Natalie Graham was the 2021 Orange County Poet Laureate. Her collection Begin with a Failed Body won the 2016 Cave Canem Poetry Prize. She is Chair of African American Studies at California State University, Fullerton. Graham’s poems have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Callaloo, New England Review, and Southern Humanities Review among others.

Gustavo Hernandez’s first full-length book, Flower Grand First (Moon Tide Press), takes its title from street names around his hometown of Santa Ana. He also has a chapbook Form his Arms, from Ghost City Press. He is a graduate of the Tori Amos School of Catharsis. His work has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, The Slowdown podcast, Rattle, Night Heron Barks, and others. Hernandez was born in Jalisco, Mexico and was raised in Santa Ana, California.

Patty Seyburn is a poet and professor who has published five collections of poems: Threshold Delivery (Finishing Line Press, 2019), Perfecta (What Books Press, Glass Table Collective, 2014); Hilarity (New Issues Press, 2009), Mechanical Cluster (Ohio State University Press, 2002) and Diasporadic (Helicon Nine Editions, 1998). She earned a Bachelor of Science degree and a Master of Science degree in Journalism from Northwestern University, a Master of Fine Arts in poetry from University of California, Irvine, and a Ph.D. in poetry and literature from the University of Houston. Seyburn is a professor at California State University, Long Beach.