Isaac Pickell, Kathleen Rooney, & Justin Howard Rosier

Isaac Pickell is a Black and Jewish poet, PhD Candidate, and adjunct instructor in Detroit. A Cave Canem fellow, he is the author of The Smallest Mistake We Call Human released August 2026 from Black Lawrence Press, It's not over once you figure it out (Black Ocean, 2023), and chapbooks from Black Lawrence Press and Dead Mall Press.

Kathleen Rooney is a founding editor of Rose Metal Press, a nonprofit publisher of literary work in hybrid genres, and a founding member of Poems While You Wait, a collective of typewriter poets who do commissioned poetry on demand. Her fifth novel Man Overboard! has just been published by Gallery Books/ Simon & Schuster in July of 2026 and her debut picture book Leaf Town Forever, co-written with her sister Beth and illustrated by Betsy Bowen, was released by University of Minnesota Press last Fall. She lives in Chicago with her spouse,…