Katie Farris and Ilya Kaminsky

Katie Farris is a poet, writer of hybrid forms, and translator. Her poetry has been called "extraordinary" by both Paris Review and The Los Angeles Review of Books, while The Literary Review commented on the "immersive magic and unforgettable imagery" of Farris's writing. Farris's work has been commissioned by MoMA and appears in American Poetry Review, Granta, McSweeneys, The Nation, The Atlantic Monthly, Paris Review, Poetry and 2022 Pushcart Prize Anthology. 
In addition to her poetry and translations, Farris also writes prose about cancer, the body, and its relationship to writing, such as in her recent, widely circulated essay in Oprah Daily.
She holds degrees from UC Berkeley and Brown University, and currently lives and teaches in Atlanta.

Ilya Kaminsky is the author of the widely acclaimed Deaf Republic (Graywolf, 2019), a finalist for the 2019 National Book Award for Poetry, which Kevin Young, writing in The New Yorker, called a work of “profound imagination.” Poems from Deaf Republic were awarded Poetry magazine's Levinson Prize and the Pushcart Prize. He is also the author of Dancing In Odessa (Tupelo Press, 2004), and Musica Humana (Chapiteau Press, 2002). 
Kaminsky was born in the former Soviet Union city of Odessa. He lost most of his hearing at the age of four after a doctor misdiagnosed mumps as a cold, and his family was granted political asylum by the United States in 1993, settling in Rochester, New York. After his father’s death in 1994, Kaminsky began to write poems in English. 
In the late 1990s, Kaminsky co-founded Poets For Peace, an organization that sponsors poetry readings in the United States and abroad. He has also worked as a Law Clerk at the National Immigration Law Center and at Bay Area Legal Aid, helping the poor and homeless to overcome their legal difficulties. He is on the creative writing faculty at Princeton University.