Queer poet and writer Cass Donish was born and raised in the Greater Los Angeles Area. They are the author of the poetry collections Your Dazzling Death (Knopf, 2024); The Year of the Femme (University of Iowa Press, 2019), winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize; and Beautyberry (Slope Editions, 2018). Their nonfiction chapbook, On the Mezzanine (Gold Line Press, 2019), was selected for publication by Maggie Nelson. Their writing has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Denver Quarterly, The Gettysburg Review, Guernica, The Iowa Review, The Kenyon Review, Poem-a-Day, VICE, and elsewhere. Donish received an MA in cultural geography from the University of Oregon, an MFA in poetry from Washington University in St. Louis, and a PhD in English and creative writing from the University of Missouri. They live in Columbia, Missouri with their partner and four cats.

John Gallaher's most recent collection is My Life in Brutalist Architecture (Four Way Books, 2024). Gallaher lives in northwest Missouri and co-edits the Laurel Review.

Huascar Medina, Kansas Poet Laureate Emeritus is an editor, and artist advocate. He is the author of Un Mango Grows in Kansas and an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow. His work has appeared in the Flint Hills Review, Green Mountains Review, Kansas Magazine, Latino Book Review, The New York Times, and elsewhere. Medina is the lit editor for Seveneightfive magazine, a staff editor at Southbroadway Press, and a contributing op-ed writer for the Kansas Reflector.