Steven Leyva was born in New Orleans, Louisiana and raised in Houston, Texas. He is the author of The Understudy’s Handbook, which won the Jean Feldman Poetry Prize from Washington Writers’ Publishing House. His second book of poems, The Opposite of Cruelty, was published by Blair Publishing in spring 2025.

Sid Gold is the author of five books of poetry, including Very Eyes (Poets’ Choice, 2023) and Working Vocabulary (Washington Writers’ Publishing House, 1997, reissued in 2021). He is a twice recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award for Poetry, and his work has appeared in a variety of journals, reviews, and […]

Robert J. Williams is the author of Strivers and Other Stories, winner of the 2016 Washington Writers’ Publishing House (WWPH) Fiction Prize. His work has also appeared in the Callaloo literary journal. A 2024 Kimbilio Fiction Fellow, he is the recipient of four Larry Neal Writers’ Awards.

Robert Herschbach is the author of Loose Weather (Washington Writers’ Publishing House, 2013) and A Lost Empire (Ion Books, 1994), with new work forthcoming in Southern Poetry Review and The Southern Review. He lives in Laurel, Maryland with his wife and four cats.

Grace Cavalieri was Maryland’s tenth Poet Laureate. She’s the author of several books and produced plays. She’s the founder and producer of The Poet and the Poem, now from the Library of Congress, celebrating 48 years on air. Two hundred and fifty of her poetry podcasts went to the moon on Lunar Codex from NASA, […]

Brandel France de Bravo’s third collection of poems, Locomotive Cathedral, was published in March 2025 by Backwaters Press, an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press. Her poems have recently appeared in Best American Poetry, 32 Poems, Barrow Street, Conduit, Southern Humanities Review, and elsewhere

Dorian Elizabeth Knapp is the author of three poetry collections: Causa Sui (forthcoming 2025), winner of the 8th Annual Three Mile Harbor Book Award; Requiem with an Amulet in Its Beak, winner of the 2019 Jean Feldman Poetry Prize; and The Spite House, winner of the 2010 De Novo Poetry Prize. She is the founding […]

Elizabeth Bruce’s Universally Adored & Other One Dollar Stories, was recently released by Vine Leaves Press. Her debut novel, And Silent Left the Place, won Washington Writers’ Publishing House’s Fiction Prize, with Foreword Magazine and Texas Institute of Letters’ distinctions. She’s been published in stories in the USA and thirteen countries.

Bernardine (Dine) Watson is a nonfiction writer and poet who lives in Washington, DC. Dine’s book Transplant: A Memoir, won the 2023 Washington Writers’ Publishing House prize for nonfiction. Transplant was also chosen by National Public Radio as one of the 2023 “books we love” and featured in Poets and Writers Magazine as one of […]

David Taylor’s collection, Success: Stories, received the WWPH fiction prize. His fiction has appeared in Gargoyle, Jabberwock, Washington City Paper, and elsewhere, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He received his MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop and is writer- producer for “The People’s Recorder,” nominated for Best Indie podcast in the 2025 Ambies.