Prairie M. Faul is a Cajun trans-woman currently living in Portland, Oregon. She is the author of the upcoming self-published chapbook Root-Heart. Her work has been featured in Inferior Planets and On the Veranda literary journal.

Grace Shuyi Liew is the author of the chapbooks Book of Interludes (Anomalous, 2016) and Prop (Ahsahta, 2016). Her book Careen is forthcoming with Noemi Press. She hails from Malaysia and currently lives in Louisiana. Find her at graceungrateful.com.

Myriam Gurba, Ms. Gurba, if you’re nasty, is a native Santa Marian. She attended U.C. Berkeley thanks to affirmative action. She is the author of two short story collections, Dahlia Season and Painting Their Portraits in Winter. Dahlia Season won the Edmund White Award, which is given to queer writers for outstanding debut fiction. The book was also shortlisted for a Lambda Literary Award. Gurba is also the author of two poetry collections, Wish You Were Me and Sweatsuits of the Damned. She has toured North America twice with avant-garde literary and performance troupe Sister Spit. Gurba’s other writing can be found in places such as Entropy.com, TIME.com, and Lesfigues.com. She creates digital and photographic art that has been exhibited at galleries and museums.

Lily Hoang is the author of five books, including A Bestiary (Cleveland State University Poetry Center 2016) and Changing (Fairy Tale Review Press 2008), recipient of a PEN Open Books Award. With Joshua Marie Wilkinson, she edited the anthology The Force of What’s Possible: Writers on the Avant-Garde and Accessibility. She teaches in the MFA program at New Mexico State University, where she is Associate Department Head and Prose Editor for Puerto del Sol. 

Jacqueline Kari is the author of The Book of Tell (dancing girl press) and Litel Myn Tragedye (forthcoming on Birds of Lace). Her poems, translations and visual art have appeared in Action Yes, Tarpaulin Sky, RealPoetik and elsewhere. She lives, studies and makes Montessori curriculum materials in Athens, GA.

Note: Over the next five days, we’ll be running previews of forthcoming books by Birds of Lace, a feminist micropress run out of Athens, Georgia by Gina Abelkop. A note from her about this project runs after this excerpt of Sade Murphy’s Self Portrait, which can be pre-ordered via BoL’s 2016 Kickstarter campaign. 

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Sade Murphy a poet and artist from Houston, TX. They do not have an accent. Sade is the author of Dream Machine (co-im-press, 2014), a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and a Master Artist with Silk Creations in South Bend, IN. Last fall they began pursuing an MFA at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.

KOKUMỌ is a musician. Have you heard her debut EP, “There Will Come A Day”? Stop sleepin’. KOKUMỌ is the thought leader responsible for influencing the very framework of the modern-day Trans Movement. Yep! She’s your fav’rite advocates, fav’rite advocate. KOKUMỌ is a performance artist. Her first play, “The Faggot Who Could Fly” headlined the world’s biggest African-American poetry conference, The Gwendolyn Brooks Conference, when she was only 23. She even put together a cute tour. Dat’z cool! Broadway wudn’t ready. KOKUMỌ is a poet! And this, is her first book of poems. Enjoy! Fat/intersex/dark-skint/femmes fuckin rock. You ain’t know?

Raquel Salas-Rivera ha publicado poemas y ensayos en numerosas revistas y antologías. En el 2011, publicó su primer libro, Caneca de anhelos turbios, con Editora Educación Emergente. En el 2016, publicó su segundo libro, oropel/tinsel, con Lark Books & Writing Studio. Actualmente es editorx contribuyente para The Wanderer. Si para Roque Dalton no existe revolución sin poesía, para Raquel no existe poesía sin Puerto Rico. Puedes aprender más sobre su trabajo si visitas raquelsalasrivera.com.

Raquel Salas-Rivera has published poetry and essays in numerous anthologies and journals. In 2011, their first book, Caneca de anhelos turbios, was published by Editora Educación Emergente. In 2016, their chapbook, oropel/tinsel, was published by Lark Books & Writing Studio. Currently, they are a Contributing Editor at The Wanderer. If for Roque Dalton there is no revolution without poetry, for Raquel there is no poetry without Puerto Rico. You can find out more about their work at raquelsalasrivera.com.

Natalie Eilbert is the author of the debut poetry collection, Swan Feast (Bloof Books, 2015). She is the recipient of the 2016 Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellowship at University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she will serve a one-year academic appointment. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from The New Yorker, Tin House, jubilat, The Boston Review, The Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. She is the founding editor of The Atlas Review.