2025 MAINSTAGE POETS, PERFORMERS, AND PRESENTERS

Kim Addonizio is an award-winning poet, novelist, and essayist, known for her fearless and emotionally charged writing. She is the author of eight poetry collections, including Tell Me, a finalist for the National Book Award, as well as multiple works of fiction and two influential books on writing poetry. Her work has been translated into numerous languages and published internationally. A recipient of NEA and Guggenheim fellowships, as well as two Pushcart Prizes, Addonizio also merges poetry with music, releasing spoken-word albums like My Black Angel. Her latest book of original poetry is Exit Opera (2024), and her latest book of poetic craft is Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the Poet Within (2009).

Christopher Childers is the author of The Penguin Book of Greek and Latin Lyric Verse, a Times Literary Supplement and Australian Book Review best book of 2024. His work has appeared in 32 Poems, Literary Matters, Smartish Pace, and elsewhere. He is a recent transplant to Los Angeles, where he lives with his wife and teaches Latin.

Anthony Cody is the author of Borderland Apocrypha (2020) and The Rendering (2023). He has been a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the American Book Award, the Southwest Book Award and the Whiting Award. A CantoMundo fellow, and co-publisher at Noemi Press, Cody’s work explores themes of migration, historical trauma, and resilience, reflecting his lineage in the Bracero Program and the Dust Bowl. His poetry has appeared in Poem-A-Day, Gulf Coast, Prairie Schooner, and more, and he has co-edited works including Akrílica, a translation of Juan Felipe Herrera’s poetry. He has taught ecopoetry at Fresno State, led workshops nationwide, and currently serves as a visiting professor at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Also a visual artist, Cody’s work has been exhibited in Fresno and San Francisco. He lives in Fresno, CA, with his partner, poet Mai Der Vang.

Shelly Covert is a descendant of the Nisenan people who have made their homes in and around Nevada County since time immemorial. She is the elected Spokesperson for the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe and sits on the Tribal Council. She is also the Executive Director of California Heritage Indigenous Research Project (CHIRP), the Tribally guided 501c3 that supports the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe, through its mission to Preserve, Protect and Perpetuate Nisenan Culture.

Judy Brackett Crowe is author of Flat Water: Nebraska Poems (2019, Finishing line Press) and The Watching Sky (2023, Cornerstone Press). Her stories and poems have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies. She has taught Creative Writing, English Literature, and Composition at Sierra College, in Grass Valley, California. She is a member of the Community of Writers. Born in Nebraska, she has lived in the small town of Nevada City in California’s northern Sierra Nevada foothills for many years.

Armen Davoudian is the author of The Palace of Forty Pillars (Tin House), longlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry, and the translator, from Persian, of Hopscotch by Fatemeh Shams (Ugly Duckling Presse). He grew up in Isfahan, Iran, and is a PhD candidate in English at Stanford University.

Annie Finch is the author of seven books of poetry, including Calendars and Eve, both finalists for the National Poetry Series, and Spells. Her other books include A Poet’s Craft: A Comprehensive Guide to Making and Sharing Your Poetry, poetic translation, poetry criticism, and nine anthologies on form and meter. Finch’s poems have been featured in The New York Times, Paris Review, and Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry.  She earned a PhD from Stanford University and served for a decade as Director of the Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing. Based in New York City, she teaches at RandolphLundine.com and travels widely to offer workshops and performances. 

Sands Hall is the author of the award-winning memoir, Reclaiming My Decade Lost in Scientology (Counterpoint). She teaches annually for the Community of Writers and the Iowa Summer Writing Festival. Her prize-winning essays and stories have appeared in such journals as Alta Journal, New England Review, Iowa Review, and the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Joey Henry is Nevada County Youth Poet Laureate. Raised in St. Louis, surrounded by the words and art of her father, Henry wrote short stories at elementary school, and poetry at junior high. At sixteen, she moved to Nevada City to finish her education at Sierra Academy of Expeditionary Learning. A regular finalist for Poetry Out Loud in Nevada County, Henry is paving the way for local youth to share their voices. As an ambassador for poetry, she lends agency and nurtures a valuation for poetry as a means of creative expression. She believes that nothing bad can come from poetry, and has used this ethos to kick start her tenure by supporting teen open mics, reading at local punk shows hosted by Nevada County Library, and incorporating teen-focused zine making as part of her community-based approach.

