Galway Kinnell is a Pulitzer Prize winning poet who has been a major force in American poetry for over three decades.  He is the author of nine books of poetry, including The Book of Nightmares, When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone,  Imperfect Thirst, and most recently A New Selected Poems and  Strong is Your Hold.   He has published books of translations, including the poems of Francois Villon and Rainer Maria Rilke.  Kinnell won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for Selected Poems. He has been a MacArthur Fellow, State Poet of Vermont, and in 2002 he was awarded the Frost Medal for Lifetime Achievement by the Poetry Society of America. He taught for many years at New York University, where he was Erich Maria Remarque Professor of Creative Writing.  Galway Kinnell was born in Providence, Rhode Island and studied at Princeton University and the University of Rochester.  He is now retired and lives in Vermont and New York City.

James Barilla’s work focuses on the ethical crossroads of technology and ecology, and has included articles on the control of invasive species, the creation and loss of place-based identities and the impact of technology on starting a family. In his first book of nonfiction, West with the Rise, a chronicle of fly fishing across the country becomes a meditation on the “naturalness” of in vitro fertilization. Currently, he is at work on a book about the nature of homelands, which has taken him to New Orleans to participate in the ecological restoration and rebuilding of the city. After spending several years in Northern California and Chicago, he recently joined the English Department at the University of South Carolina, where he teaches classes in nonfiction writing and environmental literature.