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Adrian Matejka is the author of The Devil’s Garden (Alice James Books, 2003), which won the New York / New England Award; Mixology (Penguin, 2009), a winner of the 2008 National Poetry Series; The Big Smoke (Penguin, 2013), winner of the 2014 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and a finalist for the the Pulitzer Prize in poetry; Map to the Stars (Penguin, 2017); and his selected poems, Be Easy, forthcoming from Liveright in March 2026. His first graphic novel, Last On His Feet: Jack Johnson and the Battle of the Century, was selected by the New York Public Library as one of the 10 best books of 2023. Among Matejka’s other honors are the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award, the Julia Peterkin Award, and fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and a Simon Fellowship from United States Artists. He served as Poet Laureate of the state of Indiana in 2018-19. He currently lives in Chicago and is Editor of Poetry magazine. Author photo by Diana Solís.
Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of the book of food essays Bite By Bite: Nourishments and Jamborees and the New York Times best-selling illustrated collection of nature essays, World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks & Other Astonishments. She also wrote five previous poetry collections including the forthcoming Night Owl and 2018‘s Oceanic. Her most recent chapbook is Lace & Pyrite, a collaboration of epistolary garden poems with the poet Ross Gay. Honors include a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pushcart Prize, a Mississippi Arts Council grant, NAAEE’s 2024 Pepe Marcos-Iga Award for Innovation in Environmental Education, and being named a Guggenheim Fellow in poetry. For a decade, she served as the poetry editor for Orion and Sierra magazines. A professor of English and Creative Writing for over twenty five years, she also serves as a firefly guide for Mississippi State Parks. Author photo by Dustin Parsons.
