Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach came to the United States as a Jewish refugee in 1993, from Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, and grew up in the DC metro area suburb of Rockville, Maryland. She spent three years in Eugene, earning an MFA in Poetry from the University of Oregon, and is currently back east working towards a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on contemporary poetry about the Holocaust, with a special focus on atrocity in former Soviet territories. Julia is the author of “The Many Names for Mother,” selected by Ellen Bass as the winner of the 2018 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry prize, forthcoming from Kent State University Press in fall of 2019, and “The Bear Who Ate the Stars” (Split Lip Press, 2014). Her poems appear in POETRY, American Poetry Review, TriQuarterly, and Best New Poets 2018, among others. Julia edits Construction Magazine  and when not busy chasing her 3-year-old around the playgrounds of Philadelphia, Julia writes “Other Women Don’t Tell You,” a blog about motherhood.

Ellen Bass is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Her most recent book, “Like a Beggar” (Copper Canyon Press, 2014), was a finalist for The Paterson Poetry Prize, The Publishers Triangle Award, The Milt Kessler Poetry Award, The Lambda Literary Award and the Northern California Book Award. Previous books include “The Human Line” (Copper Canyon Press, 2007) and “Mules of Love” (BOA Editions, 2002) which won The Lambda Literary Award. She co-edited (with Florence Howe) the first major anthology of women’s poetry, “No More Masks!” (Doubleday, 1973). Her non-fiction books include “Free Your Mind: The Book for Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Youth” (HarperCollins, 1996), “I Never Told Anyone: Writings by Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse” (HarperCollins, 1983) and “The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse” (Harper Collins, 1988, 2008), which has sold over a million copies and has been translated into twelve languages. Ellen founded poetry workshops at Salinas Valley State Prison and the Santa Cruz, CA jails. She currently teaches in the low residency MFA writing program at Pacific University.