Literary Artists 2026
Chris Dean January 21, 2025
Indiana Beat Poet Laureate (2025-2027)
Chris is a storyteller, graphic designer and Magpie Poet who writes from the heart of Indiana where they live with their husband and too many cats to mention.
Along with Wendy Cartwright, Chris is co-founder of Keeping the Flame Alive Press.
Their work has been featured online, in multiple print anthologies and they are the author of “tales from a broken girl,” “we're all stories in the end,” and the forthcoming “pyre” from Keeping the Flame Alive Press.
Neil Daswani
February 11, 2026
Neil Daswani, a former career banker and relatively recently minted poet wrote sporadically in his youth, followed by a “lunga pausa”. Working from his pandemic purgatory, wrote six books of poetry. His work has been showcased at the Singapore Writers Festival, and at the Jaipur and Bangalore Literature Festivals as well as in poetry anthologies published in the US, UK and South Asia.
Melia Reddick (Koetry)
March 11, 2026
Under their stage name, Koetry, Melia has been writing and sharing poems for 6 years now. Mostly, on instagram: @among.the.koa.trees. She currently runs two poetry workshops at the Hardin County Public Library, one for youth and another for adults. Aside from writing, they love spending free time either making music, reading, or being involved in local theater. Finishing up their first book at nineteen, Koetry hopes their words can one day plant a seed of connection that says: You are not alone.
April 1st
R. NIKOLAS MACIOCI
Sandra Rivers-Gill
May 13, 2026
Sandra is an award-winning poet, playwright and teaching artist. Her work often addresses themes of family, race and society, and has been nominated for the Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. She has led poetry workshop for women in recovery, as well as creatively aging adults. Her work has been featured in journals and anthologies; Rattle, ONE ART, Sheila-Na-Gig, Silver Birch Press, Rise Up Review, As It Ought To Be; and Ohio: The Body Poetic/River Roots poets, A Letter to Our Children, Poets for Peace, Death Never Dies, and others. She is the inaugural Poet Ambassador of Northwest Ohio for the Ohio Poetry Association (2024-2026), and editor of poetry anthologies, Dopeless Hope Fiends (Radio Room Press, 2018), Vibrant Voices (PP&P Press, 2025) Her debut poetry collection, As We Cover Ourselves With Light, (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2023), was a finalist for the 2024 Eric Hoffer Book Award.
www.sandrariversgill.com Facebook @ Sandra Gill, Instagram @Sandra.Gill.52
June 17
James Borders
July 15, 2026
James Borders is a poet, husband, grandfather, and recovering curmudgeon. After decades of writing pithy, satirical poems and grocery lists, he decided to get serious about poetry. James is a member of Bistro Poets and former host of Peripatetic Poets based in Columbus, Ohio. Recent poems have appeared in Meniscus Literary Magazine, Madness Muse Press, and several in collections from Poetry is Life Press. James released his first book of poetry in 2022, Resurrecting Onions, Kung Fu Treachery Press. He is currently working on a memoir in poems about his childhood to published sometime in 2026.
September 9th
Karen Scott
October 14
November 18th
Mandy Hayden
December 16
August 19, 2026
Tommy Sheffield is a disabled, neurodivergent writer who lives in Washington, DC, where he teaches high school English in Southeast DC. His poems, stories, and essays have been published in ucity review, Adelaide, Sanitarium, Ghosts City Review, and a number of other publications. His chapbooks From Whom We Trace the Bones, Ashore, Where God Has Gone, and These Things Are Often Sealed Within were published as a four-book series by Voice Lux Press in March 2022. He has served as the Poetry Editor for Stillhouse Press for a number of years, editing and publishing five critically acclaimed poetry books, and helping to oversee new projects.