Visiting Writers & Artists – 2014

SHAMS AHMED
Shams Ahmed believes the heart of an a cappella group is in its arrangements. Right now, he’s diligently toiling to bring better arrangements to groups all over the country – and pushing the boundaries of a cappella in general. During his five years directing The Nor’easters, Shams took the group from its casual roots to the 2013 ICCA and SoJam X championships, where the group was both compilation-selected and CARA-winning in that same year. Presented as part of The Betsy All Roads A Cappella Festival.

MARK ALLEN
Mark Allen has contributed to The New York Times, The Huffington Post, NPR's All Things Considered,The Awl and Vice, and hosted his own weekly radio show at WFMU. As a filmmaker, Mark's first short Sock Job is currently in production. Mark ran an experimental show at Dixon Place called Pitch!, where writers pitched ideas to editors live on stage. Presented in partnership with Miami Filmmakers Collective.

KATE ANGUS
Kate Angus is a founding editor of Augury Books. Her writing has appeared in a number of literary journals and anthologies, including Indiana Review, The Rumpus, Barrow Street, Subtropics, The Awl, and Best New Poets 2010 among others. She holds a BA from Brown University and an MFA from The New School University. She is the Creative Writing Advisory Board Member for The Mayapple Center for Arts and Humanities.

RENEE ASHLEY
Renee Ashley is the author of five volumes of poetry, two chapbooks, and a novel, as well as numerous essays and reviews. A portion of her poem 'First Book of the Moon' is in Penn Station Terminal in Manhattan, part of a permanent installation by Larry Kirkland. She is a poetry editor of The Literary Review and a member of the faculty of Fairleigh Dickinson University's low-residency MFA Program and the MA in Creative Writing and Literature for Educators.

AZIZ + CUCHER
Anthony Aziz and Samuel Cucher are visual artists working together as a collaborative team since meeting in graduate school in 1990 at the San Francisco Art Institute. They are pioneers in the field of digital imaging and post-photography with projects exhibited at numerous venues including the 1995 Venice Biennale, the LA County Museum of Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

JIMMY SANTIAGO BACA
Jimmy Santiago Baca, born in New Mexico of Indio-Mexican descent, was raised first by his grandmother and later sent to an orphanage. A runaway at age 13, it was after Baca was sentenced to five years in a maximum-security prison that he learned to read and write, unearthing a voracious passion for poetry. Some of Baca’s poetry collections include C-Train and Thirteen Mexicans: Dream Boy's Story (Grove Press, 2002), Set This Book on Fire (1999), In the Way of the Sun (1997), Black Mesa Poems (1995), and What's Happening (1982).

CAROLYN BURNS BASS
Carolyn Burns Bass writes travel features and fiction, and is founder and moderator of #litchat, a reader/writer discussion operated entirely through Twitter, with more than 16k followers. Carolyn has written magazine cover features, personality profiles, music reviews and food features, with short fiction works published in MetroMoms Fiction, The Rose & Thorn (Spring, 2007) and Breath & Shadow (October 2007). In January, The Betsy will host the 5th Birthday Celebration of LitChat with workshops and readings on South Beach.

FRANK BAEZ
Born in 1978 in Santo Domingo, Baez has made a name for himself in his own country as the Dominican Republic’s most important young poet and short-story writer. As editor of the online poetry review Ping Pong, he has published scores of poets from Latin America, North America, and Europe. Highly conversant with the literatures of all three continents, he is a distinguished translator of English and American verse.

GREG BERMAN
Greg Berman is the director of the Center for Court Innovation and part of the founding team responsible for creating the Center. He is the author/co-author of Reducing Crime, Reducing Incarceration: Essays on Criminal Justice Innovation (Quid Pro Books, forthcoming), Trial & Error in Criminal Justice Reform: Learning from Failure (Urban Institute Press, 2010) and Good Courts: The Case for Problem-Solving Justice (The New Press, 2005). Berman is a graduate of Wesleyan University and a former Coro Fellow in Public Affairs.

NICK VAN BLOSS
Nick Bloss is an English classical pianist and author who has (and has become an advocate for) Tourette syndrome. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London. In 2007, Oliver Sacks wrote about van Bloss in his book Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. Sacks wrote that in conversation about his piano playing and Tourette's, van Bloss speaks in terms of his condition's constituting an "energy", one that is "harnessed and focused" when he plays the piano. Presented in partnership with the Miami Int'l Piano Festival.

WILLIAM BOLCOM
National Medal of Arts, Pulitzer Prize, and Grammy Award-winner William Bolcom is an American composer of chamber, operatic, vocal, choral, cabaret, ragtime, and symphonic music. Bolcom won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1988 for 12 New Etudes for Piano, and his setting of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience on the Naxos label won four Grammy Awards in 2005.

TODD BOSS
Todd Boss’s poems have appeared in The New Yorker,Poetry, New England Review, and Virginia Quarterly Review, which awarded him its annual Emily Clark Balch Prize. His work has been syndicated on public radio’s The Splendid Table.

