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Editors | The Volta
Joshua Marie Wilkinson (Founding Editor) is the author of Bad Woods (Sidebrow 2021) and eight other books of poetry. He has edited five anthologies and his poems have appeared in Pen America, The Believer, Tin House, and Poetry, among others. With Lisa Wells, he runs a small press called Letter Machine Editions. He lives in Seattle, and was the 2019 writer-in-residence at Rhodes University in South Africa.
Lisa Wells (Editor) is the author of Believers (FSG, 2021) and a poetry collection, The Fix (2018), which won the Iowa Poetry Prize. Her poems and essays can be found in The New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, Granta, The Believer, n+1, The Iowa Review and elsewhere. She lives in Seattle.
Sasha Hawkins (Managing Editor) Sasha Hawkins is a writer from Laveen, AZ with a deep, abiding love for schlock films and professional wrestling. She has a poetry chapbook titled These Deals Won't Last Forever, published by The Operating System in 2019.
Alexander Moysaenko (Editor) is General Manager at Open Books: A Poem Emporium and works as a freelance copyeditor in Seattle.
Contributing Editors | The Volta
Tobi Kassim lives in New Haven, CT. His work has been published in Zocalo Public Square, The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, and The Brooklyn Review.
Gabriel Palacios writes poetry in Tucson, Arizona. He is assistant poetry editor at The Diagram. His most recent work appears or is forthcoming in Poetry Northwest, The Brooklyn Rail, Fugue, and DREGINALD.
Gabriel Dozal is an MFA candidate in poetry at The University of Arizona. He is from El Paso, TX and writes about the borderlands. He has work in The Literary Review, Guernica, and forthcoming in Hunger Mountain and The Iowa Review.
Janelle Effiwatt is an MFA candidate at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.
Susan Briante is the author of Pioneers in the Study of Motion (Ahsahta Press 2007) and Utopia Minus (Ahsahta Press 2011). She is an assistant professor of literature and creative writing at the University of Texas at Dallas. Her chapbook, The Market is a Parasite that Looks like a Nest, part of an on-going lyric investigation of the stock market, was recently published by Dancing Girl Press.
Laynie Browne’s most recent books include Roseate, Points of Gold (Dusie 2011); The Desires of Letters (Counterpath 2010); and The Scented Fox (Wave 2007). She is coeditor of I’ll Drown My Book: Conceptual Writing by Women (Les Figues, 2012).
Julie Carr is the author of four books of poetry: Mead: An Epithalamion; Equivocal; 100 Notes on Violence (winner of the 2009 Sawtooth Award); and Sarah-Of Fragments and Lines (a 2010 National Poetry Series selection). Her critical study of Victorian poetry, Surface Tension: Ruptural Time and the Poetics of Desire in Late Victorian Poetry, is forthcoming in 2013 from Dalkey Archive. A new book of poems, RAG, is forthcoming from Omnidawn. She is at work on a long-term project titled Real Life: An Installation, and collaborations with the dance artist K.J. Holmes. She is the recipient of a 2010-11 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and is the co-publisher with Tim Roberts of Counterpath Press. She teaches at the University of Colorado in Boulder and lives in Denver where, with Tim and others, she runs a small bookstore/gallery/performance space called Counterpath.
Don Mee Choi grew up in Seoul and Hong Kong, then came to the U.S. to study art. Her first book of poems is The Morning News is Exciting (Action Books, 2010). She has recently received a Whiting Writer's Award. Her translations include All the Garbage of the World, Unite! (Action Books, 2011), Mommy Must Be a Fountain of Feathers (Action Books, 2008), Anxiety of Words (Zephyr, 2006), and When the Plug Gets Unplugged (Tinfish, 2005). She also has translations of Kim Hyesoon's essays forthcoming from Tinfish Retro Chapbook Series.
Julia Cohen is the author of Triggermoon Triggermoon (Black Lawrence Press, 2011) and her poems appear in places like jubilat, 6x6, Colorado Review, and Octopus. She is the Associate Editor of the Denver Quarterly and the co-editor of Saltgrass.
Patrick Culliton lives and works in Chicago. He is Associate Editor for Conduit and co-host for the Talus, Or Scree podcast. His chapbook, Hornet Homily, is available from Octopus Books.
Noah Eli Gordon is the author of several books, including The Year of The Rooster (Ahsahta Press, 2013), The Source (Futurepoem, 2011), and Novel Pictorial Noise (Harper Perennial, 2007). Gordon is the co-publisher of Letter Machine Editions, and an assistant professor in the MFA program in Creative Writing at The University of Colorado–Boulder.
Kate Greenstreet’s books are Young Tambling, The Last 4 Things, and case sensitive, all with Ahsahta Press. For more about Kate, visit kickingwind.com.
