Cornelius Eady is the author of eight books of poetry, most recently Hardheaded Weather. He has been a finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry and nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. His honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Eady and the poet Toi Derricote founded Cave Canem, a nonprofit serving black poets of various backgrounds and acting as a safe space for intellectual engagement and critical debate which has become a vibrant ongoing space for diverse voices.

Eady has set his poetry to song with the Cornelius Eady Trio. Eady’s songs tell the story of passing time, the Black American experience and the blues in the style of Folk & Americana music. Guitarists Charlie Rauh & Lisa Liu join Eady to create layered and graceful arrangements to bolster Eady’s adept craftsmanship as a songwriter, lyricist, & poet.

He has served as director of the Poetry Center at the State University of New York at Stonybrook, and has taught at Sarah Lawrence College, New York University, City College of New York, The Writer’s Voice, The College of William and Mary, and Sweet Briar College. He currently is Prof. of English at SUNY Stony Brook Southampton.

Sarah Micklem is the author of two novels, Firethorn (Scribner, 2004) and Wildfire (Scribner, 2009). Micklem set out to write about war from a woman’s point of view—not that of a woman warrior, but a camp follower, just about as low on the social hierarchy as a person could get. Along the way she found herself writing about love, magic, drugs, and aphasia. Firethorn was included in the Best of 2004 list of science fiction and fantasy from Amazon. Micklem’s short fiction has appeared in TriQuarterly, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and the anthology Sex in the System. Her writing website is firethorn.info. In her other profession, Micklem is a graphic designer for Girl Scouts of the USA.

Meryl Natchez’ fourth book, Catwalk, is newly released from Longship Press with blurbs from Jericho Brown, David St. John, and Lynn EmanuelShe blogs at www.merylnatchez.com where you can find a 14-day Social Distance Online Learning Retreat with poems, prompts and journal suggestions.