Kimberly Blaeser, Derrick Austin, & Amber Blaeser-Wardzala

Derrick Austin is the author of three poetry collections: This Elegance (Boa Editions, 2026); Tenderness (Boa Editions, 2021), winner of the 2020 Isabella Gardner Poetry Award; and Trouble the Water (Boa Editions, 2016). Recent honors include a 2026 AICA-USA Art Critic Fellowship and a 2026 Irene Yamamoto Arts Writers Fellowship. He lives in Chicago where he's working on a hybrid nonfiction book about ekphrasis. Prose and poetry from this project have recently appeared or are forthcoming in AICA-USA Magazine, American Poetry Review, Brink, Copper Nickel, The Shade Journal, and Transition: The Magazine of Africa and the Diaspora.

Kimberly Blaeser, founding director of Indigenous Nations Poets and past Wisconsin Poet Laureate, is the author of the short story collection Red Ants and six poetry collections, including Ancient Light and Résister en dansant/Ikwe-niimi: Dancing Resistance, Blaeser’s honors include the 2026 Science and Literature Award from the National Book Foundation, 2026 O. Henry Prize, 2025 Poets & Writers’ Writer for Writers Award, and Lifetime Achievement Award from Native…