Previous Bloom Readers
2018-2019 Season
Leah Souffrant
Meena Alexander
Dennis Norris II
Joan Xie
Sam Perkins
Tishon Woolcock
Nathan McClain
Carol Potter
Glynn Pogue
Mindy Lewis
Chris Hansen-Nelson
Raquel Vasquez Gilliland
Ben Purkert
Brionne Janae
Cynthia Cruz
Jennifer Franklin
Rio Cortez
Maya Doig-Acuña
Iain Pollock
Bakar Wilson
Britanny Shutts
Nicholas Nichols
Mae Mattia
Leslie Lawrence
Arden Levine
Deborah Paredez
Stacy Parker-LeMelle
Sarah Stern
Michelle Whittaker
Craig Kite
Sam Turner
Sara Alaica is a short story writer and educator. Her writing has appeared in numerous journals, including Cleaver, Spry, Pinch, and Paper Darts. Her short story “The Iron Gates,” published in the Tishman Review, was nominated for Best of the Web. Sara studied literature at Carleton University and the University of Toronto, and has been a writer-in-residence at Taleamor Park and at Ucross. She is an active member of both the Vancouver Writers Group and the National Women’s Book Association. She grew up in Serbia and Canada, and spent a decade living throughout Asia before settling in Vancouver, BC.
Elana Bell is a poet, teacher, and activist. Her most recent collection, Mother Country, poems about fertility, motherhood, and mental illness, appeared in 2020. Her debut collection, Eyes, Stones, received the 2011 Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets. Elana is the recipient of grants and fellowships from the Jerome Foundation, the Edward Albee Foundation, and the Brooklyn Arts Council. Her writing has appeared in AGNI, Harvard Review, and the Massachusetts Review, among others. She was an inaugural finalist for the Freedom Plow Award for Poetry & Activism, an award that recognizes and honors a poet who is doing innovative and transformative work at the intersection of poetry and social change. In addition to facilitating her own Creative Fire workshops, Elana teaches poetry to actors at the Juilliard School and sings with the Resistance Revival Chorus.
Avi Fried is a poet and student at Yeshiva University in New York City. In high school he joined the poetry slam team and was named a finalist in his first-ever performance. He writes in a full range of forms from sestinas to free verse to rap lyrics. He is working on his first collection.
Lola Koundakjian is a writer, editor, and translator born in Beirut, Lebanon and living in New York City. A former editorial board member at Ararat Literary Quarterly, she has four poetry collections in Armenian and English with Spanish translations. She runs the Dead Armenian Poetry Society and the online Armenian Poetry Project. In the past decade, she has read at international poetry festivals in Medellín (Colombia) twice, Lima (Peru), Ramallah (West Bank), Trois-Rivières (Quebec), and Santiago (Chile). Her work appears in various journals and international anthologies.
Jennifer Litt is a poet and teacher, and serves as the assistant director of the Palm Beach Poetry Festival. Her chapbook, Maximum Speed Through Zero (Blue Lyra Press) appeared in 2016. Her full-length poetry collection, Strictly from Hunger, is forthcoming from Accents Publishing in 2022. Jennifer’s work has appeared in numerous publications, including Gulf Stream, Jet Fuel Review, Lumina, Naugatuck River Review, nycBigCityLit, South Florida Poetry Journal, Stone Canoe, and SWWIM.
2017–2018 Season
Cynthia Manick
Janlori Goldman
Jane McKinley
Joanne Sills
William Leo Coakley
Helen Benedict
Cornelius Eady
Joanna Sit
Rico Frederick
Robin Messing
Jennifer Michael Hecht
Terese Svoboda
Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie
Thaddeus Rutkowski
Aarti Monteiro
Sarah Jewell
Adriana Rambay Fernandéz
Chris Hansen-Nelson
Martha Rhodes
Reginald Flood
Michael Collins
Jeanne Marie Beaumont
Jordan Franklin
Sally Dawidoff
Michael Homolka
Carol Goodman
Barbara Fant
2013–2017
Peter Cameron
Meg Kearney
Lola Koundakjian
Elaine Sexton
Rachel Eliza Griffiths
Sarah Van Arsdale
Chris Bram
Ernesto Quinonez
Sheila Maldonado
James Goodman
Ross Gay
Don Wilen
Laura Shapiro
Suzanne Parker
Joseph Quintela
Susan Stinson
Rose Bernal
Michel Klein
Ralph Nazareth
Pamela Brown-Peterside
David Groff
Stacy Parker Le Melle
Chris Hansen-Nelson
David Ebenbach
Emanuel Xavier
Marianela Medrano
Natalie Baszile
Rick Hilles
Nancy Reisman
Tim Seibles
Michael Nava
Janlori Goldman
Evan Fallenberg
Purvi Shah
Honor Moore
Lee Slominsky
Jason Koo
Ellery Washington
Stephen Greco
Alison Meyers
Kamilah Aisha Moon
Joseph O. Legaspi
Curis Bauer
Emanuel Xavier
Nancy Mercado
Caridad de la Luz
Deborah Emin
Barbara Blatner
Cassandra Medley
Joan Larkin
Lizzie Olesker
Rachel Simon
Diana Alvarez
Parneshia Jones
Stephanie Hammer