Lea Marshall’s writing has appeared in Imagining: A Gibney Journal, The Atlantic, Dance Magazine and elsewhere, and her poetry has been published in Attached to the Living World: A New Ecopoetry Anthology, Hayden’s Ferry Review, JAMA, The Penn Review, Diode and Rogue Agent, among other journals and anthologies. She was recently named a finalist for Palette Poetry’s Nature Writing Prize and Shenandoah’s Graybeal-Gowen Prize for Virginia Poets. Marshall worked as a producer and arts administrator for more than 20 years, earning a Master of Fine Arts degree from Virginia Commonwealth University along the way. Her debut collection, The Slow Hammer of Roots, was published in 2025 by Broadstone Books. She currently works as a grant writer and lives with her family in Charlottesville, Virginia.

AJ White is a poet and educator from Georgia. His debut poetry collection, Blue Loop, was selected for the National Poetry Series by Chelsea Dingman and published by the University of Georgia Press. White has won the Fugue Poetry Prize and the Willie Morris Award for Southern Poetry and has received support from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. His poems have appeared recently in The Account, Best New Poets, Blackbird, Overheard and West Trade Review, among other publications. He lives and teaches creative writing in New York.