Sandra K. Athans is a practicing Literacy Specialist, featured speaker, published literacy author, and Regional Advisor for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI).

Kayla Blatchley received her MFA in Creative Writing (fiction) from Syracuse University in 2010. Her short fiction has appeared in the literary journals NOON, A Public Space, Unsaid, NYTyrant, Hobart, Vol.1Brooklyn, NightBlock, and others. She lives with her dog in Syracuse, New York, and serves as a Writing Lecturer at SUNY Polytechnic.

Barrett Bowlin is the author of the story collection, Ghosts Caught on Film (2022). He's the recipient of both the Bridge Eight Fiction Award and the James Knudsen Prize in Fiction. His essays and short stories can be found in journals like Ninth Letter, The Rumpus, Waxwing, Salt Hill, Bayou, War, Literature & the Arts, and The Saturday Evening Post. barrettbowlin.com

Tim Carter is a poet and educator, with an MFA from Syracuse University. His first book, Remains, won the 2019 BOAAT Book Prize and will be published in November 2020. You can read some of his work at www.thcarter.info.

Christopher Citro is the author of If We Had a Lemon We’d Throw It and Call That the Sun, winner of the 2019 Antivenom Poetry Award, and The Maintenance of the Shimmy-Shammy. His poetry has appeared in both the Best New Poets and Pushcart Prize anthologies.

Gemma Cooper-Novack’s theatrical works have been performed in Boston, Chicago, and New York. She is the author of the poetry collection, We Might As Well Be Underwater.

Christopher Cresswell is a composer, songwriter, educator, guitarist, and WCNY-FM radio host. He teaches music composition at Onondaga Community College and founded the One Mic Project.

Chris DelGuercio is a writer, teacher, editor, and lecturer. His particular brand of “fantastic fiction” has appeared in print and on the internet over the past fifteen years in several magazines, anthologies, and podcasts. His new collection of short stories, An Unsettled Score, will be released this fall. Visit him at www.CDelGuercio.com.

Mike Downs is the author of more than 30 books for children. His books span science, technology, engineering, poetry, fantasy, and memoirs.

Tony Filosi is an adjunct instructor at the S.U. School of Visual and Performing Arts, where he teaches film and script writing. He is the Onondaga County Film Fund officer overseeing the distribution of funds to local film productions in the area.

Len Fonte’s plays include SALT Award winner Werewolf, Wasted Bread, Melagrana, and Hip/Shake (with Reenah Golden). Alchemist of Light, written with Tom Bisky, was featured at the New York Fringe Festival. In 2010, Len was accepted into the Kennedy Center Playwrights Intensive. He has taught playwriting at Syracuse University and is a theater critic for the Syracuse Post-Standard.

Ona Gritz is the author of the middle grade novel August Or Forever, forthcoming from Fitzroy Books in February 2023, and two previous children’s books. A poet and essayist, her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Utne Reader, Ploughshares, Brevity, Salon, and elsewhere.

Mary Hutchins Harris is a poet and essayist, and adjunct professor in the Low Residency MFA Creative Writing program at Lesley University. Her collection A Tongue Full of Yeses was selected by Kwame Dawes for publication in the South Carolina Poetry Initiative/USC Press Chapbook Contest.

Gloria Heffernan is the author of What the Gratitude List Said to the Bucket List, and the chapbooks Hail to the Symptom and Some of Our Parts.

Mary Jumbelic, M.D. is the retired Chief Medical Examiner of Onondaga County and a published author of works of creative nonfiction. She brings both her forensic knowledge and writing experience together to teach classes for mystery and crime writers. She focuses on authenticity and suspense.

Susan Keeter is an award-winning children’s book illustrator who writes about health care and history. Recent projects include “Nah-Nah and the Night Sky” and “Sunday’s Wheels,” picture books she wrote and illustrated for schools in Ghana. She has an MFA from Syracuse University.

Johanna Keller founded Syracuse University’s Goldring Arts Journalism graduate program. Her credits include arts and music criticism, essays, translations and poetry. A four-time Pulitzer Prize judge, she began teaching writing at the flagship Writer’s Voice in New York City in 1992, and taught at The New School before coming to Syracuse in 2003.

Laurie Clements Lambeth earned a BA from Loyola Marymount University Los Angeles and an MFA and a PhD in creative writing from the University of Houston. Lambeth is the author of the National Poetry Series selection Veil and Burn (University of Illinois Press, 2008). She teaches English at the Honors College at the University of Houston.

Jakob Maier is a writer, editor, and video artist. He is the managing editor of Peach Mag. His chapbook, Box of swords, was a finalist for Foundlings Press’s inaugural Wallace Prize, and was published as part of the Strays series in 2020. He received his MFA in poetry from Syracuse University in 2018.

