Writer, artist, and educator, Kelly Cass Falzone, earned her MFA in Poetry from Spalding University in Louisville, KY, and MSEd. in Counselor Education from SUNY Brockport. Her work appears in numerous journals and she has been awarded recognition from the Berry College Emerging Southern Women Writers Competition, Chattanooga Writer’s Guild, Tennessee Writer’s Alliance, and others. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
Dan O’Brien is a playwright, poet, memoirist, essayist, and librettist. In 2023 he published three books: a memoir entltled From Scarsdale: A Childhood (Dalkey Archive Press); a collection of plays entitled True Story: A Trilogy (Dalkey Archive Press); and a collection of prose poems and photographs entitled Survivor’s Notebook (Acre Books). In 2024 his play Newtown premiered at Geva Theatre. Also in 2024, his pamphlet Flying on Easter and Other Poems was published by Poetry London.
Thanks to all the poets who submitted to this season’s contest!
Scott LaMascus is a writer, producer, and public-humanities advocate who lives in Oklahoma with his wife, an executive physician. His recent work may be read in Bracken, Epiphany, The Writer’s Chronicle, and World Literature Today.
Monica Pernia Marin is a geriatrician and a palliative care physician. She lives in Tampa, Florida and will be soon relocating to NYC to complete additional medical training, this time in the field of neuro-oncology.
The Empty Chairs of February is poet and translator Carlos Reyes’ 16th volume of poetry. He is a world traveler but makes his home at the base of a dormant volcano in Portland, Oregon. Learn more about Carlos here: carlosreyespoet.com.
Dale Conrad is a medical student at Carle Illinois College of Medicine who takes inspiration from both work and personal life to describe human emotions.
Jean Gordon Kocienda is a former Silicon Valley geopolitical risk analyst. Now retired, she volunteers with refugees in the San Francisco Bay Area, translates Japanese poetry, and finishes up her first novel, Girl in a Box: The Story of Yosano Akiko, Japan’s Feminist Poet. (www.accidentalfeminist.net)
Tara Zafft is a US poet. She is a mother, wife, dancer, seeker, who tried to embrace the ups and downs of life with curiosity, love and wonder.