CATHERINE BOWMAN
Catherine Bowman is an American poet. Her most recent poetry collection is The Plath Cabinet (Four Way Books, 2009), and her poems have appeared in literary journals and magazines including The Best American Poetry, The Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, and The Paris Review. Her honors include fellowships from Yaddo and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Presented in partnership with Florida Int'l University.

BEN BRAM
Ben is an esteemed arranger, music director, and producer from Los Angeles. A graduate of the USC Thornton School of Music, Ben sang with, arranged for, and directed three-time ICCA champions the SoCal VoCals. Since college, Ben has been working musically behind the scenes of The Sing-Off, Pitch Perfect, Glee, The Voice, and Modern Family, as well as arranging for various groups all over the world. Presented as part of The Betsy All Roads A Cappella Festival.

PABLO BRESCIA
Pablo Brescia was born in Buenos Aires and has lived in the United States since 1986. He has published two books of short stories Fuera de Lugar/Out of Place (Peru, 2012/Mexico, 2013) and La apariencia de las cosas/The Appearance of Things (México, 1997), and a book of hybrid texts No hay tiempo para la poesía/No Time for Poetry (Buenos Aires, 2011), with the pen name Harry Bimer. Some of his stories are collected in ESC (Miami, 2013) and Gente ordinaria/Ordinary People (Mexico, 2014). He teaches Latin American Literature at the University of South Florida.

REGIE CABICO
Regie Cabico is a poet and spoken word artist. He is a critically acclaimed performance poet who has won top prizes at National Poetry Slams. His poetry appears in over 30 anthologies including Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Spoken Word Revolution and Slam. He was also featured in MTV's "Free Your Mind" Spoken Word Tour. Regie is the recipient of three New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships for Poetry and Multi-Disciplinary Performance. Presented in partnership with Tigertail Productions.

JOY CASTRO
Born in Miami, Joy Castro is the author of The Truth Book: A Memoir (University of Nebraska), the literary thriller Hell or High Water (St. Martin’s), and the essay collection Island of Bones (University of Nebraska). Her work has appeared in anthologies and in journals including Seneca Review, Fourth Genre, North American Review, Brevity, Afro-Hispanic Review, and The New York Times Magazine. Presented in partnership with FIU Writers on the Bay Series.

ISRAEL CENTENO
Israel Centeno (Caracas, 1958) has published 14 books, mostly novels, but also short fiction and poetry. He is regarded as one of the most important Venezuelan literary figures of the past fifty years. He has won numerous awards, including the Federico Garcia Lorca Award in Spain and the National Council of Culture Award in Venezuela in 1991.

ZLATA CHOCHIEVA
At the age of eight Zlata made her debut on the stage of Grand Hall of Moscow State Conservatory, performing Mozart’s concerto No 17 with an orchestra. She has since given concerts with numerous orchestras, and is the winner of ten international piano competitions. She has recently performed in halls throughout the world, and her performances have been broadcast on the radio and TV at home in Russia and internationally. Presented in partnership with Miami Int'l Piano Festival.

DORIE CLARK
Dorie Clark is the author of “Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future” (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013). A former presidential campaign spokeswoman, she is also a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review and Forbes. She is an Adjunct Professor of Business Administration at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and has guest lectured at Harvard Business School, the Harvard Kennedy School, and more.

JULIA COOKE
Julia Cooke is the author of The Other Side of Paradise: Life in the New Cuba. Her writing on Cuba has appeared in the New York Times, Conde Nast Traveller, The Best American Travel Writing 2014, and the Virginia Quarterly Review. She's written about her experiences buying gourmet food on Havana's black market, profiled the most prolific design writer in the U.S. and a young sex worker in Havana. Julia is the recipient of fellowships from The Norman Mailer Center and Columbia University. Cultural Round Table 5/15/2014

GEMMA COOPER-NOVACK
Gemma Cooper-Novack is a writer, writing coach, and arts educator; she received her master’s degree in Arts in Education from Harvard University. Gemma's poetry has appeared in Amethyst Arsenic, Ballard Street Poetry Journal (2013 Pushcart Prize nomination), Belleville Park Pages, Lyre Lyre and many others. Her fiction has been published in Printer’s Devil Review and Elsewhere. Gemma was a winner of the Young Playwrights Festival as an adolescent, and her play I’m Coming In Soon was produced at the Cherry Lane Theatre in 2000.

LEELA CORMAN
Leela Corman studied painting, printmaking and illustration at Massachusetts College of Art. Her book Queen’s Day earned her a Xeric Award in 1999 and was called “music to my eyes” by Scott McCloud. She has created two more graphic novels including her latest, Unterzakhn, published by Schocken/Pantheon. Corman and her husband, Tom Hart, are the founders of The Sequential Artists Workshop, a non-profit organization dedicated to the prosperity and promotion of comic art and artists, offering instruction in comic art, graphic novels and visual storytelling in vibrant Gainesville, Florida, where she is also an adjunct instructor at University of Florida.

P. SCOTT CUNNINGHAM
P. Scott Cunningham is the co-founder and director of O, Miami: a month-long poetry festival with the goal of every single person in Miami-Dade County encountering a poem. His events and projects have been featured in New Yorker magazine, NPR’s Morning Edition, NPR’s The Takeaway, ESPN, Time, and many others. In 2011, Fast Company named him as one of 51 “Brilliant Urbanites” that are changing America. Presented in partnership with O, Miami Poetry Festival.

