Samiya Bashir is the author of three books of poetry: Field Theories, and Gospel, and Where the Apple Falls. Sometimes she makes poems of dirt. Sometimes zeros and ones. Sometimes variously rendered text. Sometimes light. Her work has been widely published, performed, installed, printed, screened, and experienced. Bashir holds a BA from the University of […]

Khary Polk is an Assistant Professor of Black Studies & Sexuality, Women's and Gender Studies at Amherst College. He attended Oberlin College as an undergraduate, where he majored in English with a concentration in Creative Writing, and received his Ph.D. in American Studies from New York University. Polk has written for the Studio Museum of […]

Julian Talamantez Brolaski is the author of Of Mongrelitude (Wave Books, 2017), which was recently shortlisted for a Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry; Advice for Lovers (City Lights 2012); and Gowanus Atropolis (Ugly Duckling Press, 2011. It is coediter of NO GENDER: Reflections on the Life & Work of Kari Edwards, as well as […]

Valeria Luiselli,  Hofstra University, is a novelist and non-fiction writer. She is the author of Faces in the Crowd, Sidewalks, The Story of My Teeth, and Tell Me How It Ends. Twice nominated for both the Kirkus Prize and the NBCC Award, she is the two-time winner of an L.A. Times Book Prize, a recipient […]

Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich is the author of THE FACT OF A BODY: A Murder and a Memoir, recipient of the 2018 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir and the 2018 Chautauqua Prize. Named one of the best books of the year by Entertainment Weekly, Audible.com, Bustle, Book Riot, The Times of London, and The Guardian, it […]

Duy Doan is a Vietnamese American poet and the author of We Play a Game, winner of the 2017 Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize. His work has appeared in Poetry, Poetry Northwest, Slate, and TriQuarterly. A Kundiman fellow, he received an MFA in poetry from Boston University, where he later served as director of […]

Myriam Gurba is a native Californian. She attended U.C. Berkeley thanks to affirmative action. She is the author of the 2017 memoir Mean, and two short story collections, Dahlia Season and Painting Their Portraits in Winter. Dahlia Season won the Edmund White Award, which is given to queer writers for outstanding debut fiction. The book […]

UCSC Professor Ronaldo V. Wilson is an award-winning writer, artist and performer and co-founder of the critically lauded performance group Black Took Collective.