Poets

Check out the poets who are gathering at the 2025 Festival to celebrate Pittsburgh’s literary community!
Learn more about each poet by clicking on their name.

  • Rachel Ann Bovier started writing at the age of 20. Rachel enjoys spreading happiness through poetry and writes poems for restaurants, bars, birthdays, reunions, companies and more.

  • Violeta Garcia-Mendoza is the author of SONGS FOR THE LAND-BOUND (June Road Press, 2024). Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals and been nominated multiple times for both the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. In 2022, she received a Sustainable Arts Foundation grant. Violeta lives with her family on a small certified wildlife habitat outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

  • BIO COMING SOON!

  • Vanshika Jain is a sophomore at Mt. Lebanon High School and the author of Letters to the Empire, an upcoming historical fiction novel. Her love for history, cultural roots, and her role as student president of the DTCare nonprofit serve as her greatest poetic inspirations. In addition to writing, she hosts an SLB Radio podcast featuring trailblazers from the local community.

  • Jessica Manack holds degrees from Hollins University and lives with her family in Pittsburgh. Her writing has appeared widely in literary journals and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and she was the recipient of a Curious Creators Grant and Getaway Artist Fellowship. Her poetry collection GASTROMYTHOLOGY was published by Sheila-Na-Gig Editions in 2024. http://www.jessicamanack.com

  • Scott Silsbe was born in Detroit His poems and prose have been collected in four books—Unattended Fire, The River Underneath the City, Muskrat Friday Dinner, and Meet Me Where We Survive. Silsbe is also currently an editor at Low Ghost Press. He works as a bookseller and lives in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania.

  • Richard St. John’s newest poetry collection, "Book of Entangled Souls," was published in 2022 by Broadstone Books. He is also author of "The Pure Inconstancy of Grace" (published by Truman State University Press in 2005, as first runner-up for the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry), and "Each Perfected Name" (Truman State University Press, 2015). For more information, visit: richardstjohnpoet.com.

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  • Shaheen Dil was born in Bangladesh and lives in Pittsburgh. Her poems have been widely published in literary journals and anthologies and nominated for the pushcart prize. Dil has published three poetry collections, Acts of Deference (Fakel 2016) and The Boat-maker’s Art (Kelsay Books 2024) and Letters to My Younger Self (Gyroscope Press March 2025). Website: https://shaheendil.com.

  • Amy Lee Heinlen, poet and publisher based in Western Pennsylvania, is the author of All Else Falls to Shadow (Dancing Girl Press). Her recent poems appear in Literary Mama, MER, Feral, Pittsburgh Quarterly, Amethyst Review, and elsewhere. Heinlen is co-founder and co-editor of Lefty Blondie Press, an independent publisher promoting poetry by self-identifying women and non-binary poets.

  • Linda Kong is a 2024-25 City of Asylum Youth Poet Ambassador and 2nd place poetry winner in the 2024 Ralph Munn Creative Writing Contest. She is also a co-editor-in-chief of Variations, her high school’s literary and arts magazine. Outside of writing, Linda enjoys playing violin in the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra.

  • BIO COMING SOON!

  • Gary Jackson is the author of the poetry collections small lives (forthcoming fall 2025), origin story, and Missing You, Metropolis; and is co-editor of the anthology, The Future of Black: Afrofuturism, Black Comics, and Superhero Poetry. He is the Toi Derricotte Endowed Chair of English at the University of Pittsburgh, and the Director of the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics.

  • Sheila Carter-Jones is a fellow of Cave Canem, the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop and a Walter Dakins Fellow of the Sewanee Writer’s Conference. She has authored two books; Three Birds Deep and Every Hard Sweetness and two chapbooks; Crooked Star Dream Book and Elegy-ish. Sheila has an MFA from Carlow University and teaches in their Madwomen in the Attic Program.

  • Mike Good's poetry and book reviews can be found in Colorado Review, Foreword Reviews, Ploughshares, Waxwing, and elsewhere. He has received scholarships from The Sun, Aspen Words, and the Sewanee Writers' Conference, and he is at work on his first book. From 2018 to 2024, he served as managing editor at Autumn House Press. Find more at mikegoodwrites.wordpress.com.

