Ava Haymon

Poet Laureate of the State of Louisiana, Ava Leavell Haymon’s most recent poetry collection is Eldest Daughter, published by LSU Press. She has written three previous collections, Why the House Is Made of Gingerbread, Kitchen Heat, and The Strict Economy of Fire, all from LSU Press. She edits the Barataria Poetry Series, which premiered in Spring 2014. Her poems have appeared in journals nationwide. Prizes include the Louisiana Literature Prize for Poetry in 2003, the L.E. Phillabaum Poetry Award for 2010, the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters 2011 Award in Poetry. Why the House Is Made of Gingerbread was chosen as one of the top 10 poetry books of 2010 by Women’s Voices for Change. A committed teacher of poetry writing, she worked as Artist in the Schools for many years. She teaches poetry writing during the school year in Louisiana, and during the summer, directs a retreat center for writers and artists.

Ralph Adamo

Adamo began teaching English at Xavier in Fall 2007, and has edited Xavier Review since Spring 2011. His six collections of poetry were all published by small presses, most recently the selected volume Waterblind from Portals Press in 2002. He won a National Endowment for the Arts award for poetry in 2003. Former editor of New Orleans Review in the 1990s (and Barataria Review in the 1970s), he has taught at most area universities and continues to work as a journalist. Among his other books are two from Lost Roads Publishers, Sadness at the Private University (1977) and The End of the World (1979), and one from New Orleans Poetry Journal Press, Hanoi Rose (1989). In addition to the NEA, he has won poetry awards from the Louisiana Endowment for the Arts, and from the Faulkner Society. The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities funded his summer institute on Twentieth Century Poetry and Arts Movements in 1998.

Andy Young

Young is the co-editor of Meena, a bilingual Arabic-English literary journal. She teaches Creative Writing at New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. Her work was recently featured on National Public Radio’s “The World” and published in Best New Poets 2009 (University of Virginia Press), Callaloo, Guernica, and Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia & Beyond (W.W. Norton & Co). Her work has also appeared in electronic music, buses in Santa Fe, flamenco productions, jewelry designs by Jeanine Payer, and a tattoo parlor in Berlin.