DONALD DAEDALUS
Donald Daedalus is an artist living and working in New York City and Washington State. He completed his MFA at the San Francisco Art Institute and BA at the University of Washington. His work has been exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Artist Television Access, apexart, Contemporary Art Center of Thessaliniki, Greece, konnektor forum for art, Germany, and the University of Washington.

MICHAEL DAUGHERTY
Michael Daugherty is one of the most widely performed American concert music composers of his generation. Daugherty's notable works include his Superman comic book-inspired Metropolis Symphony for Orchestra (1988–93), Dead Elvis for Solo Bassoon and Chamber Ensemble (1993) and Jackie O (1997). Daugherty has received numerous awards, distinctions, and fellowships for his music, including a Fulbright Fellowship (1977) and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (1992) and the Guggenheim Foundation (1996).

NEIL DE LA FLOR
Neil de la Flor is a writer, photographer, teacher and former fashion designer based in Miami, FL. His first book, Almost Dorothy (Marsh Hawk Press, 2010), won the Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize. de la Flor’s second book, An Elephant’s Memory of Blizzards (Marsh Hawk Press), which has nothing to do with elephants but everything to do with the memory or blizzards, examines our obsession with hope, the omnipresence of memory and the consequences of sexual abuse. Presented in partnership with Reading Queer Festival.

MATT DE LA PENA
Matt de la Peña is the author of five critically-acclaimed young adult novels, including Mexican WhiteBoy and The Living. Matt received his MFA in creative writing from San Diego State University and his BA from the University of the Pacific, where he attended school on a full athletic scholarship for basketball. de la Peña currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. He teaches creative writing and visits high schools and colleges throughout the country.

ANJANETTE DELGADO
Anjanette Delgado is a Puerto Rican novelist, journalist, and TV producer. She writes about heartbreak and lives in Miami with her husband, Daniel, and her Mini Daschund, Chloe. Her second novel is upcoming from Kensington Books (English) and by Penguin Random House (Spanish) in September of 2014.

AMANDA DEUTCH
Amanda Deutch is the author of three chapbooks: BOSS: Box of Sky (Dusie Kollektiv 4), Motel Drift and The Subway Series. Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Floormap, Pocketnotes, Finery, Ping Pong, Bone Bouquet, Denver Quarterly, Barrow Street, REVOLUTIONEsque, and elsewhere. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and she was the recipient of 2007 Footpaths Fellowship to live and write in the Azores archipelago. She is the founder and director of Parachute Literary Arts and lives in Brooklyn.

JOHNNY DIAZ
Johnny Diaz is an American novelist and a journalist for the Sun Sentinel, where he writes local feature stories about South Florida. Diaz is the author of several novels: Boston Boys Club, Miami Manhunt, Beantown Cubans, and Take the Lead. The television and film rights to Diaz' first three novels have been optioned by Open Road Integrated Media. Presented in partnership with the Unity Coalition / Celebrate Orgullo Festival.

ROBERT DIETZ
Dietz has been arranging, performing, and teaching a cappella music at all levels for over ten years. He studied at both the Australian Institute of Music in Sydney, and at the Ithaca College School of Music in New York. Dietz was a member of the creative team for seasons three and four of NBC’s The Sing-Off and currently sings with Jazz/Soul group, Level and with The Funx. Presented as part of The Betsy All Roads A Capella Festival.

MARK DOHERTY
Mark was born, eight of nine children, in Providence, Rhode Island to an Irish-American father and an Italian-American mother. He attended Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where he lettered in football and graduated with a B.S. in Biology in 1994. It was in college that Mark was first exposed to the theater, performing in three theatrical productions. Presented in partnership with the Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.

KIM EDGAR
Edinburgh-based pianist and songwriter Kim Edgar is attracting five-star reviews for both her recorded work and live performances. Kim's songs reflect her classical piano background, and her interest in horror, fairy tales, feminism, and social history, which she studied during her degree in English Language & Literature. Her songs are beginning to make their way in the world, with live performances at a range of UK venues and festivals, a European tour in 2011, and a growing fanbase in Scotland and further afield.

JAKE EHRENREICH
Jake Ehrenreich is the playwright for A Jew Grows in Brooklyn, an autobiographical one-man show that tells the stories of Ehrenreich’s family’s past and his understanding of his own cultural identity. The son of two survivors of the Holocaust, Ehrenreich grew up in Brooklyn, embarrassed by his heritage and wishing to be considered an average American. Presented in partnership with Jewish and American Holocaust Literature Symposium.

PATRICIA ENGEL
Engel is the author of the acclaimed books, Vida and It’s Not Love, It’s Just Paris. Vida, her debut, was a New York Times Notable Book of 2010 along with many other accolades including being named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, Barnes & Noble, Latina Magazine, and Los Angeles Weekly. Her novel, It’s Not Love, It’s Just Paris, was an Elle Reader’s Prize winner, a recommended summer read by the Los Angeles Times, Time Out New York, and Flavorwire, as well as winner of an International Latino Book Award.

