Metta Sáma, Director of Center for Women Writers, Assistant Professor & Director of Creative Writing, is author of le animal and other creatures (Miel Books 2015), After After/After “Sleeping to Dream” (Nous-Zot Press 2014), Nocturne Trio (YesYes Bøøks 2012) and South of Here (New Issues Press 2005 (published under her legal name, Lydia Melvin)). Her poems, fiction, creative non-fiction, & book reviews have been published or forthcoming in Blackbird, bluestem, Drunken Boat, The Drunken Boat, Dusie, hercricle, Jubilat, Kweli, Literary Hub, The Owls, Pebble Lake Review, Pyrta, Reverie, Sententia, Vinyl, among others. Sáma is a Black Earth Institute fellow and a member of the Cave Canem Board and the VIDA: Women in Literary Arts Board. She is on the Advisory Board of Black Radish Books. Sáma received her MFA and MA from Western Michigan and her PhD from SUNY-Binghamton.
Sheryl Monks is the Writer-in-Residence at Salem College. Her work appears in many publications, including The Butter, Pine Hills Review, The Greensboro Review, the Writer’s Chronicle, storySouth, Night Train, Revolution John, Regarding Arts & Letters, Backwards City Review, Surreal South, Midwestern Gothic, Black and Grey Magazine, Southern Gothic online, and elsewhere. Her collection of stories All the Girls in France was a finalist for the 2013 Hudson Prize, sponsored by Black Lawrence Press. She edits the online magazine Change Seven. Visit her online at www.sherylmonks.com.