Charles Martin’s most recent book of poems is Future Perfect. His verse translation of the Metamorphoses of Ovid received the Harold Morton Landon Award from the Academy of American Poets in 2004. In 2005, he received an Award for Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He served as Poet in Residence at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York from 2005 to 2009.

Tim McCoy holds an MFA from Syracuse University and has had pieces published in Interim, Ekphrasis, Stone Canoe, and other places. He lives and teaches in the Syracuse area.

Cate McGowan is an essayist, poet, and fictionist who won the Moon City Press Short Fiction Award for her debut short story collection, True Places Never Are. Her debut novel, These Lowly Objects, was released in 2020, and McGowan’s work appears or is forthcoming in numerous literary outlets.

Philip Memmer founded the DWC in 2000. He is the author of five books of poems, most recently Pantheon. His work has appeared in such journals as Poetry and Poetry London, in the Library of Congress’s Poetry 180 project, and in Ted Kooser’s “American Life in Poetry” column.

Yvonne C. Murphy is a poet and Professor of Arts at SUNY Empire State University, where she teaches creative writing and studio art. She has published widely in literary magazines in the US and Canada. Her first book, Aviaries, was a selection for the Carolina Wren Prize in Poetry. Yvonne hails from Cazenovia, NY.

Sara Parrott is the author of Tipping the Water Jar of Heaven (Nine Mile Books). Her poems have appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, The Literary Nest, Dappled Things, Nine Mile Magazine, and Light on the Walls of Life, a tribute anthology to Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

Derek Pollard is editor of Till One Day the Sun Shall Shine More Brightly: The Poetry and Prose of Donald Revell. His new book of poems is On the Verge of Something Bright and Good.

Georgia A. Popoff’s most recent collection of poetry, Psychometry, was released in 2019 by Tiger Bark Press. An editor and book coaching consultant, she is also the DWC’s workshops coordinator. Georgia is Onondaga County's first living Poet Laureate.

Nancy Keefe Rhodes is a writer, editor, and curator whose work covers film and photo. She also teaches in the Film and Media Arts program at Syracuse University.

Suzanne Richardson earned her M.F.A. in Albuquerque, New Mexico at the University of New Mexico. She currently is a Ph.D. student in creative writing at SUNY Binghamton, where she teaches in the University’s writing initiative at SUNY Binghamton and is working on a memoir, Throw it Up, and a full poetry collection, The Want Monster.

Anna Scotti’s many honors include inclusion in Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2022 (Mysterious Press), an Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers’ Choice Award, and a nomination for Best Short Story of the Year from the International Thriller Awards. Anna’s young adult novel, Big and Bad (TRP, 2021) was awarded the Paterson Prize for Best Young Adult Novel of the Year, and was runner-up for the Clay Reynolds Novella Prize. Anna is the author of the award-winning poetry collection Bewildered by All This Broken Sky (Lightscatter Press, 2021). Learn more at www.annakscotti.com.

Daniel Simpson is the recipient of a Fellowship in Literature from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, he acts, along with Ona Gritz, as Poetry Editor for Referential Magazine. Currently, he serves as Access Technology Consultant to the Free Library of Philadelphia and works as a Technical Support Specialist for the Library of Congress

Keith Stahl is a 2020 MFA graduate from the Syracuse University Creative Writing Program. His collection, From the Gunroom (Main Street Rag Publishing), won the Joyce Carol Oates Prize for Best Collection of Poems. His short stories have been published in Notre Dame Review, Southeast Review, Puerto Del Sol, and others.

Thomas Townsley has published five books of poetry and prose. His latest is I Pray This Letter Reaches You In Time (Doubly Mad Books). He is a graduate of the Syracuse University Creative Writing Program and now teaches at Mohawk Valley Community College. He spends ordinary evenings in New Hartford with his dog, Marvin.

Elizabeth Twiddy has an MFA from Syracuse University, where she won the Joyce Carol Oates Award for poetry. Her two books are Love-Noise (Standing Stone Books 2010) and Zoo Animals in the Rain (Turtle Ink Press 2009).

Sherre Vernon has two award-winning chapbooks: Green Ink Wings and The Name Is Perilous. Sherre has been published in journals such as TAB and The Chestnut Review, and anthologized in collections including Fat & Queer and Best Small Fictions. Flame Nebula, Bright Nova, her full-length poetry collection, is forthcoming from Main Street Rag.

Jane Zell studied music at OCC and the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She currently performs with her group the Zelltones, and with Dos XX.

