Word Barn

With Chen Chen and Julia Bouwsma.

 

Chen Chen is the author of When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (BOA Editions, 2017), which was longlisted for the National Book Award and won the Thom Gunn Award, among other honors. Bloodaxe Books will be publishing a UK edition in June 2019. The recipient of fellowships from Kundiman and the National Endowment for the Arts, Chen’s work appears in many publications, including Poem-a-Day, The Best American Poetry, and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. He holds an MFA from Syracuse University and a PhD from Texas Tech University. Currently he teaches at Brandeis University as the Jacob Ziskind Poet-in-Residence. With his best friend, Sam Herschel Wein, he co-runs the journal, Underblong. He lives in Waltham, MA with his partner, Jeff Gilbert and their pug, Mr. Rupert Giles.

 

Julia Bouwsma lives off-the-grid in the mountains of western Maine, where she is a poet, farmer, freelance editor, critic, and small-town librarian. She is the author of two poetry collections: Midden (Fordham University Press, 2018) and Work by Bloodlight (Cider Press Review, 2017). She is the recipient of the 2018 Maine Literary Award; the 2016-17 Poets Out Loud Prize, selected by Afaa Michael Weaver; and the 2015 Cider Press Review Book Award, selected by Linda Pastan. Her poems and book reviews can be found in Grist, Poetry Northwest, RHINO, River Styx, and other journals. A former Managing Editor for Alice James Books, Bouwsma currently serves as Book Review Editor for Connotation Press: An Online Artifact and as Library Director for Webster Library in Kingfield, Maine.