Brandel France de Bravo

Brandel France de Bravo’s third collection of poems, Locomotive Cathedral, was chosen in the Backwaters Press contest for publication by the University of Nebraska Press (March 2025). Her poems have recently appeared in Best American Poetry, 32 Poems, The Cincinnati Review, The Southern Review and elsewhere. She has received fellowships from the DC Commission for the Arts, the Hermitage Artist Retreat and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Brandel divides her time between Washington, D.C., where she was born and raised, and Mexico. She teaches a meditation course developed at Stanford University called Compassion Cultivation Training.© www.brandelfrancedebravo.com 

Diane Seuss

Diane Seuss was born in Michigan City, Indiana, in 1956 and raised in Edwardsburg and Niles, Michigan. She studied at Kalamazoo College and Western Michigan University, where she received a master’s degree in social work.

Seuss is the author of six books of poetry: Modern Poetry (Graywolf Press, 2024), a finalist for the National Book Award and short-listed for the Griffin Poetry Prize; frank: sonnets (Graywolf Press, 2021), winner of the 2022 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry, the 2021 Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the 2021 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, and the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry; Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl (Graywolf Press, 2018), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Poetry; Four-Legged Girl (Graywolf Press, 2015), a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; Wolf Lake, White Gown Blown Open (University of Massachusetts Press, 2010), a recipient of the Juniper Prize for Poetry; and It Blows You Hollow (New Issues Press, 1998).

A Guggenheim Fellow, Seuss was writer in residence at Kalamazoo College for many years, and has been a visiting professor at Colorado College, the University of Michigan’s Helen Zell Writers’ Program, and Washington University in St. Louis. In 2021, she received the John Updike Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In March 2023, Seuss served as the Guest Editor of the Poem-a-Day series. In January 2024, Seuss was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. She lives in Michigan.