Kofi Antwi serves as an assistant editor of Black Arts Movement Reader. Kattywompus Press recently published his debut chapbook, Tidal Wave. Kofi’s writing has been published by Great Weather For Media, No, Dear, Rigorous, and various literary magazines and journals.

Antoinette Brim-Bell is the author of These Women You Gave Me, Icarus in Love, and Psalm of the Sunflower. She is a Cave Canem fellow, and a recipient of the Walker Foundation Scholarship to the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Antoinette Brim-Bell is the Connecticut State Poet Laureate.

Sean M. Conrey is an associate director in the Project Advance program at Syracuse University. His most recent full-length collection of poems, The Book of Trees, published in late 2017, won a Catholic Press Award for poetry. Recordings of his experimental music project, Mercury City Suburbs, are available online.

Nancy Avery Dafoe is an author and educator who writes across genres, and has had nine books published through small presses. She won the William Faulkner/Wisdom Creative Writing Competition in poetry and the New Century Writers first place in short story. She is the National League of American Pen Women Letters Chair.

Megan Davidson is the author of three historical romances and her suspense novel, The Thundering, won honorable mention in Readers’ Choice and Chanticleer contests. She co-authored two books on fiction writing: Getting Your Manuscript Sold and Writing Aerobics. As senior editor at SterlingHouse, Megan edited NFL Hall of Fame Pittsburgh Steeler cornerback Mel Blount’s autobiography, The Cross Burns Brightly.

Tyler Flynn Dorholt is the author of the prose poem and photography book American Flowers, and five chapbooks. He co-edits and publishes the print journal and press Tammy, edits the online journal Unearthed, and is Director of the Writing, Rhetoric, and Communications Program at the College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

Peter Moller is recently retired from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications where he taught courses in film, television production and screenwriting. He also teaches courses in film at Oasis in Syracuse.

Christopher Carter Sanderson’s new media feature film adaptation of Macbeth recently completed and started booking showings after filming completely in lockdown. His screenplay Doorbell is a current finalist in the Oregon Short Film Festival.

David Wojciechowski is the author of Dreams I Never Told You & Letters I Never Sent. His poems have appeared in Bateau, Jellyfish Magazine, The Laurel Review, Meridian, and other journals and in the collaborative writing anthology They Said (Black Lawrence Press). He teaches writing and literature at Syracuse University. Find David at davidwojo.com.

Chris Wenger’s first romance, The Lady and the Cowboy, was written for beginning adult readers. In 1998, it was chosen by the Publishers Liaison Committee of the Public Library Association's Adult Lifelong Learning Section as one of the "Top Titles for Adult New Readers." Chris currently writes for Harlequin Books Penguin Obsidian Books. Since 2005, she has written more than eleven romances and five cozy mysteries.

Ron Bagliere is a local author with over 30 years of writing experience and in leading writing workshops. To date, he has several published novels in various genres, one of which, “The Lion of Khum Jung,” was a runner up for fiction at the yearly DWC book awards in the past. In his workshops students have discovered new ways in which to think about people and inner thought. One student commented: “I will never think about creating a character for a reader the same way. You opened a window to a whole new world of character creation.”

Jessica Cuello is the author of the poetry collections Hunt and Pricking. She has been awarded The 2017 CNY Book Award, The 2016 Washington Prize, The New Letters Poetry Prize, a Saltonstall Fellowship, and The New Ohio Review Poetry Prize. She is a poetry editor at Tahoma Literary Review.

Stephen Kuusisto is the author of the memoirs Have Dog, Will Travel; Planet of the Blind (a New York Times “Notable Book of the Year”); and Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening and of the poetry collections Only Bread, Only Light and Letters to Borges. A graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and a Fulbright Scholar, he has taught at the University of Iowa, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and Ohio State University. He currently teaches at Syracuse University where he holds a professorship in the Center on Human Policy, Law, and Disability Studies.

Dan Rosenberg is the author of Bassinet (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2015), The Crushing Organ (Dream Horse Press, 2012), and he co-translated Miklav Komelj's Hippodrome (Zephyr Press, 2016). His work has won the American Poetry Journal Book Prize and the Omnidawn Poetry Chapbook Contest.

Linda Lowen is a book reviewer for Publishers Weekly, and her nonfiction has been published in the New York Times and is forthcoming in Tiny Love Stories: True Tales of Love in 100 Words or Less from Artisan Books in December. Her writing advice has appeared in The Writer and Writer’s Digest magazines.

Sarah Yaw’s first novel, You Are Free to Go, won the CNY Book Award and the Engine Books Novel Prize. Her essays and short fiction have appeared in Bust.com, Word Riot, Bookish, and Salt Hill. She has an MFA in fiction from Sarah Lawrence College, and is a professor and administrator at Cayuga Community College.