Kazim Ali was born in the United Kingdom to Muslim parents of Indian, Iranian and Egyptian descent. His books encompass several volumes of poetry, including Sky Ward, winner of the Ohioana Book Award in Poetry; The Far Mosque, winner of Alice James Books’ New England/New York Award; The Fortieth Day; All One’s Blue; and the cross-genre text Bright Felon. His novels include The Secret Room: A String Quartet, and among his books of essays is Fasting for Ramadan: Notes from a Spiritual Practice. Ali is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing and Comparative Literature at Oberlin College. His newest books are Inquisition and Silver Road: Essays, Maps & Calligraphies.

Ryka Aoki is the author of Seasonal Velocities, He Mele a Hilo (A Hilo Song), and Why Dust Shall Never Settle Upon This Soul. She has been honored by the California State Senate for her “extraordinary commitment to free speech and artistic expression, as well as the visibility and well-being of Transgender people.” Ryka is a two-time Lambda Award Finalist and recipient of a University Award from the Academy of American Poets. She is a professor of English at Santa Monica College. She can be found on www.rykaryka.com.

Lauren Bullock is a queer Vietnamese and Black writer, performer, and teaching artist. Her work has appeared on AFROPUNK.com, Button Poetry, Thank You For Swallowing, and more. Currently she serves as a staff writer for pop culture web site Black Nerd Problems as well as poetry editor for literary magazine FreezeRay Poetry. When not working on writing-related activities she enjoys fighting crime as a costumed vigilante of many aliases.

Wo Chan is a non-binary poet and drag performer. Wo has received fellowships from the New York Foundation of the Arts, Kundiman, Lambda Literary, and the Asian American Writers Workshop. As a member of the Brooklyn-based drag/burlesque Switch N' Play, Wo has performed at venues including The Whitney, National Sawdust, New York Live Arts, and BAM Fisher. They were born in Macau, and are currently an MFA Candidate in Poetry at NYU. Check them out @theillustriouspearl or wo.bingo.

Joseph O. Legaspi is the author of the poetry collections Threshold and Imago, both from CavanKerry Press; and three chapbooks: Postcards (Ghost Bird Press), Aviary, Bestiary (Organic Weapon Arts), and Subways (Thrush Press). His works have appeared in POETRY, New England Review, World Literature Today, Best of the Net, and the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day. He co-founded Kundiman (www.kundiman.org), a national nonprofit organization dedicated to nurturing generations of writers and readers of Asian American literature. He resides with his husband in Queens, NY.

Soham Patel is a Kundiman fellow and an assistant editor at Fence and The Georgia Review. Her chapbooks include and nevermind the storm (Portable Press @ Yo-Yo Labs, 2013) New Weather Drafts (Portable Press @ Yo-Yo Labs, 2016), and in airplane and other poems (oxeye, 2018). She is the author also of the full-length collections to afar from afar (Writ Large, 2018) and ever really hear it (Subito, 2018), winner of the 2017 Subito Prize.

Terisa Siagatonu is an award-winning poet, arts educator, community organizer, and mental health advocate born and rooted in the Bay Area. Her presence in the poetry world as a queer Samoan woman and activist has granted her opportunities to perform in places ranging from the UN Conference on Climate Change in Paris to the White House (during the Obama Administration). A recipient of President Obama's Champions of Change Award for her activism as a poet/organizer in her Pacific Islander community, Terisa has published work in Poetry Magazine and has been featured on Button Poetry, CNN, NBCNews, NPR, Huffington Post, Everyday Feminism, The Guardian, BuzzFeed and Upworthy.

Lehua M. Taitano is a queer Chamoru writer and interdisciplinary artist from the Pacific island of Guåhan (Guam). They are the author of Inside Me an Island, A Bell Made of Stones, and the chapbooks Capacity, Sonoma, and appalachiapacific, which won the Merriam-Frontier Award. Her poetry, essays, and Pushcart Prize-nominated fiction have appeared in  Fence,  Kartika Review, Red Ink International Journal, Poetry Magazine, and numerous others. She has served as an APAture Featured Literary Artist via Kearny Street Workshop, a Kuwentuhan poet via The Poetry Center at SFSU, and as a Culture Lab visual artist for the Smithsonian Institute’s Asian Pacific American Center. Taitano’s  work investigates modern indigeneity, decolonization, and cultural identity in the context of diaspora.

The recipient of a Ruth Lilly & Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship and "Discovery"/Boston Review Poetry Prize, Paul Tran is Poetry Editor at The Offing Magazine and Chancellor's Graduate Fellow in The Writing Program at Washington University in St. Louis. Their work appears in the New Yorker, Poetry Magazine, and elsewhere, including the Lionsgate movie Love Beats Rhymes, starring Azealia Banks, Common, and Jill Scott. Paul is the first Asian American since 1993 to win the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam, placing Top 10 at the Individual World Poetry Slam and Top 2 at the National Poetry Slam.