Maxima Kahn’s first full-length book of poems, Fierce Aria, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2020 and was a finalist for an Eric Hoffer Book Award. Her poetry and essays have appeared in The Louisville Review, Euphony Journal, Entropy, Citron Review, Sweet, Wisconsin Review and Spillway, among many others. A recipient of fellowships and scholarships to the Vermont Studio Center and the Community of Writers, she has twice been nominated for Best of the Net. Having taught creative writing at the University of California Davis extension, she now teaches at Brilliant Playground.

Randall Mann is the author of six poetry collections, most recently Deal: New and Selected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2023). His other collections are: A Better Life, Proprietary, Straight Razor, Breakfast with Thom Gunn, and Complaint in the Garden. Mann is also the author of a collection of reviews, essays, and interviews, The Illusion of Intimacy: On Poetry (Diode Editions, 2019). His poems and prose have appeared in the Adroit Journal, New Republic, Poetry, Sewanee Review, and San Francisco Chronicle. He is the recipient of the Kenyon Review Prize in Poetry and the J. Howard and Barbara M.J. Wood Prize from Poetry, and he has been shortlisted for the California Book Award, Lambda Literary Award, and Northern California Book Award. He teaches in the Bennington Writing Seminars and lives in San Francisco.

Diane Pendola lives in the foothills of Northern California, near the small town of Camptonville. The living world that grounds her informs her work as a writer and poet, teacher and eco-contemplative. She is the author of  The Lioness Tale, inspired by her lifetime work with women in California prisons. Her poetry has appeared in various anthologies, as well as in her online journal called, Earthlines. Her Essays have been published in the United States and New Zealand, India and Australia. Diane holds an MFA in poetry from Pacific University in Oregon, and an MTS from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California.

Brynn Saito (she/her), MA, MFA, is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Under a Future Sky (Red Hen Press, 2023). A 2023 California Arts Council Individual Artist Fellow, Brynn is the winner of the Benjamin Saltman Award and a finalist for the Northern California Book Award. She coedited with Brandon Shimoda The Gate of Memory: Poems by Descendants of Nikkei Wartime Incarceration (Haymarket Books, April 2025). Brynn also co-authored with Traci Brimhall the poetry chapbook, Bright Power, Dark Peace (Diode Editions, 2016). She teaches in the Creative Writing program at California State University, Fresno, located on the traditional lands of the Yokuts and Mono peoples.

Karen Terrey is a writer, editor, and writing coach, offering marketing and business writing, copy editing, publishing guidance, and creative writing workshops in Truckee through her business Tangled Roots Writing.  She has taught at Lake Tahoe Community College, Sierra Nevada College, and Sierra College, and has served as a poetry editor for the literary journals Pitkin Review and Quay. She is a recipient of a Sierra Arts Endowment Grant, the John Woods Scholarship to Prague Summer Program, the Steve Turner Scholarship to Surprise Valley Writer's Conference, and a scholarship to the Vermont Studio Center. Her poems have appeared in Rhino, Edge, Meadow, WordRiot, Puerto Del Sol, Wicked Alice, Canary, and Gray Sparrow Journal, among others. Her poetry chapbook Bite and Blood is now available from Finishing Line Press and local bookstores, including Sundance Books in Reno, NV, and Word After Word in Truckee, CA. 

Mai Der Vang is the author of Yellow Rain (2021), winner of the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize and an American Book Award, and Afterland (2017), which received the First Book Award from the Academy of American Poets. A Pulitzer Prize finalist, she has received Guggenheim and Lannan Literary Fellowships, and her poetry has appeared in Poetry, Tin House, and American Poetry Review. She co-edited How Do I Begin: A Hmong American Literary Anthology and teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Fresno State. Her third collection, Primordial, is forthcoming in March 2025.

zsa'lai [shey/shem] is a non-binary qweirdo artivist—slam poet, stage performer and filmmaker. Shey seek to intertwine creativity and culture building— joy and justice—and crop-dust that souljazz along the way! My first love is poetry. I got introduced to slam poetry by a random encounter with Marc Smith, one of the originators of Slam. Then I saw Saul Williams open for The Mars Volta at a punk club in Houston. I eventually found a creative home within the San Diego slam scene. I got to be part of a community that encouraged the power and beauty of raising one’s voice to transform ourselves

Catharine Bramkamp

Catharine Bramkamp is a successful writing coach and author of twenty books including the five-book Real Estate Diva Mystery Series and Writing from the Queen's Seat series. She holds two degrees in English and is an adjunct professor of writing for two Universities.