Once Upon a Midnight Sunrise:

Writing Narrative Poems 2024

introducing the writers of the 2024 workshop with Tim Seibles

Hiwot Adilow

Hiwot Adilow is an Ethiopian American poet from Philadelphia. She is co-winner of the 2018 Brunel International African Poetry Prize and author of the chapbooks In the House of My Father (Two Sylvias Press, 2018) and Prodigal Daughter (Akashic Books & African Poetry Book Fund, 2019). Her work appears in Callaloo, The Offing, Reconstructed Magazine, and elsewhere, and has been anthologized in The BreakBeats Poets Vol 2.0: Black Girl Magic (Haymarket Books, 2018).

Na Mee

Na Mee is a poet, storyteller, and sunlight soaker upper. She is a Kundiman fellow, and an Alaska Literary Award and three-time Rasmuson Foundation Award recipient. Additional support has come from The Aspen Institute, The Loft Literary Center, Storyknife, and Hedgebrook (2024). Her work has been published in AGNI, Lit Hub, Feminist Review, Washington Square Review, The Rumpus, and others. She wants her work to make you feel at home with yourself, with others, and with the world. She lives on Lingít Aaní (aka Juneau, Alaska) where she is raising a hilarious teenage son and a pack of sweet animals.

Zia Wang

Zia Wang (she/her) is Indian American and part of the third generation of her family from East Africa. She came to the United States from Zambia at age 6 and has been traversing the boundaries of language and identity ever since. She is an alum of VONA and Bread Loaf workshops and is a member of a Decolonizing Poetry collective. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in The American Journal of Poetry, Drunken Boat, SWWIM, Meridian, Allium, and Honey Literary among others. Her work was also selected as a runner-up in the New Orleans Review Poetry Contest 2023. She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, two daughters and an orange cat named Cattie.

Maati Wafford

Maati Wafford, LSW, advocates for equity by creating avenues for the coexistence of science and spirit in the field of education. Through her writing practice, she roots the ancient art of storytelling in justice while building community trust and the capacity to engage in honest and productive critical conversations. For over two decades, Maati has created brave spaces for people to expand, build, and create more justice in the world. She firmly believes in divine intelligence and understands that we all sit at the very center of that space. Maati is a 2024 Anaphora Arts Fellow whose interest in writing is born from an ancestral yearning to fully embody an idea, give herself over to the senses, and explore different realms and mediums to capture the stories that occupy the spaces between. It is through the body that we experience the world.  Subtle energies, sensations, perceptions, and physical encounters contribute to the texture of our lives and what is remembered. Using history, memory, spirit, and reverence for nature in her writing allows Maati to also function as an environmentalist, priestess, anthropologist, cultural worker, and artist.  Writing brings Maati face-to-face with her unique sovereignty.  It’s a daily salve that reminds her to be intentional, for its very nature is to replenish and fortify.

Donnie Moreland

Donnie Moreland is a Houston-based sexual health educator and storyteller. Donnie has a Bachelor's Degree in Sociology from Prairie View A&M University and a Graduate Degree in Film Studies from National University. Donnie’s work centers on cultural healing, Black masculinities and media criticism. 

Donnie has contributed to Black Youth Project, Brain Mill Press ColorBloc Magazine, Honey Literary, Honeyfair Literary Magazine, RaceBaitr, Root Work Journal, A Gathering of the Tribes, Unmute Magazine, Emergent Literary, Genre: Urban Arts (forthcoming) and more.

Donnie is also the co-founder of Weekend Words, a Saturday writing workshop for Black writers.

Jarvis Subia

Currently based in the Boston area but Born and raised in San Jose’s Seven Trees Neighborhood, Bay Area Spoken Word Poet Jarvis Subia is a Queer Latinx flower-loving Millennial devoted to performing poems from his heart to yours.

The 2019 Poetry Foundation and Crescendo Literary’s Incubator Fellow, the recipient of the 2019 Silicon Valley Creates & Content Magazines Emerging Artist Award, a 2019 Multicultural Artists Leadership Institute (MALI) fellow, San José Poetry Slam’s 2018 Grand Slam Champion, and has competed in 14 national and regional poetry slam. Most recently, Jarvis earned his Ed.M from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, studying the impact of spoken word poetry in K-12 schools. Jarvis' first published chapbook, "Hello Joy" is now available through Black Lawrence Press.

Anmol Desai

Anmol Priya Desai (any pronouns)  is a nonbinary poet and astrologer from Arizona.They are  currently an MFA candidate at Oregon State University. Anmol’s work centers themes of generational trauma, queer identity, and love. They were recently invited to be a student reader for The Writers Studio.

Mayra Cuevas

MAYRA CUEVAS is the author of the young adult novel Does My Body Offend You? (co-written with Marie Marquardt), long-listed for the PEN/Faulkner Award, named a 2023 Book All Young Georgians Should Read, a New York Public Library Best Books for Teens 2022 and a Target YA Book Club selection. In 2023, she was named Georgia Author of the Year in the Young Adult category. Mayra's debut picture books My Abuela is a Bruja (Penguin Random House) and We're Going on a Parranda (Simon & Schuster) will be released in 2025. Mayra is also the author of the YA foodie romcom Salty, Bitter, Sweet, and the short story Resilient, published as part of the anthology Foreshadow: The Magic of Reading and Writing YA. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Mayra is a former CNN award-winning producer, where she worked for almost two decades. She teaches creative writing as part of City University of New York's creative writing graduate program. Mayra is a co-founder of the award-winning Latinx Kidlit Book Festival and it’s Latinx Storytellers Conference. She lives in Atlanta and keeps her sanity by practicing Buddhism and meditation.

Michael Reyes

Michael Reyes is a Chicano poet. He works as a co-coordinator of Puente Project and a professor of cultural rhetorics and first-year composition at El Camino College. A two-time VONA alumnus, Michael is also an alumnus of LA Review of Books Publishing Workshop, Anaphora Writing Residency, Fine Arts Work Center, Writing By Writers, Home School, and Community of Writers. This fall, Michael will be the new executive editor of poetry at The Offing. He lives in LA with his wife and pitbull/pointer puppy.

Also in the narrative poetry cohort:

Olivia Muñoz

Julissa Rodríguez