John Keene‘s recent books include the story collection Counternarratives (New Directions, 2015), and several books of poetry. He also has translated the Brazilian author Hilda Hilst’s novel Letters from a Seducer (Nightboat Books, 2014). His recent honors include an American Book Award and Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction, as well as a 2018 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. He chairs the department of African American and African Studies, and teaches English and creative writing at Rutgers University-Newark.

Paul Vangelisti is the author of some twenty books of poetry, as well as being a noted translator from Italian. His most recent books include Wholly Falsetto with People Dancing, an older man’s not-so-divine comedy, and a book of poems, Two. In 2016 a new book of poems, Border Music, is forthcoming from Talisman House. In 2006, Lucia Re’s and his translation of Amelia Rosselli’s War Variations won both the Premio Flaiano in Italy and the PEN-USA Award for Translation. In 2010, his translation of Adriano Spatola’s The Position of Things: Collected Poems, 1961-1992 won an Academy of American Poets Prize. From 1971-1982 he was co-editor, with John McBride, of the literary magazine Invisible City and, from 1993-2002, edited Ribot, the annual report of the College of Neglected Science. He worked as a journalist at the Hollywood Reporter (1972-1974), and as Cultural Affairs Director at KPFK Radio (1974-1982). Vangelisti was Founding Chair of the Graduate Writing program at Otis College of Art & Design in Los Angeles, and is currently a professor in that program.