Ada Limón is the author of, most recently, The Carrying, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, and Bright Dead Things, which was named a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Kingsley Tufts Award, and was named one of the Top Ten Poetry Books of 2015 by The New York Times. Her previous collections include Sharks in the Rivers, Lucky Wreck, and This Big Fake World. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, and American Poetry Review, among others. She serves on the faculty of the Queens University of Charlotte Low Residency MFA program, and the 24Pearl Street online program for the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. She also works as a freelance writer and lives in Lexington, Kentucky.

Tania Runyan is the author of the poetry collections What Will Soon Take Place, Second Sky, A Thousand Vessels, Simple Weight, and Delicious Air, which was awarded Book of the Year by the Conference on Christianity and Literature in 2007. Her guides How to Read a Poem, How to Write a Poem, and How to Write a College Application Essay are used in classrooms across the country. Her poems have appeared in many publications, including Poetry, Image, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, The Christian Century, Saint Katherine Review, and the Paraclete book Light upon Light: A Literary Guide to Prayer for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany. Tania was awarded an NEA Literature Fellowship in 2011.

Marilyn Nelson is the author or translator of more than 20 books and chapbooks for adults and children. Her critically acclaimed books for young adults include A Wreath for Emmett Till and the ground breaking Carver: A Life in Poems, a Newbery Honor Book. Of Marilyn’s nine poetry collections for adults, The Homeplace won the 1992 Annisfield-Wolf Award; and The Fields of Praise: New and Selected Poems received the 1998 Poets’ Prize, the PEN Winship Award, and the Lenore Marshall Prize. A three-time finalist for the National Book Award, her many honors include the Frost Medal, the Poetry Society of America’s award for “distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry,” and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. A professor emerita of English at the University of Connecticut, she served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, and was Poet Laureate of Connecticut, 2001– 2006.

Angela Narciso Torres is the author of Blood Orange (Willow Books), To the Bone (Sundress Publications, 2020) and What Happens Is Neither (Four Way Books, 2021). Her work appears in POETRY, Cortland Review, and TriQuarterly. A graduate of Warren Wilson MFA Program and Harvard Graduate School of Education, she is a senior and reviews Editor for the literary journal, RHINO. You can find her at angelanarcisotorres.com.

Jeanne Murray Walker (PhD, University of Pennsylvania) is a poet and playwright whose work has been widely published and performed. She heads the creative writing program at the University of Delaware, where she has been a professor of English for forty years. She also serves as a mentor in the low-residency M.F.A. program at Seattle Pacific University and on the boards of Shenandoah and Image magazines.

Her poems and essays have been published in The American Poetry Review, Poetry, The Atlantic Monthly, The Georgia Review, Shenandoah, The Christian Century, Blackbird, Image and several hundred other journals. Her scripts have been performed in theaters across the United States. They are published by Dramatic Publishing Company, and they are archived in North American Women's Drama. Walker is coeditor (with Daryl Tippens) of Shadow and Light: Literature and the Life of Faith and author of a memoir, The Geography of Memory. She is the author of seven books of poetry in addition to Helping the Morning: New and Selected Poems.

Walker's work has been honored with a National Endowment for the Arts Award, a Pew Fellowship in the Arts, eight Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowships, the Glenna Luschei-Prairie Schooner Prize, many Pushcart nominations, inclusion in Best American Poetry, and inclusion in the 100-year anniversary anthology of Poetry magazine.

Photo by Vondel Stevens

Dr. Quyen Ngo-Metzger, a Professor in the Health Systems Science Department at the Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine. She teaches and mentors students and junior faculty in prevention, population health, health disparities, and evidence-based medicine. 

Rev. Twanda Prioleau a native of Baltimore, Maryland, is a Wife, Mother, Pastor, Teacher, and Preacher. She is a graduate of Morgan State University where she received a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Accounting in December 2003. She matriculated through Lancaster Bible College seeking a Master’s Degree in Leadership studies until transferring in her last year to Lancaster Theological Seminary where she received a Masters of Divinity degree in May 2010. 

Jan is an artist, writer, and ordained minister in the United Methodist Church. She serves as director of The Wellspring Studio, LLC, and has traveled widely as a retreat leader and conference speaker. Known for her distinctive intertwining of word and image, Jan’s work has attracted an international audience drawn to the welcoming and imaginative spaces that she creates in her books, online blogs, and public events.

A native Floridian several generations over, Jan grew up in Evinston, a small community near the university town of Gainesville. The rural landscape, community traditions, and lifelong relationships fostered a rich sense of place, imagination, and ritual that continue to shape Jan's life and infuse her work.

Jan makes her home in Florida. She often collaborated with her husband, the singer/songwriter Garrison Doles, until his sudden death in December 2013.

You can find Jan's distinctive artwork, writing, and more at her blogs and websites:

The Painted Prayerbook The Advent Door Jan Richardson Images Sanctuary of Women

Ruth Goring is a poet (Soap Is Political; Yellow Doors), writer-illustrator for children (Picturing God; Adriana’s Angels), and manuscript editor (University of Chicago Press). She has also worked at InterVarsity Press and served in campus ministry. She grew up in Colombia and is besotted with the Spanish language. Find her at ruthgoringbooks.com.

Jamie Ong, Environmental Protection Project Manager at the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (NYC Parks), has nearly 20 years of experience in wetland and riparian restoration, watershed planning, and green infrastructure design. At NYC Parks, she is piloting innovative salt marsh restoration techniques, managing conceptual planning for urban stream projects, and developing watershed-wide recommendations for water quality improvement, shorefront access, and citizen engagement.

Jamie holds a BS in Natural Resources from Cornell University, an MPS in Environmental Science from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, and an MA in International Relations from the Maxwell School of Public Policy at Syracuse University.

She attends Living Faith Community Church in Flushing, Queens, where she enjoys exploring good food and public parks with her husband and two children.

 

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