Zilka Joseph was nominated twice for a Pushcart. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, Poetry Daily, MQR, Frontier Poetry,Kenyon Review Online, and in anthologies such as Cheers To Muses: Works by Asian American Women. Lands I Live In and What Dread, her chapbooks, were nominated for a PEN America award and a Pushcart respectively. Her book Sharp Blue Search of Flame (Wayne State University Press) was a finalist for the Foreword Indie Book Award. She teaches creative writing workshops, and is an independent editor and manuscript coach. www.zilkajoseph.com
Kashiana Singh- Coordinator
When Kashiana is not writing, she loves to embody her TEDx talk theme of Work as Worship into her every day. Widely published and anthologized, Kashiana has authored two full length collections and a chapbook. Woman by the Door was released by Apprentice House Press in 2022. Her third full length collection entitled Witching Hour is due in 2024 with Glass Lyre Press.
Kashiana is a senior executive in the healthcare industry and is reputed for her intentional leadership and perseverance anchored in a culture of inclusivity and empowerment. Website - http://www.kashianasingh.com TEDx talk -https://youtu.be/jzFflaqPrhM
Saleem Peeradina
Saleem Peeradina, born 1944, is the author of First Offence (Newground, 1980), Group Portrait (OUP, 1992), Meditations on Desire (Ridgeway Press, 2003), Slow Dance (Ridgeway Press, 2010), Final Cut (Valley Press, 2016), and Heart’s Beast: New and Selected Poems (Copper Coin, 2017). He edited Contemporary Indian Poetry in English (Macmillan, 1972), one of the earliest and most widely used texts in courses on South Asian literature. The Ocean in My Yard, a prose memoir of growing up in Bombay, was published by Penguin Books, in 2005. Meditations on Desire was published in Arabic translation by Kalima Publishers in Abu Dhabi, UAE.
His poetry is represented in most major anthologies of Indian, South Asian, and Asian American writing including The Oxford India Anthology of Poetry (1994), Living in America: Fiction and Poetry by South Asian-American Writers (1995), Contours of the Heart (1996), Uncommon Wealth (1997), Vespers: Contemporary American Poems of Religion and Spirituality (2003), The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poetry (2008), and 60 Indian Poets, Penguin Books (2008). His next book, An Arc in Time: Cultural Chronicles from the Last Half Century, is a book of essays, reviews, and conversations,
Peeradina has given readings all over the world. In 2003, he served as writer-in-residence at American College, Madurai, India, and at Lenoir-Rhyne College, NC. In 2009-10, he was writer-in-residence at The Chelsea Public Library, MI. Peeradina is Professor Emeritus at Siena Heights University, Adrian, Michigan