Kathryn Stripling Byer received the 2013 North Carolina Book Award and the 2013 Southern Independent Booksellers Award for Poetry for her most recent collection, Descent (Louisiana State University Press, 2012). A native of south Georgia, she recently completed five years as North Carolina’s first woman poet laureate. Frequently anthologized, her poetry, essays, and fiction have appeared in publications ranging from the Atlantic to Appalachian Heritage.

Cathy Smith Bowers’ collections of poetry include Like Shining from Shook Foil (2010), The Candle I Hold Up to See You (2009), and A Book of Minutes (2004), and her poems have appeared in publications such as Poetry, the Southern Review, Kenyon Review, and Ploughshares. For many years the poet-in-residence at Queens University of Charlotte, Bowers currently teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Queens and in the Haden Institute Spiritual Direction and Dream Leadership programs. From 2010 to 2012, she was poet laureate of North Carolina.