The program, organized in conjunction with Public Poetry, will be introduced by Joseph Campana, Rice University professor, poet and CultureMap contributor.

Honored by the National Poetry Series for her debut collection, Failure and I Bury the Body, Sasha West is a frequent contributor to Southern Review, Ninth Letter, Forklift, Born and other literary publications. The Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Pushcart and Inprint have recognized her achievements with fellowships and awards. Holding degrees from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Houston, West, who's the former editor of Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts, resides in Austin, where she teaches writing at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas.

Jason Schneiderman is the author of Striking Surface, winner of the Richard Snyder prize from Ashland Poetry Press, and Sublimation Point, a Stahlecker Selection from Four Way Books. He has published essays as well as poetry in such journals as American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, The Best American Poetry, Grand Street and The Penguin Book of the Sonnet. A professor of English at City University of New York, Schneiderman, who's a Yaddo and Bread Loaf fellow, is a recipient of the Poetry Society of America's Emily Dickinson Award.