John Keene is the author of Annotations (New Directions), and with artist Christopher Stackhouse, of Seismosis (1913 Press). His poetry, fiction, essays, and translations have appeared widely. He teaches at Northwestern University and will join the faculty at Rutgers University-Newark in Fall 2012.
Sara Renee Marshall (Co-Founder) is a poet. She is also the managing editor for Noemi Press. Recent poems are out or forthcoming in places like Colorado Review, Octopus, CutBank, Poor Claudia’s Crush and OmniVerse. Her chapbook, AFFECTIONATELY WE CALL THIS THE HOUSE, is forthcoming from Brave Men Press. She lives and writes in Denver, Colorado.
Dawn Lundy Martin is the author of DISCIPLINE (Nighboat Books 2011); Candy (Albion Books 2011); A Gathering of Matter/A Matter of Gathering (2007); and The Morning Hour (2003). She is a founding member of the Black Took Collective, a group of experimental black poets, and an assistant professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh.
Poet, essayist and librettist, J. Michael Martinez´s writings have appeared in New American Writing and on NPR. Recipient of the 2006 Five Fingers Review Poetry Prize, his collection Heredities was selected by Juan Felipe Herrera for the Academy of American Poets' Walt Whitman Award, and is published by Louisiana State University Press. He can be found at www.jmichaelmartinez.org.
Farid Matuk's first full-length collection, This Isa Nice Neighborhood (Letter Machine, 2010), was a finalist for the Norma Farber Prize, earned honorable mention in the Arab-American Book Award, and was chosen by Geoffrey G. O'Brien for inclusion in the Poetry Society of America's New American Poets series. He is the author of the chapbooks Riverside (Longhouse, 2011) and Is It the King? (Effing, 2006). Matuk is a contributor to the volume Scubadivers and Chrysanthemums: Essays on the Poetry of Araki Yasusada (Shearsman, 2012)
John Melillo is a writer and musician in Tucson, AZ. He teaches literature at the University of Arizona.
Daniel Moysaenko was born in Cleveland and studies in the University of Massachusetts Amherst MFA Program for Poets and Writers. He is the author of a chapbook, New Animal (H_NGM_N, 2015). Other work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals including Columbia Poetry Review, Pleiades, and Verse Daily.
Laura Mullen is the McElveen Professor at Louisiana State University. She is the author of seven books: Enduring Freedom: A Little Book of Mechanical Brides, The Surface, After I Was Dead, Subject, Dark Archive, The Tales of Horror, and Murmur. Her work has been widely anthologized and is included in Postmodern American Poetry, American Hybrid (Norton), and I'll Drown My Book: Conceptual Writing by Women (Les Figues). For The Volta’s Medium, she has filmed readings by Anne Waldman, Douglas Kearney, and Lisa Samuels. (Photo by Ryan Gibbs)
Sawako Nakayasu's recent books include Mouth: Eats Color (Rogue Factorial), Texture Notes (Letter Machine Editions), and Hurry Home Honey (Burning Deck). More information about her is available here.
Chris Nealon is the author of The Joyous Age (2004), and Plummet (2009), as well as two books of criticism: Foundlings: Lesbian and Gay Historical Emotion before Stonewall (2001), and The Matter of Capital: Poetry and Crisis in The American Century (2011). He lives in Washington, DC.
Brandon Shimoda is the author of four books—most recently Portuguese (Octopus Books & Tin House, 2013) and O Bon (Litmus Press, 2011)—as well as numerous limited editions of collaborations, drawings, writings, and songs. Born in California, he has lived most recently in Maine, Taiwan, and Arizona.
Cedar Sigo is a poet and sometimes teacher, active in the art and literary worlds since 1999. He studied writing and poetics at the Naropa Institute. He is the author of seven books and pamphlets of poetry, including two editions of Selected Writings (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2003 and 2005) Expensive Magic (House Press, 2008) and most recently Stranger In Town (City Lights, 2010). His poems have been included in many magazines and anthologies, and he has published poetry books and magazines under the Old Gold imprint. He participated in “Coordinates: Indigenous Writing Now,” a conference at California College of the Arts. Currently, he is guest editing the second issue of The Can, a journal devoted to writing on poetics. He lives in San Francisco.
Johanna Skibsrud is most recently the author of a collection of short fiction, This Will Be Difficult to Explain and Other Stories (Norton, 2012). She is also the author of two books of poetry and the 2010 Giller prize-winning novel, The Sentimentalists. Originally from Nova Scotia, Canada, she currently lives in Tucson, Arizona.
Mathias Svalina is the author of three books, most recently The Explosions (Subito, 2012). With Alisa Heinzman & Zachary Schomburg, he co-edits Octopus Books.
