Susan Settlemyre Williams, Blackbird assistant managing editor, is an MFA student in poetry at VCU. She has a BA in English from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a JD from the University of Richmond and is retired from the practice of real estate law. Her poetry has appeared in Aethlon, Calyx, Pudding, Earth's Daughters, and other small journals; and her interviews with Eleanor Ross Taylor and George Garrett were featured in the inaugural issue of Blackbird.

Claudia Emerson is also the author of the poetry collection Pharaoh, Pharaoh. Assistant professor of English at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, Virginia, she has been a recipient of artist fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Virginia Commission for the Arts. Her poems have appeared in The Southern Review, The Georgia Review, TriQuarterly, Crazyhorse, and New England Review, among other journals.  

Photo by Kent Ippolito