GIOVANNI FALCHETTI
Direct from CHILE, this musical heartthrob is equally at home on TV as an actor, in one of his many music videos, or performing in front of thousands. Presented in partnership with Unity Coalition. Unity Coalition / Celebrate Orgullo Festival.

M.J. FIEVRE
Born in Port-au-Prince, M.J. Fievre is the author of several mystery novels in French. as well as short stories and poems in English appearing in many anthologies. M.J. obtained her MFA from the Creative Writing program at Florida International University and is the founding editor of Sliver of Stone, a bi-annual, online literary magazine dedicated to the publication of work from both emerging and established poets, writers, and visual artists from all parts of the globe.

NIKKY FINNEY
A child of activists, Finney came of age during the civil rights and Black Arts Movements. She has authored four books of poetry: Head Off & Split (2011); The World Is Round (2003); Rice (1995); and On Wings Made of Gauze (1985). The John H. Bennett, Jr. Chair in Southern Letters and Literature at the University of South Carolina, Finney also authored Heartwood (1997) and co- founded the Affrilachian Poets. Finney's fourth book of poetry, Head Off & Split was awarded the 2011 National Book Award for poetry.

KOTARO FUKUMA
Toyko-born Kotaro Fukuma started learning piano at the age of 5 and has won international competitions. In 2003, at the age of 20, Kotaro won both First Prize and the Chopin Prize at the 15th Cleveland International Piano Competition. Since then his concert career has developed on five continents (North and South America, Europe, Africa and Asia). Presented in partnership with the Miami Int'l Piano Festival.

M. EVELINA GALANG
Galang is the author of several books; her most recent novel is ANGEL DE LA LUNA AND THE 5TH GLORIOUS MYSTERY (Coffee House Press 2013). She is currently writing LOLAS’ HOUSE: WOMEN LIVING WITH WAR, stories of surviving Filipina WWII “Comfort Women." Galang teaches in and directs the Creative Writing Program at the University of Miami, is core faculty for Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation and has been named one of the 100 most influential Filipinas in the United States by Filipina Women’s Network. Presented as part of The Betsy Writer’s Room Escribe Aqui / Write Here Program.

VANESSA GARCIA
Garcia is an multi-media and cross-genre artist, writer, journalist, and playwright. She's written and reported for various publications including The New York Times; The LA Times; The Miami Herald; HowlRound; The Southern Humanities Review; and The Art Basel Magazine, along with numerous other journals, magazines, newspapers, and online media. In 2010, she was named one of Miami's 20 under 40 by The Miami Herald. That same year she was named one of Miami's 100 Creatives by the Miami New Times.

ROSS GAY
Gray is a Cave Canem poet whose books of poems includeAgainst Which and Bringing the Shovel Down . His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Atlanta Review, Harvard Review, Columbia: A Journal of Poetry and Art, and Margie: The American Journal of Poetry, among other places. He teaches at Indiana University and in the low-residency program at New England College.

ANDREA GRANO
Andrea Grano is an actress and producer, known for Planet of the Apes (2001), Outside Sales (2006) and Uninvited (2007), and she portrayed Ellen Price during Season 6 of 24. Presented in partnership with the Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.

DMW GREER
DMW Greer is an American playwright. Well known as the author of Burning Blue, written in 1992 and premiered at The King's Head Theatre on London’s fringe in 1995. Presented in partnership with the Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.

ROBERT HAAS
Haas served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997 and as a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets from 2001 to 2007. He received both an MA and Ph.D. in English from Stanford University and teaches at the University of California, Berkeley. His books of poetry include Time and Materials (2007), which won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize; Sun Under Wood: New Poems (1996), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award; and Human Wishes (1989); Praise (1979), which won the William Carlos Williams Award.

CATHI HANAUER
Cathi Hanauer is the author of three novels, Gone (Atria/Simon & Schuster, 2012), Sweet Ruin (Atria/Simon & Schuster, 2006), and My Sister's Bones (Delacorte, 1996), and the editor of the # 10 New York Times bestselling essay collection The Bitch in the House: 26 Women Tell the Truth about Sex, Solitude, Work, Motherhood and Marriage (Morrow/HarperCollins, 2002). She was the monthly books columnist for both Glamour and Mademoiselle and wrote the monthly advice column "Relating" in Seventeen for seven years. Presented in partnership with Lip Service.

JODIE HOLLANDER
Jodie Hollander is originally from Wisconsin and now lives and works in Washington DC. An alumni of the Creative Writing MA at Bath Spa University, her poetry has appeared in a number of poetry magazines and journals both in the UK and America. She has also received a Fullbright Scholarship and is due to receive a Hawthornden Fellowship in 2013.

DANIEL JONES
Daniel Jones has edited the Modern Love column in the Sunday Styles section of the New York Times since its inception in October 2004. His books include two essay anthologies, Modern Love and The Bastard on the Couch, and a novel, After Lucy, which was a finalist for the Barnes & Noble Discover Award. His writing has appeared in several publications, including the New York Times, Elle, Parade, Real Simple, and Redbook. Presented in partnership with Lip Service.