Catherine Wagner's books include Miss America (2000), Macular Hole (2004), and My New Job (2009), all from Fence, and Nervous Device (forthcoming in 2012 from City Lights). Some of her performances are archived at PennSound and Archive of the Now. She lives in Oxford, Ohio, and teaches at Miami University.
Editors | The Conversant
Andy Fitch’s most recent book is Pop Poetics: Reframing Joe Brainard In fall, Ugly Duckling will publish his two collections Sixty Morning Walks and Sixty Morning Talks. For Letter Machine Editions, he currently is assembling, with Cristiana Baik, The Letter Machine Book of Interviews. Fitch teaches in the University of Wyoming’s MFA program.
Christopher Schmidt is the author of a book of poems, The Next in Line (Slope, 2008) and a chapbook, Thermae (Eoagh, 2012). His poems and essays on poetry have been published widely. He is currently completing a critical study about waste in 20th-century aesthetics and is an assistant professor of English at CUNY-LaGuardia.
(Managing Editor) Cristiana Baik’s work has been published in the Boston Review, American Letters & Commentary, Drunken Boat (upcoming) and other publications. She is also the author of a chapbook, The Victory of a Strange Heart Beating (Blue Hour Press, 2009). Currently she is a content and travel writer for various publications and is completing her first book of poems based on themes taken from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass.
Contributing Poetics Editors | The Volta
Alexis Almeida teaches creative writing at the University of Colorado, where she is at work on an MFA in poetry. Her poems, translations, and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in La Vague, Ampersand Review, TYPO, Aufgabe, Asymptote, Heavy Feather Review, and elsewhere. She is a member of the theater group GASP, and lives in Denver.
Sarah V. Schweig is the author of the chapbook S (Dancing Girl Press). Her poetry and criticism has appeared or is forthcoming in The Atlas Review, Black Warrior Review, BOMB Magazine, Boston Review, Everyday Genius, Gulf Coast, HTML Giant, Maggy, Painted Bride Quarterly, The Philadelphia Review of Books, Publishers Weekly, Slice, Verse Daily, The Volta, West Branch, and Western Humanities Review, among others. A graduate of the University of Virginia and Columbia University, she works as a Senior Writer at a criminal justice think-tank in Manhattan, studies Philosophy at The New School for Social Research, and lives in Brooklyn.
Contributing Editors | Evening Will Come
Rosa Alcalá is the author of a poetry collection, Undocumentaries (Shearsman Books, 2010), and two chapbooks, Some Maritime Disasters This Century (Belladonna, 2003) and Undocumentary (Dos Press, 2008). She has also edited Spit Temple: The Selected Performances of Cecilia Vicuña (Ugly Duckling Presse). Her most recent translations include Lila Zemborain’s Guardians of the Secret (Noemi Press, 2009), and poems for The Oxford Book of Latin America Poetry (2009). She teaches in the Department of Creative Writing and Bilingual MFA Program at the University of Texas at El Paso.
Nathan Brown lives in Oakland and is Assistant Professor of English at UC Davis, where he also teaches in the Critical Theory and Science & Technology Studies Programs. He has published essays on poetry and philosophy in Qui Parle, How2, Radical Philosophy, Parallax, and The Speculative Turn (re.press 2011). His current book projects are The Materials—Technoscience and Poetry at the Limits of Fabrication and Absent Blue Wax: Rationalist Empiricism in Contemporary French Philosophy.
Brian Foley is the author of the chapbooks The Constitution (Horseless Press), The Black Eye (Brave Men Press ), and The Tornado is not a Surrealist (Greying Ghost). He curates The Deep Moat Reading Series and co-runs Brave Men Press.
Tim Johnson owns and operates the Marfa Book Company and Gallery in Marfa, Texas.
Dorothea Lasky is the author of Black Life and AWE, both out from Wave Books. She is also the author of several chapbooks, including Poetry is Not a Project (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2010). She currently researches creativity at the University of Pennsylvania and lives in New York City.
Summer Robinson owns and operates Pilot Books, a small press bookstore in Seattle, Washington. You can track her progress at www.pilotbooksseattle.com.
Evie Shockley is the author of two poetry collections, the new black (Wesleyan, 2011) and a half-red sea (Carolina Wren Press, 2006). From 2007-2011, she co-edited the poetry journal jubilat. Her work also includes a critical study: Renegade Poetics: Black Aesthetics and Formal Innovation in African American Poetry (Iowa, 2011). She is Associate Professor of English at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, where she teaches African American literature and creative writing.
News Editors
Caleb Beckwith lives in Philadelphia where he studies poetics at Temple University and holds the 2012-2013 Penn-Temple Poetics Fellowship. He also blogs for The Volta. Current projects include a poetic documentation of this year’s NBA season.
Drew Scott Swenhaugen co-curates the Bad Blood Reading Series, co-operates Poor Claudia and designs for Octopus Books. He received his MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. He lives in Portland, Ore.