August 18, 2022

Joel Dias-Porter (aka DJ Reneg8d) resides in South Jersey. The 1998 and 1999 Haiku Slam champion, he has poems in Poetry, Mead, Best American Poetry 2014, Callaloo, Antioch Review, Red Brick Review, and the anthologies Short Fuse, Role Call, Def Poetry Jam, 360 Degrees of Black Poetry, Poetry Nation, Beyond the Frontier, and Catch a Fire. A Cave Canem Fellow, he received the 1995 Furious Flower “Emerging Poet Award.” His collection, Ideas of Improvisation, came out in 2022 from Thread Makes Blanket Press. Visit his blog.

Gary Copeland Lilley is the author of eight books of poetry, the most recent being a second edition of Highwater Everywhere (Willow Books, 2022) and The Bushman’s Medicine Show (Lost Horse Press, 2017). He is originally from North Carolina and now lives and writes in the Pacific Northwest. Gary is the artistic curator of the Port Townsend Writers Conference. He is a Cave Canem Fellow, and he sings the blues.