TARA KARSIAN
Tara Karsian is an American stage and film actress. She is a member of the Echo Theater Company and has appeared on several television programs, including ER, Prison Break, and Desperate Housewives, along with 12 Miles of Bad Road. Her film credits include The Number 23, Single White Female, Envy, and Boys Life 3. Presented in partnership with the Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.

SALLY KEITH
Poet and teacher at George Mason University; Sally Keith is the author of two previous collections of poetry: Design, winner of the 2000 Colorado Prize for Poetry, and Dwelling Song, winner of the University of Georgia’s Contemporary Poetry Series competition. Winner of the Pushcart Prize, her poems have appeared in Colorado Review, A Public Space, Gulf Coast, New England Review, and elsewhere.

DASHA KELLY
An accomplished writer, artist and social entrepreneur, Dasha Kelly travels the country as a keynote speaker, workshop facilitator, youth coach and performance artist. Dasha's first novel, All Fall Down (Syntax 2003), earned her a position on Written Word Magazine's Top Ten List of Up-and-Coming Writers of the Midwest. A featured story from her collection, Hershey Eats Peanuts (Penmanship Books 2009), was a finalist in the Abbey Hill Literary Awards. Presented in partnership with Tigertail Productions.

BROOKE KING
King served in the U.S. Army, deploying to Iraq in 2006. Her combat experience has led her to focus on the involvement of female soldiers. Her work has been published in the Sandhill Review and Press 53’s fiction war anthology Home of the Brave: Somewhere in the Sand with a forthcoming nonfiction publication with University Nebraska Press. Presented as part of The Betsy Arts in the Alleyway, 2013.

WAYNE KOESTENBAUM
Born in 1958, Wayne Koestenbaum attended Harvard University and received an MA in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University and a PhD from Princeton University. After being named co-winner of the 1989 Discovery/The Nation poetry contest, he published his first collection of poetry, Ode to Anna Moffo and Other Poems (Persea, 1990), which was chosen as one of The Village Voice Literary Supplement's "Favorite Books of 1990.”

ASHLEY KOLODNER
Ashley Kolodner is an artist and activist specializing in still photography. She graduated with a BA in commercial photography from the Brooks Institute of Photography and has traveled the US. Her work has been featured in numbers galleries and shows, including Toronto Fashion Week and was featured in Photographer’s Forum’s Best of Photography 2011. Presented in partnership with Unity Coalition / Celebrate Orgullo Festival.

JOSE KOZER
Recipient of the 2013 Pablo Neruda Ibero-American Poetry Prize, José Kozer is the author of over 65 collections of verse. His most recent, No buscan reflejarse (2002), a selection from past volumes, is the first poetry collection by a living Cuban exile to be published in Havana. His own far more comprehensive selection of poems, Stet, with translations by Mark Weiss, is available as a bilingual edition from Junction Press.

ILYSE KUSNETZ
Kusnetz received her MA in Creative Writing from Syracuse University and her Ph.D. in Feminist and Postcolonial British Fiction from the University of Edinburgh. Her poetry has been published in journals such as Rattle, Crazyhorse, Stone Canoe and Poetry Review; her book reviews and interviews have appeared in The Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday, The New Statesman, and The Florida Review. She is the author of a chapbook, The Gravity of Falling.

PATRICK LAIRD
Patrick Laird is a much sought-after cellist and composer/arranger. He is widely recognized as the cellist, founding member, and principal songwriter for the cello-rock ensemble "Break of Reality”. One half of Brooklyn Duo with wife Marnie Laird, the duo covers music from Shakira's "Empire" to John Legend's "All of Me".

MARNIE HAUSCHILDT LAIRD
Marnie is an active soloist, collaborator, chamber and orchestral musician. She holds a master's degree in collaborative piano from The Juilliard School, and spent the past three years as the principal pianist of the New World Symphony in Miami and will be returning to NYC in September 2013.

JACQUELINE JONES LAMON|
LaMon is the recipient of the Quercus Review Press Poetry Series Book Award; and the novel, In the Arms of One Who Loves Me. Ms. LaMon earned her M.F.A. in Creative Writing, Poetry, from Indiana University Bloomington and was noted by the NAACP in the category of Outstanding Literary, Poetry in 2012. She lives in Brooklyn, New York and teaches at Adelphi University.

PEDRO MEDINA LEON
Pedro Medina León is author of Streets de Miami and Mañana no te veré en Miami. His fiction and non fiction have appeared in El Nuevo Herald, Latina Noticias, Label Me Latin@, Nagari Magazine. Pedro is founder of Suburbano Ediciones, a Spanish language cultural online magazine (www.sub-urbano.com). Currently Suburbano Ediciones is also an imprint and an online books-marketplace.

MIA LEONIN
Mia Leonin is the author of two books of poetry Braid (Anhinga Press) and Unraveling the Bed (forthcoming from Anhinga Press). She has been awarded an Academy of American Poets Prize and her poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Leonin’s poetry has been published in New Letters, Indiana Review, Prairie Schooner, Chelsea and Witness.