  • Bonita Lee Penn, Managing Editor of Soul Pitt Quarterly, poetry workshop facilitator; author of When the Trees Finally Testify and Every Morning a Foot is Looking for My Neck. A Where We Stand contributor, her work appears in various journals. A Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing Fellow and Advancing Black Arts in Pittsburgh awardee, she serves on Sweetwater Center for the Arts Board.

  • Marguerite Miller is an English and Journalism teacher in Pittsburgh. She is the Co-Founder and Editor of Lefty Blondie Press and a member of the Madwomen in the Attic. She has an MFA in Poetry from Chatham University where her poetry thesis was a finalist for Best Thesis in Poetry. Her poetry has appeared in Mangrove, IDK Magazine, The Labletter Notes, Perversion Magazine, and elsewhere.

  • Varun Ravindran was born in Chennai, India. He has been published in various journals, and a full-length collection, BETWEENNESS is forthcoming in the fall from Baobab Press.

  • M. Soledad Caballero is Professor of English and Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies at Allegheny College and a Macondo, CantoMundo, and StoryKnife fellow. Her collection, I Was a Bell (2021; Red Hen Press) was a 2022 International Latino Book Award winner. Her second collection, Flight Plan, is scheduled for publication with Red Hen Press in 2025. She’s an avid tv watcher and a terrible birder.

  • Steffan Triplett is the author of the hybrid memoir Bad Forecast. A Cave Canem fellow, his recent work appears in Obsidian, Foglifter, Poetry Daily, and It Came From the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror. He is the Managing Director of the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics.

  • Bio Coming Soon!

  • Mary Helen Callier’s debut collection, When the Horses, was the winner of the 2023 Alice James Editor’s Choice. She is currently a doctoral candidate and instructor in English and Literary Arts at the University of Denver. Her writing has appeared in Gulf Coast, DIAGRAM, The Hopkins Review, New England Review, Sewanee Review, and elsewhere.

  • Michael Simms is a poet, novelist and publisher. He is the founding editor of Vox Populi and the founding editor emeritus of Autumn House Press. His novels include the YA fantasy series The Talon Trilogy. His recent poetry collections include Strange Meadowlark and Jubal Rising. His poems have appeared in Poetry, Scientific American and Poetry Daily published by the Academy of American Poets.

  • miss macross is the pen name and stage name of Sheena Carroll. Her most recent chapbook, LATE TIGHT IN A NIGHT SPACE, was published by Alien Buddha Press in 2022. Their work has appeared in over 40 publications, including Sheila-Na-Gig, Taco Bell Quarterly, and FreezeRay. Carroll is currently a Writer-in-Residence at City Books and is the former organizer of the Hell’s Lid Reading Series.

  • Oluwatobiloba Olaore has been a lover of all forms of literature since she was a little girl. And now, she uses poetry as a way to express and advocate for issues she is passionate about, such as social justice, identity, and mental health. When she’s not writing, you will find her devouring a book or listening to music.

  • Born in the Republic of Panama, Karen Rigby now lives in Arizona. Her latest poetry book is Fabulosa, which is one of Ms. Magazine's Best Poetry of '23-'24 selections. Karen’s work has been honored by a National Endowment for the Arts literature fellowship. Her poetry is published in journals such as The London Magazine, Poetry Northwest, and Australian Book Review.

  • Kendall Snee is a Pittsburgh Poet and 10th grade English teacher. Her work has been featured in Yawp by Poetry Lounge, Carlow's Dionne's Story, poems on abuse and sexual assault, and many others. Snee serves as a board member for Write Pittsburgh and The Pittsburgh Poetry Collective. Snee has accepted a prestigious residency in Nerac France for this coming summer.

  • Lisa Summe is the author of Say It Hurts (YesYes Books, 2021). Her second collection of poems, How To Make The Day Longer, was a finalist for the 2024 Write Bloody Publishing Jack McCarthy Book Prize. She is currently associate poetry editor for Brink and associate poetry editor for The Florida Review. You can find her running and eating vegan pastries in Pittsburgh, PA. lisasumme.com.

  • Torli Bush is a poet from Webster Springs, WV. They hold a MFA in Creative Writing from West Virginia Wesleyan College. Torli is currently a poetry editor for Heartwood Literary Magazine. Their first collection, Requiem for A Redbird, is available from Pulley Press.

  • BIO COMING SOON!