R. Flowers Rivera

A native of Mississippi, R. Flowers Rivera is an award-winning poet, and the author of two books. She completed a Ph.D. in English, specializing in African American literature and creative writing, at Binghamton University. Xavier Review Press published her debut poetry collection, Troubling Accents (July 2013), which received a nomination from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters and was selected by the Texas Association of Authors as its 2014 Poetry Book of the Year.

Rivera’s second collection, Heathen (February 2015) was published by Lotus Press, Inc., and distributed by Wayne State University. It has been selected by poet and literary activist E. Ethelbert Miller as the winner of the 2015 Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award. This award was established by Lotus Press to recognize an outstanding book-length manuscript by an African-American poet.

Adam Hamze

I’m a part of a poetry/writing community that is filled with other people of color who’s talents are among the best in the nation – we are constantly fighting to take up space in the midst of whiteness and trying to halt the perpetuation of erasure. Let us know what we can do!

Doyin Oyeniyi

H. Drew Blackburn

ire’ne lara silva

author of furia (poetry, Mouthfeel Press, 2010) which received an Honorable Mention for the 2011 International Latino Book Award and flesh to bone (short stories, Aunt Lute Books, 2013) which won the 2013 Premio Aztlan, placed 2nd for the 2014 NACCS Tejas Foco Award for Fiction, and was a finalist for Foreward Review’s Book of the Year Award in Multicultural Fiction.

author of forthcoming collection of poetry, blood sugar canto.

recipient of the 2014 Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Award, the Fiction Finalist for AROHO’s 2013 Gift of Freedom Award, and the 2008 recipient of the Gloria Anzaldua Milagro Award, as well as a Macondo Workshop member and CantoMundo Inaugural Fellow.

She and Moises S. L. Lara are currently co-coordinators for the Flor De Nopal Literary Festival.