JORDAN LEVIN
Jordan Levin has been an arts and entertainment reporter and critic at the Miami Herald since 1999, covering dance and performance, Latin and pop music, and cultural and investigative features. She has written and produced radio features for WLRN-Miami Herald News, two of which aired on NPR. As a freelancer, she has written for the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Latina, among others. Before turning to journalism, she was a dancer in New York City and an arts presenter in Miami.

KELLY LUCE
Kelly Luce is the author of Three Scenarios in Which Hana Sasaki Grows a Tail (A Strange Object, 2013). Her work has been recognized by fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Ragdale Foundation, the Kerouac Project, and Jentel Arts, and has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Salon and other magazines. She lives in Austin, Texas, where she is a fellow at the Michener Center for Writers and a fiction editor at Bat City Review.

NIGEL MAISTER
Nigel Maister has been the artistic director of the University of Rochester International Theatre Program since 2002 (before that he was the program's associate director). Born in South Africa, he has trained both as an actor and as a director.

VINCENZO MALTEMPO
Vincenzo Maltempo was born in Benevento, Italy.In 2006 he won the XXIII Competition "Premio Veneziaand started a successfully international career with a wide-ranging repertoire and recordings that have been well received and reviewed internationally. Presented in partnership with Miami Int'l Piano Festival.

JESSIE LOUISE MARK
Mark graduated from Duke University in 2011 where she majored in History and minored in Music. As a member of Duke’s all-female a cappella group Lady Blue, Jessie led the group to their first appearance at the SoJam Collegiate Competition in 2008. Since graduating, she has led arranging and music theory workshops at SoJam, LAAF and BOSS, served as an ICCA judge and coached several a cappella groups. Presented as part of The Betsy All Roads A Cappella Festival.

HOLLI MATZE
Matze joined the a cappella community as a member of the James Madison University BluesTones, serving as music director and president - leading the group to many recognitions in the ICCA, SoJam, BOCA & CARA’s. Holli has served on the Varsity Vocals team as an ICCA Producer for the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic Regions, and currently, teaches theatre and voice and serves as the founder/music director of the all-female vocal group, The District. Presented as part of The Betsy All Roads A Cappella Festival.

ELENA MEDEL
Elena Medel is one of the most talented and promising young writers in Spain today. She has published four books and a chapbook to date, two of which have won prestigious literary awards. At only 16 years old she won the ‘Andalucía Joven’ prize, awarded by the Junta of Andalusia, for her book Mi primer bikini / My First Bikini (DVD, 2002), and last year she won the XXVI Loewe International Poetry Prize, Spain’s most prestigious awards of its kind, for Chatterton, her most recent collection.

VINCENT MOON
Vincent Moon is an independent filmmaker from Paris. He gained world notoriety with La Blogotheque's popular video podcast The Take Away Shows. In 4 years, Moon directed over 200 videos as a series of improvised outdoor video sessions with musicians, set in unexpected locations and broadcast freely on the web. Moon is visiting Miami for the first time, in partnership with Indie Film Club Miami.

EDWARD MORAN
Edward Moran is an author and historian who specializes in literary biography. He was the literary researcher for the documentary film Hyam Plutzik: American Poet, shown recently at various film festivals, including the Zebra Poetry Film Festival in Berlin. He is also the literary advisor to the Hyam Plutzik “50/100” centennial celebrations in 2011-2012. Presented in partnership with the Jewish and American Holocaust Literature Symposium.

EMILY NEMENS
Nemens is a writer and illustrator based in Baton Rouge by way of Brooklyn. Her creative writing has been featured in The Gettysburg Review, Eleven Eleven, and on Esquire.com, as well as in the recent chapbook, Butcher Papers, and she is a 2014 Pushcart Prize nominee. As an illustrator she's collaborated with Harvey Pekar and painted miniature portraits of all the women in congress, a project that was featured on national TV and across the web. Since autumn 2013 she has served as the coeditor and prose editor of The Southern Review.

KELSEY OSGOOD
Kelsey Osgood has contributed pieces to publications including New York, The New Yorker’s Culture Desk blog, Time, The Huffington Post andSalon. Her first book, How to Disappear Completely, was chosen for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers program. She is a regular contributor to the digital version of Psychology Today and Biographile, Penguin Random House blog about nonfiction writing, and is a staff writer at The American Reader.

STACY PALMER
Stacy Palmer is editor of The Chronicle of Philanthropy, which is considered the number-one news source in the nonprofit world. She has served as a top editor since the newspaper was founded in 1988 and has overseen the development of its Web sites, Philanthropy.com and Philanthropy Careers. Palmer frequently appears on radio and television to offer commentary on news in the nonprofit world.

GREGORY PARDLO
Gregory Pardlo is the author of Totem, which received the APR/ Honickman Prize in 2007, and Digest, (Four Way Books, 2014). His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Boston Review, The Nation, and others - as well as anthologies including the Norton Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry, and two editions of Best American Poetry.

MIKE PATERNITI
Author of The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge and the World's Greatest Piece of Cheese. GQ Correspondent. Presented in cooperation with Writers on The Bay, Florida International University Department of English – Creative Writing Program.

