KWAME DAWES is the author of nineteen books of poetry and numerous books of fiction, criticism, and essays. His most recent collection, City of Bones: A Testament will appear in 2016 along with Speak from Here to There, a cowritten collection of verse, with the Australian poet John Kinsella, and A Bloom of Stones, a trilingual anthology of Haitian poetry. He is Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner and Chancellor’s Professor of English at the University of Nebraska, as well as a faculty member of Pacific University’s M.F.A. program. He is the director of the African Poetry Book Fund and artistic director of the Calabash International Literary Festival.
MATTHEW SHENODA’s debut collection of poems, Somewhere Else, was named one of 2005’s debut books of the year by Poets & Writers magazine and was the winner of a 2006 American Book Award. He is also the author of Seasons of Lotus, Seasons of Bone and, most recently, of Tahrir Suite: Poems, winner of the 2015 Arab American Book Award. Shenoda is the Dean of Academic Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Special Advisor to the President at Columbia College Chicago where he is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Creative Writing. He is a founding editor of the African Poetry Book Fund.
