Albert Abonado
is the author of the poetry collection JAW (Sundress Publications 2020) and Field Guide for Accidents (Beacon Press 2024), selected by Mahogany Browne for the National Poetry Series. He has received fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. Albert is the current Artist-in-Residence at SUNY Oswego. His writing has appeared in the Bennington Review, Colorado Review, Poetry Northwest, Zone 3, and others. He lives and teaches in Rochester, NY.
Michelle Whittaker
is an American poet of West Indian heritage and the author of Surge which was awarded a Next Generation Indie Book Award (great weather for media) and Spoke the Dark Matter (Sundress Publication). Her work can be found in The New York Times Magazine, New Yorker, Shenandoah, Gulf Coast, Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series and other publications. She was awarded a Jody Donohue Poetry Prize, Pushcart Prize Special Mention, Cave Canem and a NYFA Fellowship in Poetry. Currently she is the poetry editor at The Southampton Review and an Associate Professor in the Program in Writing and Rhetoric at Stony Brook University.
Alan Semerdjian (HOST)
is an Armenian-American writer, musician, and educator. Recent recognitions include two Pushcart nominations; a Frontier New Poets Award; and poems in Poetry International, The Brooklyn Rail, Fence, Hanging Loose, and Mizna (forthcoming). He’s released three collections of poetry and over a dozen albums of music over the past 30 years to rave reviews. He is on the advisory board for the International Armenian Literary Alliance, through which he founded and directs the Young Armenian Poets Awards. Alan teaches at Herricks High School in New Hyde Park is the current Nassau County Poet Laureate.
