KARREN LALONDE ALENIER is author of eight poetry collections—latest: how we hold on from Broadstone Books, 2021—and editor or co-editor of three anthologies, including From the Belly, volumes I & II. Gertrude Stein Invents a Jump Early On, her jazz opera with composer Bill Banfield premiered June 2005 in New York by Encompass New Opera Theatre. More at alenier.com.

ELLY SULLIVAN studies literature at Montgomery College and the University of Maryland. She first encountered Tender Buttons in ModPo and periodically returns to Stein with fascination. Elly is an associate editor at Potomac Review. 

DONNA DENIZÉ earned an M.A. in Renaissance drama from Howard University, where she studied with poet Robert Hayden. She has contributed to scholarly books and journals (The American Sonnet, An Anthology of Poems and Essays, University of Iowa Press; Shakespeare Set Free, Washington Square Press). Her poetry collections are The Lover’s Voice (1997) and Broken Like Job (The Word Works, 2005). She currently chairs the English Department at St. Albans School for Boys.

MAJDA GAMA is the author of the chapbook The Call of Paradise selected by Diane Seuss as winner of the 2022 Two Sylvias chapbook prize. Her full-length manuscript was a finalist for the New Issues poetry prize. Her poetry has appeared in Adroit, Four Way Review, Ploughshares, and POETRY.

MICHAEL GUSHUE is co-founder of Poetry Mutual Press, the BAWA poetry reading series, and the Bullets of Love blog. His books are Pachinko Mouth, Conrad, Gathering Down Women, and—in collaboration with CL Bledsoe—I Never Promised You a Sea Monkey. He lives in the Brookland neighborhood of Washington, D. C.

SUSAN OKIE’s full-length poetry manuscript, Woman at the Crossing, won the 2023 Off the Grid Poetry Prize. Her chapbook, Let You Fly, was published in 2018. Her work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Journal of the American Medical Association, and other magazines. A physician and former medical reporter and science editor for The Washington Post, she lives in Bethesda, MD.