Tim Raymond is an autistic and nonbinary writer based in South Korea. Their fiction has appeared in Conjunctions, Chicago Quarterly Review, Joyland, and Witness, among other publications. They contribute comics to ONLY POEMS regularly and post stories and dialogues on Instagram.

PAGES Matam (They/He), is a genderqueer med school drop-out turned award-winning multi-hyphenate, pleasure advocate and agent of imagination. Their work as a film-poet is fueled by Toni Morrison’s words: “the function of freedom is to free someone else,” challenging systems of power to move towards inclusive and ethical liberation. PAGES is a National Poetry Slam Champion and touring Burlesque performer as seen on BET, TV One, and more. Additionally, they were named a Cultural Ambassador to the National Fair Housing Alliance and an inaugural creative with Keke Palmer’s KeyTV.

Buddy Wakefield is an actor, writer, producer, and three-time world champion spoken word artist featured on the BBC, HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, ABC Radio National and has been signed to both Sage Francis’ Strange Famous Records as well as Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe Records. In 2004, he won the first Individual World Poetry Slam Finals thanks to the support of anthropologist and producer Norman Lear, then went on to share the stage with nearly every notable performance poet in the world in over 2000 venues internationally from The Great Lawn of Central Park, Zimbabwe’s Shoko Festival and Scotland’s Oran Mor to San Quentin State Penitentiary, House of Blues New Orleans and The Basement in Sydney, Australia.

Buddy has been a busker in Amsterdam, a street vendor in Spain, a team leader in Singapore, a re-delivery boy, a candy maker, a street sweeper, a bartender, a maid, a construction worker, a bull rider, a notably slow triathlete, a facilitator at Quantum Learning Network, and is the most toured performance poet in history. He is the founder of Awful Good Writers, and the producer and host of Heavy Hitters Festival 2020, a summer-long series of online shows and workshops featuring thirty of the most beloved performance poets alive.

The inaugural author released on Write Bloody Publishing, and having served on the original Board of Directors for Youth Speaks Seattle, Buddy is published in dozens of books internationally with work used to win multiple national collegiate debate and forensics competitions. His first short film, Farmly, directed by Jamie DeWolf, won Best of Texas at the Literally Short Film Fest, and the USA Film Festival.

In the spring of 2001 Buddy left his position as the executive assistant at a biomedical firm in Gig Harbor, WA, sold or gave away everything he owned, moved to the small town of Honda Civic, then set out to live for a living. His aim was to tour North American poetry venues for two years. He did not stop. Wakefield, who isn’t concerned with what poetry is or is not, delivers raw, rounded, disarming performances of humor and heart.

Ollie Schminkey (they/them) has spent the past decade coaching, mentoring, teaching classes, and running workshops for poets. They were the winner of the 2024-25 Palette Previously Published Poem Prize, and their work has been featured everywhere from Poets.org to Frontier Poetry to Upworthy. They’ve performed poems in 21 states, with their work garnering over 3 million views on YouTube. They are the author of four chapbooks and two full-length collections: Where I Dry the Flowers (Button Poetry, 2024) and Dead Dad Jokes (Button Poetry, 2021), which was shortlisted for both the Midwest Independent Publishers Association and the Eric Hoffer Grand Prize. They are the founder and director of the slam poetry tournament Midwest Poetry Mash-Up, and their work has been supported by the Arts Impact for Individuals grant through the Minnesota Regional Arts Council, as well as the Minnesota State Arts Board. You can also find them making pottery, dancing in their kitchen, or playing with their cat Pete, who is always trying to eat things he shouldn’t.

To take a class or to see more of their work, check out ollieschminkey.com.