Louise Waakaa’igan (she/her) is an enrolled member at Odaawaa-Zaaga’iganiing in northern Wisconsin. Her first chapbook, This Is Where (Aquarius Press), was published in 2020. She is also the first-place winner of the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop’s Broadside Competition (2016). Louise’s work has been previously published in PEN America, 21 Mythologies, The Moon Magazine, Night Colors, 27th Letter, Words in Gray Scale, and Doors Adjacent. She is ready to publish her second collection and recently has moved back to her beloved Minneapolis.

Michael Kleber-Diggs (KLEE-burr digs) (he / him / his) is a poet, essayist, literary critic, and arts educator. He is the author of My Weight in Water, a memoir about his complicated relationship with lap swimming (forthcoming with Spiegel & Grau, August 2025). Michael’s debut poetry collection, Worldly Things, won the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize and was published by Milkweed Editions in 2021. His poems and essays often explore themes of intimacy, community, empathy, and grace, practices he believes are distinct and interdependent. Michael is a 2023-2025 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow in Literature, and he teaches creative writing at Augsburg University and through the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop. Michael is married to Karen Kleber-Diggs, a tropical horticulturist and orchid specialist. Karen and Michael have a daughter, Elinor, who lives in New York City and works as a professional dancer.

Moheb Soliman (he/him) is an interdisciplinary poet from Egypt and the Midwest who’s presented work at literary, art, and public spaces around North America and abroad with support from diverse institutions. His debut poetry collection HOMES was a finalist for several awards and explores nature, modernity, identity, belonging, and sublimity through the site of the Great Lakes bioregion/borderland. He lives in Minneapolis where he was program director for the Arab American arts organization Mizna before receiving a multi-year Tulsa Artist Fellowship and recently a Milkweed Editions fellowship. www.mohebsoliman.info

Paul van Dyke (he/him) holds a BFA in Creative Writing from Hamline University, and his work has appeared in Water-Stone Review, Hippocampus, and Upstreet. He is the founder and instructor of Veterans Telling Stories, a nonprofit which offers free creative writing courses for Veterans and their family members.

Erin Sharkey (she/they) is a writer, arts and abolition organizer, cultural worker, and film producer based in Minneapolis. She is the editor of A Darker Wilderness: Black Nature Writing from Soil to Stars (Milkweed Editions ’23). Erin is a founding coop member of the Fields at Rootsprings, a retreat and respite space in central MN, and co-founder, with Junauda Petrus, of an experimental arts collective called Free Black Dirt. She is the producer of film projects, including Small Business Revolution, which explored challenges and opportunities for Black-owned businesses in the Twin Cities in the summer of 2021. Sharkey has received fellowships and residencies from the Loft Mentor Series, VONA/Voices, the Givens Foundation, Penumbra Theatre, Coffee House Press, the Bell Museum of Natural History, Black Visions, Headwaters Foundation, and the Jerome Foundation. She has an MFA in creative writing from Hamline University and teaches with the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop.

Davi Gray (they/she) is a queer, trans, nonbinary poet, writer, storyteller, artist, activist, and abolitionist. They live in North Minneapolis (Bde Óta Othúŋwe), within Mni Sóta Makoce, unceded lands of the Dakota and Ojibwe. Gray has won prizes in PEN America Prison Writing Contests, and their work has been published in Poetry, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Rogue Agent, NonBinary Review, and elsewhere. They can often be found performing around the Twin Cities. You can learn more about their work, including upcoming events, at davigray.com.