Juan J. Morales is the son of an Ecuadorian mother and Puerto Rican father and the author of four poetry collections, including Dream of the Bird Tattoo and The Handyman’s Guide to End Times. Morales has received fellowships from CantoMundo, Macondo, Longleaf Writers Conference, and he has served as the editor/publisher of Pilgrimage Press. He lives in Pueblo, Colorado, occasionally teaches for Lighthouse Writers in Denver, and is an Assistant Professor of English at Colorado College.

Lise Goett has published three poetry collections, her most recent The Radiant (Tupelo Press 2024) a finalist for the 2025 New Mexico Book Award.Winner of the Tupelo Press July Open, her second collection, Leprosarium, was chosen from over 1200 to be published in 2018 by Tupelo Press, and was the winner of the Robert H. Winner Memorial Award in Poetry from the Poetry Society of America and the Palette 2020 Spotlight Award. Other honors include The Paris Review Discovery Award, The Pen Southwest Book Award in Poetry, the Capricorn Prize from the West Side Y, the James D. Phelan Award, and The Barnard New Women Poets Prize for my first poetry collection, Waiting for the Paraclete (Beacon, 2002), as well as postgraduate fellowships from The Milton Center and the Creative Writing Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is a core facilitator for the Tupelo Conference in Truchas, New Mexico, leads online generative poetry marathons and edits manuscripts, 38 published to date.

Kristina Marie Darling is the author of over thirty books, which include recent releases from Bloomsbury, Dzanc, Persea, and Penguin Canada. A twice-awarded Fulbright Scholar, Dr. Darling was granted a five-year tenure as an expert consultant with the U.S. Fulbright Commission and now serves on the jury for Fulbright awards. Her work has also been recognized by Yaddo, the Villa Lena Foundation, the American Academy in Rome, Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, the Ucross Foundation, Fundación Valparaíso, the Andorran Ministry of Culture, the Clews Foundation, where she will serve as faculty at their Chateau La Napoule Retreat Series in the south of France, and many other leading institutions in the U.S. and abroad. A prolific educator and public speaker with the Ovation Agency, Dr. Darling has also lectured at the American University of Rome, Stanford University, Yale University, the Leysin American School in Switzerland, Columbia University in the City of New York, the New School, the University of Cyprus, the Prague Summer Program for Writers, the San Miguel Writers Conference & Literary Festival, and the Ionian Center for the Arts & Culture, where she is now permanent faculty.  In 2018, Dr. Darling launched her own public speaking business, which currently operates with clients throughout Europe, Southeast Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa.  Born and raised in the American midwest, she now divides her time between Greece, Croatia, and Italy’s Amalfi coast.

Jamie Figueroa writes toward memory and inherited silence from the thresholds—between languages, identities, and homelands. She is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Brother, Sister, Mother, Explorer (Catapult, 2021) and Mother Island: A Daughter Claims Puerto Rico (Pantheon, 2024), a memoir-in-essays praised for its lyricism, boldness, and decolonial gaze. Her work appears in The New York Times, McSweeney’s, Elle, and American Short Fiction, among others. A recipient of the Truman Capote Award and a Bread Loaf Rona Jaffe Scholar, she teaches in the MFA Creative Writing program at the Institute of American Indian Arts. Boricua (Afro-Taíno) by way of Ohio, she lives in northern New Mexico, where land and language are in constant conversation.

Founding publisher and editor of 3: A Taos Press, Andrea Watson’s poetry has appeared in Nimrod, Ekphrasis, The Feminist Journal of Studies in Religion, International Poetry Review, and The Dublin Quarterly, among others. She is co-editor of the poetry anthologies, Collecting Life: Poets on Objects Known and Imagined and Malala: Poems for Malala Yousafzai. Andrea has designed and curated eighteen ekphrasis events across the United States, commencing with Braided Lives: A Collaboration Between Artists and Poets, sponsored by the Taos Institute of Arts, and, most recently, Take a Detour from Route 66: Taos to L.A., featured at the Homestead Museum in Los Angeles and La Hacienda de los Martinez in Taos.

Susan Mihalic is the author of Dark Horses (Scout Press, 2021), a critically acclaimed novel about an equestrian prodigy who is trapped in an abusive relationship with her Olympian father. The book received starred reviews from Booklist, Library Journal, Kirkus, and Publishers Weekly, which also boxed its review, and made numerous must-read lists (O Magazine, Country Living, Parade, Library Journal, Goop, Bustle, and other publications). A long-time resident of Taos, Susan holds a B.A. in journalism and straight out of college was hired by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, where she was quickly promoted to associate editor. She has volunteered at SOMOS in the youth mentorship program and facilitator of National Novel Writing Month write-ins. She is the current curator for the Young Writers Program.

