Kenneth Koch (1925 2002), known for his association with the New York School of poetry, wrote many collections of poetry, fiction, plays, and nonfiction. His books include Seasons on Earth, On the Edge, Thank You and Other Poems, The Art of Love, One Thousand Avant-Garde Plays, Hotel Lambosa, and The Collected Fiction, as well as several books on teaching children to write poetry. Koch was awarded numerous honors, including the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, awarded by the Library of Congress in 1996, as well as awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Fulbright, Guggenheim, and Ingram-Merrill foundations. In 1996 he was inducted as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Kenneth Koch lived in New York City, where he was professor of English at Columbia University.
Ron Padgett's How Long was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in poetry and his Collected Poems won the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for the best poetry book of 2013. His work has been translated into eighteen languages.
Jason Novak is an cartoonist whose work has appeared in the New Yorker the Paris Review and the Believer among other places. He lives in Oakland.
Amber Reed is a Korean American writer of texts for performance, fiction, and nonfiction. A founding member of playwriting think tank Joyce Cho, her work has been performed in venues including the Prelude Festival, Catch, Little Theater, Cho-Chiqq, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and Metropolitan Playhouse, with support from The MacDowell Colony and Soho Rep Writer-Director Lab. She lives in New Jersey with her family.