Jzl Jmz (FKA JAYY DODD) aka [Lady Tournament] beamed down in Los Angeles ’92 & is reuploading herself to the internet. Her professional career includes positions at Blavity, The Offing, Winter Tangerine & more. She’s been featured in the LA Times, Poetry Magazine, Oprah Magazine, Ms. Magazine, PEN America, Willamette Weekly, The New York Public Library & several anthologies. She’s the author of Mannish Tongues (Platypus Press 2017) & The 2021 Poetry Center Book Prize-winning: The Black Condition ft. Narcissus (Nightboat 2019). She curated Beyond Special Issue (a collective critique on tokenism in (Trans*) poetry) & THEE SPACE Poetry Prize with Shade Literary Arts. She’s editing Bettering American Poetry Vol. 2 (Bettering Books 2017) A Portrait in Blues (Platypus Press 2019) & Her film & performance works have been installed & screened across the country from classrooms to museums. She has been a Lambda Literary Fellow, and Precipice Art Grant Recipient through Portland’s Institute of Contemporary Art & Artist-in-Residence at Ori Gallery. She’s an occasional rapper & founder of Tournament.Haus Mutual Aid Fund. Find her talking slick or in another dimension.

Derrick Austin is the author of Tenderness (BOA Editions, 2021), winner of the 2020 Isabella Gardner Poetry Award, and Trouble the Water (BOA Editions, 2016) selected by Mary Szybist for the A. Poulin Jr, Poetry Prize. His first chapbook, Black Sand, was published by Foundlings Press in 2022. His debut collection was honored as a finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry, Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry, and the Norma Faber First Book Award. Tenderness was a finalist for a Golden Poppy Award, Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry, and a Northern California Book Award. His honors include fellowships from Cave Canem, the Wisconsin Institute of Creative Writing, and Stanford University. He is currently serving as a 2022-2023 Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Scholar.

Major Jackson is the author of six books of poetry, most recently Razzle Dazzle: New & Selected Poems and The Absurd Man. He is also the author of A Beat Beyond: The Selected Prose of Major Jackson edited by Amor Kohli. A recipient of fellowships from Civitella Ranieri, Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, Major Jackson has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, a Whiting Writers’ Award, and a Cave Canem Poetry Prize. He has published poems and essays in American Poetry Review, The New Yorker, Orion Magazine, Paris Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, and Poetry London. Major Jackson lives in Nashville, Tennessee where he is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in the Humanities at Vanderbilt University. He serves as the Poetry Editor of The Harvard Review and host of the poetry podcast The Slowdown.

Omotara James is the author of Song of My Softening, forthcoming from Alice James Books, 2023. Her chapbook, Daughter Tongue, was selected by The African Poetry Book Fund for The New Generation African Poetry Box Set (Tano), Akashic Books, 2018. James’ poems appear in print and digital journals, including The Poetry Foundation, The Nation, The Paris Review, The Los Angeles Review of Books, BOMB Magazine, The Believer, Literary Hub, Guernica, Poetry Society of America and elsewhere. Her poetry has been featured several times in The Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day series, James’ poems have been selected for publication in multiple anthologies. She has received support from the African Poetry Book Fund, New York Foundation for the Arts, Lambda Literary, Cave Canem Foundation and other generous institutions. James' has performed on various stages including The 92NY, The Poetry Project, The New York City Poetry Festival and The Brooklyn Books Poetry Festival. Born in Britain, she is the daughter of Nigerian and Trinidadian immigrants. She has lived in England, Scotland and was raised primarily in America. She holds a BA in Creative Writing from Hofstra University and an MFA in Poetry from New York University. Currently, she writes, teaches and edits poetry in New York City."

Luther Hughes (they/them) is the author of A Shiver in the Leaves (BOA Editions, 2022), and the chapbook, Touched (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2018). They are the founder of Shade Literary Arts, an organization for queer writers of color, and cohosts The Poet Salon Podcast with Gabrielle Bates and Dujie Tahat. Recipient of the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Rosenberg Fellowship and the 92Y Discovery Poetry Prize, their writing has been published in The Paris Review, The Seattle Times, American Poetry Review, and others. They live in the Southend of Seattle, where they were born and raised.

Major Jackson and Luther Hughes signing their books on Hillman Library's 3rd floor.