PBF Cover to Cover: Wild Rose: Poetry and Story

Shelley Wong is the author of As She Appears (YesYes Books, May 2022), winner of the 2019 Pamet River Prize, longlisted for the National Book Award, and the chapbook RARE BIRDS (Diode Editions, 2017). Her poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Best American Poetry 2021, Kenyon Review, and New England Review. She is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and fellowships from Kundiman, MacDowell, and Vermont Studio Center. She is an affiliate artist at Headlands Center for the Arts and lives in San Francisco.

Courtney Faye Taylor is a writer and visual artist. She is the author of Concentrate (Graywolf Press, 2022), selected by Rachel Eliza Griffiths as the winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize. Courtney earned her BA from Agnes Scott College and her MFA from the University of Michigan Helen Zell Writers’ Program where she received the Hopwood Prize in Poetry. A recipient of the 92Y Discovery Prize and an Academy of American Poets Prize, Courtney’s work can be found in Poetry Magazine, The Nation, Ploughshares, Best New Poets, and elsewhere.

Nina Packebush is a queer-identified, grown-up teen mama. She is the author of two YA novels, Girls Like Me, Winner of the 2018 Golden Crown Literary Award for YA, Finalist of LAMBDA Literary Award for YA, Finalist of Washington State Book Award for YA, and its sequel, Three Queerdos and a Baby (releasing soon from YesYes Books). She loves her dogs, hiking, digging in the dirt, and making comic zines about empowered snails. Nina lives in the Pacific Northwest with her partner, a collection of kids, and a pack of wayward pets.

Dr. Mindy Nettifee is a poet, professional teaching artist, and somatic trauma therapist. She is the author of three collections of poems: Sleepyhead Assassins, Rise of the Trust Fall, and Open Your Mouth Like a Bell, as well as a collection of how-to essays on writing poetry called Glitter In The Blood, which just went into its 10th straight year of printing on Write Bloody press. She competed in her first national poetry slam in Austin, Texas in 1998 at 19 years old, where her team had to sneak her into bars to perform.

Stephanie Adams-Santos is a Guatemalan-American writer from Oregon. Their work spans poetry, prose, and screenwriting. Often grappling with themes of strangeness and belonging, their work reflects an endless fascination with the weird, numinous, and primal forces that shape inner life. Stephanie is the author of several full length poetry collections and chapbooks, including DREAM OF XIBALBA (selected by Jericho Brown as winner of the 2021 Orison Poetry Prize) and SWARM QUEEN'S CROWN (finalist for a Lambda Literary Award). Their work has been anthologized in SPECULATIVE FICTION FOR DREAMERS, ATÉ MAIS (a Latinx Futurisms anthology) and a forthcoming anthology of hybrid literature and art. Stephanie served as Staff Writer and Story Editor on the television anthology horror series TWO SENTENCE HORROR STORIES (CW/Netflix). Their episode ELLIOT was winner of a 2022 Gold Telly Award in Writing. As an inaugural fellow of the 2022 Ojalá Ignition Fellowship, Stephanie developed an original fantasy pilot based on the world and characters of the Tarot. Most recently, she was a fellow of the 2022 Sundance Episodic Lab.  In addition to their literary work, Stephanie is creating and illustrating an original Major Arcana tarot deck called Tarot de la Selva.

Jae Nichelle is the author of the poetry chapbook The Porch (As Sanctuary); the poetry collection God Themselves, and the inaugural poetry winner of the John Lewis Writing Award from the Georgia Writers Association. A slam poetry champion, her spoken word has been featured by Write About Now, Speak Up Poetry Series, and Button Poetry.