Sharon Mesmer, Elaine Sexton, Patricia Spears Jones
Sharon Mesmer is the author of Greetings From My Girlie Leisure Place (Bloof Books, 2015), voted “Best of 2015” by Entropy. Previous poetry collections are Annoying Diabetic Bitch (Combo Books, 2008), The Virgin Formica (Hanging Loose Press, 2008), Vertigo Seeks Affinities (Belladonna Books, 2007), and Half Angel, Half Lunch (Hard Press, 1998). Four of her poems appear in Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology (second edition, 2013). Her fiction collections are Ma Vie à Yonago (Hachette Littératures, Paris, in French translation, 2005), In Ordinary Time (Hanging Loose Press, 2005) and The Empty Quarter (Hanging Loose Press, 2000). Her essays, reviews and interviews have appeared in the New York Times, Paris Review, American Poetry Review, and the Brooklyn Rail, among other places. She teaches in the undergraduate and graduate programs of New York University and The New School and lives in Brooklyn.
Elaine Sexton is the author of three books: Sleuth (New Issues Poetry & Prose, 2003), Causeway (New Issues Poetry & Prose, 2003), and Prospect/Refuge (Sheep Meadow, 2015). Her poems, art reviews, book reviews, and works in visual art have appeared in journals and anthologies, textbooks and websites including American Poetry Review, Art in America, Poetry, O! the Oprah Magazine, and Poetry Daily. An avid book maker and micro-publisher, she has curated many site-specific events with accompanying limited-edition chapbooks, among them Hair and 2 Horatio. She teaches text and image and poetry at Sarah Lawrence College, New York University and in private workshops. Formerly a senior editor at ARTnews, she serves as the visual arts editor for Tupelo Quarterly and is a member of the National Book Critics Circle.
Photo: Rachel Eliza Griffiths
Patricia Spears Jones is an African American poet, playwright, anthologist and cultural activist who lives in Brooklyn. She is author of A Lucent Fire: New and Selected Poems and seven other collections. Her plays, commissioned by Mabou Mines, were presented in New York City. She is a recipient of awards from the NEA, NYFA, the NY Community Trust and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and a Pushcart Prize winner. Arkansas born and raised and resident of New York City for more than four decades, Patricia Spears Jones is the 2017 recipient of The Jackson Poetry Prize from Poets & Writers, one the most prestigious awards for American Poets.