Veronica Golos is the author of GIRL awarded the Naji Naaman Honor Prize, 2019 (Beirut, Lebanon); Rootwork, Winner of the Southwest Book Design Award in Poetry, 2016; Vocabulary of Silence winner of the 2011 New Mexico Book Award, translated into Arabic, Spanish and Persian; and A Bell Buried Deep, winner of the Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize. She is a senior editor for Tupelo Quarterly. She teaches poetry for Tupelo Press Poetry Conferences, Gemini Ink (San Antonio, Tx) SOMOS (Taos, NM), and previously at Diné Technical Institute (Arizona). She will be teaching for the Tucson Poetry Festival, and at the Wyoming Poetry Society Festival. She lives in Taos, New Mexico, with her husband, David Pérez.

Linda Michel-Cassidy writes fiction, poetry, brief essays, and criticism. Her story collection, When We Were Hardcore (EastOver, 2025) was named to the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Award for debut story collection longlist, received a Publisher’s Weekly star, and a National Indie Excellence Award. Michel-Cassidy’s poetry has appeared in The New Orleans Review, Rattle, December Magazine, Sky Island, Catamaran, and elsewhere. She is senior reviews and hybrid/collaboration editor at Tupelo Quarterly, and is a freelance editor and reviewer. She holds MFAs in fiction (Bennington) and poetry (Vermont College of Fine Arts). Michel-Cassidy is from Arroyo Seco. lmichelcassidy.com

Valerie Martínez is the author of six books of poetry in addition to a chapbook of poetry and prose (A Hundred Little Mouths) and a book of translations (of Uruguay’s Delmira Agustini). Her acclaimed book-length poem, COUNT (University of Arizona Press, 2021), reckons with the heartbreaking reality of climate change. Forty-three sections of myth-gathering, depictions of flora and fauna, accounts of climate devastation, personal narratives, references to works of eco-art, and evocations of children create a deeply nuanced image of the current climate crisis. Valerie’s forthcoming collection, IN A THUNDER OF FUR AND WINTER, will be published by Tupelo Press in 2027. Valerie taught poetry and literature at the undergraduate and graduate level for over 22 years. She was the Poet Laureate of Santa Fe, NM, from 2008-2010. Learn more at www.valeriemartinez.net

Catherine Strisik, poet, teacher, editor, is author of four poetry books most recently: Goat, Goddess, Moon. She was Taos, New Mexico’s Poet Laureate 2020-2021; co-founder/editor of Taos Journal of Poetry, is a Pushcart nominee, and has over 38 years of publications with poetry translated into Greek, Persian, and Bulgarian. She’s held private workshops in Crete and offers editorial services and consultations to both poets and essayists, as well as on-going small group poetry workshops. Strisik divides her time between northern New Mexico and Cape Ann, MA.  www.cathystrisik.com

Allegra Huston presented a TEDx Talk on imaginative intelligence in March 2026, which will be available on YouTube in May. She is the co-author of the books Creative Writing: The Imaginative Storm Method and Write What You Don’t Know in collaboration with poet and creativity coach James Navé, as well as the accompanying workbook 50 Imaginative Storm Writing Prompts.

Write What You Don’t Know is also available as an audio and a video course.

Allegra has written four other books: Love Child: A Memoir of Family Lost and Found, the novel A Stolen Summer, How to Edit and Be Edited, and How to Read for an Audience (with James Navé). She has taught memoir, screenwriting, and creative writing workshops around the world, including for the University of Oklahoma, the National University of Ireland, Galway, and the UK’s prestigious Arvon Foundation, and was for many years Editorial Director of the prestigious London publishing house Weidenfeld & Nicolson. She is currently working on two books: Write What You Don’t Know for Memoir and Imaginative Intelligence.

Sheila L. Carter-Jones is the author of Three Birds Deep, the winner of the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Book Award, and Every Hard Sweetness (BOA, 2024). She is also the author of the chapbooks Blackberry Cobbler Song and Crooked Star Dream Book. Sheila is a fellow of Cave Canem, the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop and a Walter Dakin Fellow of the Sewanee Writer’s Conference. Her poetry has been published in Crossing Limits, Pittsburgh Quarterly, Pennsylvania Review, Tri-State Anthology, Riverspeak, Flights: The Literary Journal of Sinclair College, Coal: A Poetry Anthology, City Paper, Cave Canem Anthology, Jewish Currents, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Women Speak, Mom Egg Review, Northside Chronicle, Platform Review, South Dakota Review, Shepherd University Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Butler Books: The Boom Project, Low Ghost Press, Labor, Rune Literary Collection and other journals and anthologies. She received her MFA from Carlow University where she facilitates writing workshops for the Madwomen in the Attic Program. Her work also appears in several volumes of Madwomen Anthologies.