ADAM PITLUK
Adam Pitluk is an award-winning journalist and the author of “Damned To Eternity” and “Standing Eight,” both books critically acclaimed and studies of the human condition. Adam has a bachelor of journalism from the University of Missouri and a master of science from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He is currently the executive editor of American Way and Celebrated Living magazines, the in-flight and first class magazines of American Airlines respectively.

ALBERTO GARCIA PUJALS
Alberto García Pujals se licenció en Traducción e Interpretación en Madrid, en Periodismo en Barcelona y obtuvo el Máster en Didáctica del Español en Santander. De las personas con las que se ha ido cruzando en sus correrías se alimentan los personajes de su debut literario Los que lloran, se alegran y usan de este mundo. Presented in partnership with Unity Coalition / Celebrate Orgullo 2014.

MATT ROBERTS
Matt Roberts is a new media artist specializing in real-time video performance and new media applications. His work has been featured internationally and nationally, and he has shown in several new media festivals including ISEA, FILE, 404, CONFLUX. He recently received the Transitio award from the Transitio_MX Festival in Mexico City. He is the founder of EMP: Electronic Mobile Performance , and an Associate Professor of Digital Art at Stetson University.

ROBERT XAVIER RODRIGUEZ
Robert Xavier Rodríguez is “one of the major American composers of his generation” (Texas Monthly). Rodríguez received his early musical education in San Antonio (b. 1946) and in Austin (UT), Los Angeles (USC), Lenox (Tanglewood), Fontainebleau (Conservatoire Américain) and Paris. Rodríguez first gained international recognition in 1971, when he was awarded the Prix de Composition Musicale Prince Pierre de Monaco by Prince Rainier and Princess Grace at the Palais Princier in Monte Carlo. Other honors include the Prix Lili Boulanger, a Guggenheim Fellowship, awards from ASCAP and the Rockefeller Foundation, five NEA grants and the Goddard Lieberson Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

JULIA RUBANO
Ms. Rubano has been selected as the 2014 Trinity College South Beach Writer's Residency recipient by Trinity College and the Family of Hyam Plutzik, American Poet, for her outstanding talent in the Literary Arts at Trinity, where she is an English major with a focus on creative writing (poetry), with a minor in Film Studies.

MIRIAM SAGAN
A graduate of Harvard with an M.A. in creative writing from Boston University, Miriam was one of the editors of the Boston area-based Aspect Magazine and a founder of Zephyr Press. She’s published more than twenty books, including Searching for a Mustard Seed: A Young Widow’s Unconventional Story, which won the award for best memoir from Independent Publishers for 2004.

LLEWELLYN SANCHEZ-WERNER
A California native, sixteen-year-old Llewellyn Sanchez-Werner began piano studies at age two and by the age of six made his orchestral debut as soloist. He now resides in New York while continuing his studies at the Juilliard School. Sanchez-Werner performed for President Obama at his last inauguration. Committed to social action through music, Sanchez-Werner has received a 2011 CNN Heroes nomination. Presented in partnership with Miami Int'l Piano Festival.

DON SHARE
Don Share became the editor of Poetry in 2013. His books of poetry are Wishbone(2012), Squandermania(2007), and Union (2013, 2002). He is the co-editor of The Open Door: 100 Poems, 100 Years of PoetryMagazine (2012), and editor of Bunting's Persia(2012) and a critical edition of Basil Bunting's poems (Faber and Faber). He is the translator of I Have Lots of Heart: Selected Poems by Miguel Hernández (1998), winner of the Times Literary Supplement Translation Prize and the Premio Valle Inclán for Spanish Translation.

SANDRA SIMMONDS
Sandra Simonds is the author of Warsaw Bikini (Bloof Books, 2008) and Mother Was a Tragic Girl (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2012). She is assistant professor of English and Humanities at Thomas University in Thomasville, Georgia. Presented in partnership with Reading Queer Festival.

DIANA SPECHLER
Diana Spechler is the author of Who By Fire (Harper Perennial, 2008) and Skinny (Harper Perennial, 2011). She has written for the New York Times; GQ;O, The Oprah Magazine; CNN Living; Esquire; New York Magazine and elsewhere. She is a six-time Moth Story SLAM winner and has been featured on The Moth Radio Hour, The Moth podcast, and NPR. She received her MFA degree from the University of Montana and was a Steinbeck Fellow at San Jose State University and the writer-in-residence at Portsmouth Abbey School.

ELEANOR STANFORD
Stanford is the author of the memoir, História, História: Two Years in the Cape Verde Islands (Chicago Center for Literature and Photography) and of a poetry collection, The Book of Sleep (Carnegie Mellon University Press). Her poems and essays have appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, The Harvard Review, The Georgia Review, The Massachusetts Review, Brain, Child Magazine, and others.

LEIGH STEIN
Leigh Stein is the author of the poetry collection, Dispatch from the Future (Melville House, 2012), which was a Publishers Weekly pick for their Best Summer Books of 2012 list, as well as a Rumpus Poetry Book Club selection. Her first novel, The Fallback Plan (Melville House, 2012), received praise from Elle, O Magazine, and Publishers Weekly, and made the "highbrow brilliant" quadrant in New York magazine's approval matrix.

