Amy Lerman is Residential Faculty in English at Mesa Community College and enjoys teaching Developmental Writing, Composition, Literature, and Creative Writing. She served as the Developmental Coordinator for nine years and the Interim Director of Creative Writing for one semester, and prior to teaching at MCC, she was an Instructor at Arizona State University and on faculty at Kishwaukee College. Her Ph.D. and Masters in American Literature are from the University of Kansas, and she received her B.A. in English from the University of Illinois. Her chapbook, Orbital Debris, won the 2022 Jonathan Holden Poetry Chapbook Contest, and was published by Choeofpleirn Press. A Pushcart nominee and the inaugural winner of the Art Young Memorial Award for Poetry, her poetry has also received honorable mention/finalist at Rash Award, Slippery Elm Prize, Button Eye, Princemere Poetry Prize, Erskine J. Poetry Prize, Glimmer Train, Prime Number Magazine/Press 53, Heartwood Poetry Prize, Button Eye, and Solstice. Her poetry appears in The Madison Review, Burningwood, Barren, Midwest Review, Box of Matches, Euphony, Ghost City Review, Radar Poetry, Rattle, Slippery Elm, Smartish Pace, Prime Number, and elsewhere.

Todd Fredson is a poet, a critic, and a translator of Afro-francophone and West African literature. He is the author of two poetry collections, The Crucifix-Blocks (Tebot Bach, 2012), which won the Patricia Bibby First Book Award, and Century Worm (New Issues Press, 2018).

He has made French to English translations of two books by Ivorian poet Josué Guébo, My country, tonight (Action Books, 2016) and Think of Lampedusa (African Poetry Book Series, University of Nebraska Press, 2017), a collection for which Guébo won the Tchicaya U Tam'si Prize for African Poetry. Fredson has translated from French two collections, as well, by Ivorian poet Tanella Boni, The future has an appointment with the dawn (APBS, UNP, 2018), which was a finalist for the 2019 Best Translated Book Award and the 2019 National Translation Award, and There where it's so bright in me, a collection for which Boni was awarded the Prix Théophile Gautier from the French Academy (APBS, UNP, 2022).

Fredson's translation from French and Bété of Bété poet Azo Vauguy's poetry collections Zakwato and Loglêdou’s Peril are forthcoming as a double-translation (Action Books, 2023). Zakwato is an adaptation of a myth from the Bété ethnic group in Cote d'Ivoire, and Loglêdou’s Peril extends a journey of terror, vigilance, and colonial resistance through the Bété ethno-psyche. Fredson collaborates with West African slam poets and storytellers, as well, recently creating the visual narrative The Diary of Sinali Karamoko: Au Maroc.

Fredson's poetry, translations, nonfiction, criticism, and editorial curations appear in American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Jacket2, Research in African Literatures, Best American Experimental Writing, Warscapes, and other journals, anthologies, and blogs. He holds an MFA from Arizona State University and a PhD in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Southern California. Fredson specializes in 20th and 21st century poetry and poetics, transnational and decolonial studies, African literature and poetics, and literary translation. His work has been supported by Fulbright and NEA fellowships, a Virginia G. Piper Fellowship for Cultural Exchange, and other kindnesses.

Josh Rathkamp was born in Saginaw, Michigan. He received a BA from Western Michigan University, an MFA from Arizona State University and an MFA in Translation from Drew University. His books include A STORM TO CLOSE THE DOOR and SOME NIGHTS NO CARS AT ALL. He has been awarded numerous awards for his writing, including the Georgetown Press Poetry Prize and grants from the Arizona Arts and Letters Society and the Arizona Commission for the Arts. His work and translations have appeared in a multitude of literary journals and public art projects, including American Poetry Review, The Southern Review, Narrative, Poet Lore, and Rattle. He founded the Creative Writing Certificate Program at Mesa Community College and directed the Creative Writing Program from 2007-2020. He now happily spends his time focused on teaching creative writing classes at MCC.

Jeremy Broyles is an Arizona native, originally from the Cottonwood-Jerome-Sedona high desert. He earned his B.A. from Doane College, now University, his M.A. from Northern Arizona University, and his MFA in fiction from Wichita State University. He is a professor with nearly twenty years of experience teaching in higher education, and he currently serves as the creative writing program director at Mesa Community College where he has taught since 2017. His stories have appeared in The MacGuffin, Santa Clara Review, Rock and a Hard Place Magazine, Pigeon Review, Pembroke Magazine, Red Rock Review, scissors & spackle, Suburbia Journal, and Reckon Review amongst many others. His novella, What Becomes of Ours, was published in 2014 by ELJ Publications. His novel Flat Water--the story of siblings, surfing, and sharks and what happens when those things come together both in and out of the water--was released by Main Street Rag Press in 2023. He is an aging rider of bicycles, a talentless surfer of waves, and a happily mediocre player of guitars.