JOSHUA ESCOBAR grew up in southern California's Inland Empire, a working class suburban region of color during the 90's, early 2000's internet/warehouse boom. He was the Dean’s Fellow in Writing at the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College, as well as the Dean’s Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.  He has received fellowships from Shandaken: Storm King and CantoMundo. He co-founded the zine, Orange Mercury, which appeared in an exhibit organized by Indepdent Curators International and currently co-edits the student magazine Open Fruit. He is the author of the chapbooks, Caljforkya Voltage and xxox fm. His experimental debut collection Bareback Nightfall, explores a queer dystopia through the eyes of a deejay, and was a finalist for the 2021 California Book Award and winner of the inaugural Bo Hoston in 2023. He is the Director of Creative Writing at Santa Barbara City College. 

EMMA TRELLES is the Poet Laurate of Santa Barbara, and the daughter of Cuban immigrants. She is author of Tropicalia (University of Notre Dame Press) — winner of the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize and a finalist for Foreword Indies poetry book of the year.  She is currently writing a second book of poems, Courage and the Clock. She has presented her poems at venues across the country, including The Bryant Park Reading Room in New York. The Poet and the Poem Series at the Library of Congress, Busboys & Poets in Washington D.C., the inaugural O’Miami Poetry Festival, the Miami Book Fair, the Ojai Art Center, the University of California-Santa Barbara, The Last Bookstore in Los Angeles, the Milwaukee Public Library, and the Palabra Pura series at the Guild Literary Complex in Chicago. Emma's creative writing has been anthologized in Best American Poetry, Best of the Net, Verse Daily, and others, and recent work appears in Terrain's Letter to America series, the Colorado Review, and Zócalo Public Square. She has received writing fellowships from CantoMundo and the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs and worked for many years as an arts and culture journalist in South Florida. She teaches at Santa Barbara City College and curates the Mission Poetry Series. 

Sarah Boggs teaches Creative Writing and Composition, and is the faculty lead for the Mentoring Program, as well as the SLO coordinator at Santa Barbara City College. She will be teaching English 271 NF abroad, in Italy, in Spring 2023.