Ron Czerwien is the owner of
Avol's, a used and out-of-print bookstore in Madison, WI. His poems have appeared in
Arbor Vitae, After Hours, Hummingbird: Magazine of the Small Poem, Rosebud, Wisconsin Trails Magazine, Wisconsin Academy Review, and on-line at
Moria, Nth Position, Qarrstiluni, Right Hand Pointing, and
Shampoo. He also hosts the monthly "First Thursday Open Mike Poetry Readings" at Avol's.
Timothy Yu is the author of the poetry collection
Journey to the West (Barrow Street), which won the Vincent Chin Memorial Chapbook Award from Kundiman, as well as a book of criticism:
Race and the Avant-Garde: Experimental and Asian American Poetry Since 1965 (Stanford University Press). His work has also appeared in
SHAMPOO, The Poetry Project Newsletter, and
Chicago Review. He is a professor of English and Asian American studies at UW-Madison.
Andy Gricevich lives in Madison, where he edits
Cannot Exist magazine and (with Lewis Freedman), facilitates the ______________-Shaped Reading Series. He spent much of the last decade performing satirical cabaret songs with the Prince Myshkins and strange political theater and chamber music with the Nonsense Company. He fears we may be confusing irony with habitual insincerity, and is uncomfortably writing this in the third person.
Kelsey Van Ert (Pyro) is from St. Paul/Minneapolis Minnesota. Her artistic expertise lie in spoken word, theater, visual art, dance (breaking aka “break dance”) and music, including the piano, guitar, the cello and voice. In 2005, Kelsey became involved in the Twin cities Hip-Hop community through writing and performing Spoken Word poetry with a group of other local youth and community leaders called Teens Rock The Mic and later with The Quest for the Voice. She then became involved with Brave New Voices, competed with a team of youth poets in New York City and San Jose, and became involved with other local organizations such as Metakwe, Yo! The Movement, and the Peace Palace which use art as a medium to empower youth and their communities. In 2010, Kelsey was commissioned to perform in B-Girl Be, an annual festival of women in Hip-Hop in the twin cities, hosted by Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis. Kelsey has earned a full scholarship at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a part of
First Wave, a four year scholarship program geared towards Hip-Hop arts and community activism. Through First Wave she has been able to travel and perform throughout the U.S as well as Mexico, Panama, and most recently the United Kingdom. Kelsey has also conducted spoken word workshops in Madison area schools and community centers.
