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Kyle Bass is the author of Possessing Harriet, which premiered at Syracuse Stage in 2018, was produced by Franklin Stage Company in 2019, and opens at East Lynne Theater Company in September 2022. salt/city/blues received its first production at Syracuse Stage in 2022, and Citizen James, or The Young Man Without a Country, about young James Baldwin, streamed nationally in 2021. Tender Rain will premiere at Syracuse Stage in 2023. A three-time NYFA fellow, Kyle is an assistant professor of theater at �Ա���Ƶ and resident playwright at Syracuse Stage. He lives and writes in Syracuse, New York.

Timothy Carter is a poet and educator, with an MFA from Syracuse University. A member of the Y’s Downtown Writers Center faculty, his first book, Remains, won the 2019 BOAAT Book Prize and was 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 (Elixir Press, 2020), winner of the 2019 Antivenom Poetry Award, and The Maintenance of the Shimmy-Shammy (Steel Toe Books, 2015). He has taught at the University of Kansas, Indiana University, The Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, the Kettle Pond Writers’ Conference, and Downtown Writers Center. 

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. Gemma teaches writing to both adults and teens at the Downtown Writers Center. 

Vanessa Johnson is a griot, writer, playwright, actor, fiber artist, and teaching artist whose work tells tales of Africa, the African-American experience, and of social justice movements. Vanessa teaches at the Community Folk Art Center and is the artist-in-residence at the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation Center.

Jayce Knighton is a rising 5th grader in the Syracuse City School District whose witty and caring personality is known best to those close to him. 

Georgia A. Popoff’s fourth, 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 and is the editor for the University of Michigan Press Under Discussion series.