Hadara Bar-Nadav is the recipient of fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Society of America.  Her newest book of poetry, The New Nudity, is forthcoming from Saturnalia Books in 2017.  She is the author of Lullaby (with Exit Sign) (Saturnalia Books, 2013), awarded the Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize; The Frame Called Ruin (New Issues, 2012), Runner Up for the Green Rose Prize; and A Glass of Milk to Kiss Goodnight (Margie/Intuit House, 2007), awarded the Margie Book Prize.  She is also author of two chapbooks, Fountain and Furnace (Tupelo Press, 2015), awarded the Sunken Garden Poetry Prize, and Show Me Yours (Laurel Review/Green Tower Press 2010), awarded the Midwest Poets Series Prize.  In addition, she is co-author with Michelle Boisseau of the best-selling textbook Writing Poems, 8th ed. (Pearson/Longman, 2011).  Her poetry has recently appeared in American Poetry Review, Iowa Review, Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, and elsewhere.

Peter Mishler is the author of Fludde which won the Kathryn A. Morton Prize In Poetry and will be published by Sarabande Books in Spring, 2018. His work has been selected for Best New Poets, and appears in places such as Conjunctions, The Literary Review, Gulf Coast, Poetry Daily, and Crazyhorse. He currently curates a contemporary poetry feature for Literary Hub.

The Riverfront Readings series of poetry and fiction readings was started in Kansas City, Missouri in 1986 by Philip Miller and Donn Blevins. In those days, the location actually was in the Riverfront area, in the Kansas City Artists Coalition space. Now they are held at The Writers Place in midtown and in other Kansas City locations.