DR. GUY STERN
The only member of his 5 person family to escape Germany in 1937, Stern later became a member of the Ritchie Boys, a special US military intelligence unit responsible for the interrogation of German prisoners of war and defectors. He is currently the director of The Harry and Wanda Zekelman International Institute of the Righteous at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills (near Detroit) and one of the founders of the Lessing Society.

BEN STEVENS
Stevens served at the University of Chicago for three years as dedicated vocal percussionist and occasional baritone for Harmony Eight (now Ransom Notes) and led vocal percussion workshops at the University's Jewish A Cappella Festival, Striking a Chord. He currently helps to direct a student group at Bard, the Orcapelicans. He is also a Certified ICCA Adjudicator and a sometime nominator and judge for the Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards. Presented as part of The Betsy All Roads A Cappella Festival.

THOMAS SWICK
Thomas Swick is the author of a travel memoir, Unquiet Days: At Home in Poland (1991, Ticknor & Fields), and a collection of travel stories. His work has appeared in The American Scholar, The Oxford American, The North American Review, The Missouri Review, The Wilson Quarterly, and many others. From 1989 to 2008, Swick was the travel editor of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, and the newspaper’s name appeared in every edition of The Best American Travel Writing from its inauguration in 2000 to 2008, the year that he left the paper.

AMY TAN
Amy Tan is an American writer whose works explore mother-daughter relationships. Her most well-known work is The Joy Luck Club, which has been translated into 35 languages. In 1993, the book was adapted into a commercially successful film. Tan has written several other bestselling novels, including The Kitchen God's Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, The Bonesetter's Daughter and Saving Fish from Drowning. Presented in partnership with Florida Int'l University.

ELIOTT TORRES
Eliott Torres has worked behind the scenes in the fashion, music, television, film, video game and magazine industries. In the summer of 2002, his debut collection of poetry, Five Years of Solitary, was released to an enthusiastic response. His other poetry books include Undaunted: A Poetic Journey, Architecture of a Solipsistic Mind, and One Last Tryst. Presented in partnership with Unity Coalition / Celebrate Orgullo Festival.

BRIAN TURNER
Turner earned an MFA from the University of Oregon before serving for seven years in the U.S. Army. He was deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1999-2000 and to Iraq in 2003-04. His first book, Here, Bullet, chronicles his time in Iraq. Turner has been featured on National Public Radio, the Newshour with Jim Lehrer and the BBC. He has received a NEA Literature Fellowship in Poetry, the Amy Lowell Traveling Fellowship and a fellowship from the Lannan Foundation.

JEREMY TURNER
American musician Jeremy Turner has rapidly gained a reputation for composing innovative and diverse music for the moving image and the stage. From creating award-winning scores for films and commercials, to a career as the Asst. Principal Cello of the Met Orchestra, he has established a unique regard for understanding and performing varying musical languages and styles. Presented in partnership with Miami Book Fair Int'l.

ANGELA UGOLINI
Ugolini directed the award-winning all-female group, FSU AcaBelles, and led them to ICCA finals as the 2009 South Champions. She sang with the Contemporary A cappella League group, The Red States (now known as Restated), and co-founded NYC’s CAL female group, Empire. Her work as a music producer with the a cappella production team, The Vocal Company, has been nominated for 20+ CARAs and other accolades. Presented as part of The Betsy All Roads A Cappella Festival.

JOSE A. VILLAR-PORTELA
JV Portela is a poet, translator and editor based out of Miami, FL. While he is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in Hispanic Literature at Florida International University he often leaves the ivory tower to serve as the Editor/Translator of the O, Miami Poetry Festival, Editor of Jai-Alai Magazine, Assistant Editor and Head of Spanish-Language Acquisitions of Jai-Alai Books and the Programming Director of Reading Queer. Presented in partnership with Reading Queer Poetry Festival.

IRA WAGNER
After 27 years on Wall Street, Wagner studies photography in 2008 and received his MFA in photography from the Hartford Art School Int'l Limited Residency program. He is interested in photographing the urban landscape and capturing the complex layers of development that have taken place there. Wagner currently teaches photography at Monmouth University.

DAN WAKEFIELD
Dan Wakefield is author of the best-selling novels, 'Going All The Way,' and 'Starting Over,' which were both produced as feature films.

L. LAMAR WILSON
L. Lamar Wilson has poems in or forthcoming in African American Review, Los Angeles Review, jubilat, The 100 Best African American Poems and more. His poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and won the 2011 Beau Boudreaux Poetry Prize. Wilson has received fellowships from the Cave Canem Foundation, the Callaloo Workshops, the Alfred E. Knobler Scholarship Fund, and the Arts and Sciences Foundation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

TERRI WITEK
Terri Witek is the author of several books including The Shipwreck Dress (2008), a Florida Book Award winner and Courting Couples (winner of the 2000 Center for Book Arts Contest). In 2000, she received the McInery Award for Teaching, and in 2008, she received the John Hague Teaching Award for outstanding teaching in the liberal arts and sciences. A native of northern Ohio, she teaches English at Stetson University, where she holds the Sullivan Chair in Creative Writing.