play she developed based on the stories of D.C. public housing families who protested the demolition of their community. In addition to spearheading Classlines, a storytelling project about wealth and poverty, Yadav earned fellowships to train at Augusto Boal's Center for the Theatre of the Oppressed in Rio de Janeiro and to work with the Indian street theater troupe, Jana Natya Manch, in New Delhi.
Jane Yolen is the author of over 340 books, including Owl Moon and The Devils Arithmetic. Her books and stories have won two Nebula Awards, A World Fantasy Award, a Caldecott, the Golden Kite Award, three Mythopoetic awards, two Christopher Medals, a nomination for the National Book Award, and many others. She divides her time between Massachusetts and Scotland.
Kevin Young is a professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University and the author of several collections of poetry including Ardency, Dear Darkness , For the Confederate Dead and Jazz Poems. He has won the PEN/Open Book award, The Quill award and the Patterson Poetry Prize. He was raised mostly in Topeka, KS and lives now in Atlanta.