Elee Kraljii Gardiner is an author, editor, and creative mentor whose award-winning books of poetry include Trauma Head, which investigates the experience of vertebral artery dissection and stroke through textual interventions, and serpentine loop, which considers gender and physicality through the idea of ice. She is the editor of the anthologies Against Death: 35 Essays on Living and V6A: Writing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. A frequent collaborator with choreographers, musicians, and visual artists, Elee is currently collaborating with nature via a series of durational installations that investigate the law of thermodynamics and cultural ideas regarding the passing of time. Originally from Boston, Elee lives in Canada where she directs Vancouver Manuscript Intensive, a program pairing authors with mentors. 

Sasha taqwšəblu LaPointe is from the Upper Skagit and Nooksack Indian Tribes. Native to the Pacific Northwest she draws inspiration from her coastal heritage as well as her life in the city. She writes with a focus on trauma and resilience, ranging topics from PTSD, sexual violence, the work her great grandmother did for the Lushootseed language revitalization, to loud basement punk shows and what it means to grow up mixed heritage. With strange obsessions revolving around Twin Peaks, the Seattle music scene, and Coast Salish Salmon Ceremonies, Sasha explores her own truth of indigenous identity in the Coast Salish territory. Sasha holds a double MFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts in creative nonfiction and poetry.

Her memoir Red Paint has received starred reviews from Kirkus and Shelf Awareness and was named “Best new book of the month,” by Time Magazine. Red Paint was featured on Nylon’s list of most anticipated books of 2022 and has received praise from Ms. Magazine, The LA Times, and Bust Magazine. Red Paint is available through Counterpoint Press.

Her collection of poetry Rose Quartz is forthcoming from Milkweed in 2023.

The grandson of Filipino immigrants and the great-grandson of Japanese immigrants, Troy Osaki is a poet, organizer, and attorney. Osaki is a three-time grand slam poetry champion and has earned fellowships from Kundiman, Hugo House, and Jack Straw Cultural Center. He was awarded a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry fellowship from the Poetry Foundation in 2022. A 2022-2023 Critic-at-Large for Poetry Northwest, his poetry has appeared in Crazyhorse, the Margins, Muzzle Magazine, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. He holds a Juris Doctor degree from the Seattle University School of Law where he interned at Creative Justice, an arts-based alternative to incarceration for youth in King County. He lives in Seattle, WA.

Jasmine Elizabeth Smith (she/her) is a poet and educator from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. She received her MFA in Poetry from the University of California in Riverside. She is a recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem and The Black Arts Institute. Smith’s poetic work is invested in the Diaspora of Black Americans in various historical contexts and eras and the uses of these historical flashpoints to interrogate contemporary and intersectional social, political, and ecological issues. Her work has been featured in Crazy Horse, World Literature Today, POETRY, and LA Review of Book, among others. Her debut collection South Flight (University of Georgia Press, 2022) was named a finalist for the 2020 National Poetry Series and is the 2020 Georgia Poetry Prize winner.