Presented by The Poetry Society of South Carolina

McKayla Conahan is a queer nonbianary poet pursuing their MFA at Virginia Commonwealth University. They have been published in Fall Lines, Rabbit, Sink Hollow and elsewhere, and are the recipient of the South Carolina Student Poetry Prize (2016). They spent the past summer in Wyoming working as a tour guide to the night sky, and slowly being converted to a cat person by an orange kitty named Gus.

Libby Bernardin’s first full collection is Stones Ripe for Sowing (Press 53, 2018). She has two chapbooks, The Book of Myth (SC Poetry Initiative, 2009) and Layers of Song (Finishing Line Press, 2011). Poems have appeared in numerous journals.  In 2015, she won the SC Poetry Society Forum Prize.  Her Poem “Transmigration” winner of the NC Poetry of Witness Award published in Pinesong, was nominated for a 2017 Pushcart Prize.