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.
Mary Jane Philpy-Dollins’ work appears in The Poetry Machine: Volume 2 (2021), The Poetry Machine: Volume 3 (2022), and the Waco WordFest Anthology (2023). She is the 2023 President of the Austin Poetry Society. She is a nurse living in Texas.
Grace MacNair is a poet, teacher, and healthcare professional. A 2023 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Poetry, her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Threepenny Review, Poetry Northwest, The Missouri Review, and elsewhere. Grace’s micro-chapbook, Even As They Curse Us, is available from Bull City Press. IG: @ecarg_enna_m. Twitter@GraceMacNair.
Kimberly Hall (she/her) is a queer and neurodivergent poet based in Southeast Texas, with a master’s degree in behavioral science. Her work has appeared in publications such as Sappho’s Torque, Equinox, and The Ekphrastic Review.
Srikantha Rao is an anesthesiologist at a tertiary care medical center in a University teaching hospital.
A vocalist, pianist, and internal medicine physician, Eki Shola uses her music as a conduit for healing. ASCAP Plus winner and selected ’23 people to watch in 2023′ by the Press Democrat, Eki Shola has shared the stage with Dr. Donald Byrd, Steve Turre and more and and has opened for various artists including Habib Koité, Bebel Gilberto, DakhaBrakha, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Lucky Otis, and Kitaro.
The five-time NorBay Music awardee was selected to participate in the OBRAS foundation, Portugal artist residency and recently completed a Japan tour for her 5th solo album, 還 (Kaeru), recorded with local artists drummer Hidenori Tsugita, shamisen and shakuhachi musician, Uma Ebina, and Mongolian Morin Khuur musician, Tatsuya Okabayashi.
Annette Sisson’s poems are published in Valparaiso PR, Birmingham PR, Rust+Moth, Lascaux Review, Cider PR, Glassworks, Aeolian Harp Anthology, and others. Her first book Small Fish in High Branches was published by Glass Lyre (5/22), and she is finishing her second, Winter Sharp with Apples. Her poems have placed in Frontier New Voices, The Fish Anthology, and others; in 2023, two have been nominated for The Pushcart and one for Best of the Net.
Before turning to poetry, Robert Carr administered infectious disease programming with The Massachusetts Department of Public Health. He is the author of Amaranth, published by Indolent Books, and two full-length collections published by 3: A Taos Press – The Unbuttoned Eye and The Heavy of Human Clouds. His poetry appears in many journals and magazines including the Greensboro Review, Lana Turner Journal, the Massachusetts Review and Shenandoah. Recent teaching engagements and residencies include Monson Arts and The Millay House Rockland. Additional information can be found at robertcarr.org