Vi Khi Nao is the author of the novel, Fish in Exile, and the poetry collection, The Old Philosopher. Vi’s work includes poetry, fiction, film and cross-genre collaboration. She was the winner of the 2014 Nightboat Poetry Prize and the 2016 Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Contest.

Jennifer MacBain-Stephens went to NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and now lives in the DC area. She is the author of two full length poetry collections (forthcoming)/ Her chapbook Clown Machine is forthcoming from Grey Book Press this summer. Recent work can be seen or is forthcoming at Jet Fuel Review, Freezeray, The Birds We Piled Loosely, Queen Mob’s Teahouse, Inter/rupture, Poor Claudia, and decomP. Visit: http://jennifermacbainstephens.wordpress.com/. 

beyza ozer would like you to know that you are made of moon dust. beyza’s work has appeared in & is forthcoming from The Offing, Pinwheel, Vinyl, Nightblock, Witchcraft Magazine, Shabby Doll House, & others. beyza is the author of FAIL BETTER (fog machine 2017) & I DON’T MEAN TO REDSHIFT (Maudlin House 2016). They are deputy director of social media at YesYes Books & a co-editor of the journal inferior planets. beyza lives in Chicago where they attend Columbia College, work at the feminist bookstore, & intern at the Poetry Foundation.

Prairie M. Faul is a Cajun trans-woman currently living in Portland, Oregon. She is the author of the upcoming self-published chapbook Root-Heart. Her work has been featured in Inferior Planets and On the Veranda literary journal.

Grace Shuyi Liew is the author of the chapbooks Book of Interludes (Anomalous, 2016) and Prop (Ahsahta, 2016). Her book Careen is forthcoming with Noemi Press. She hails from Malaysia and currently lives in Louisiana. Find her at graceungrateful.com.

Myriam Gurba, Ms. Gurba, if you’re nasty, is a native Santa Marian. She attended U.C. Berkeley thanks to affirmative action. She is the author of two short story collections, Dahlia Season and Painting Their Portraits in Winter. Dahlia Season won the Edmund White Award, which is given to queer writers for outstanding debut fiction. The book was also shortlisted for a Lambda Literary Award. Gurba is also the author of two poetry collections, Wish You Were Me and Sweatsuits of the Damned. She has toured North America twice with avant-garde literary and performance troupe Sister Spit. Gurba’s other writing can be found in places such as Entropy.com, TIME.com, and Lesfigues.com. She creates digital and photographic art that has been exhibited at galleries and museums.

Lily Hoang is the author of five books, including A Bestiary (Cleveland State University Poetry Center 2016) and Changing (Fairy Tale Review Press 2008), recipient of a PEN Open Books Award. With Joshua Marie Wilkinson, she edited the anthology The Force of What’s Possible: Writers on the Avant-Garde and Accessibility. She teaches in the MFA program at New Mexico State University, where she is Associate Department Head and Prose Editor for Puerto del Sol. 

Jacqueline Kari is the author of The Book of Tell (dancing girl press) and Litel Myn Tragedye (forthcoming on Birds of Lace). Her poems, translations and visual art have appeared in Action Yes, Tarpaulin Sky, RealPoetik and elsewhere. She lives, studies and makes Montessori curriculum materials in Athens, GA.

Note: Over the next five days, we’ll be running previews of forthcoming books by Birds of Lace, a feminist micropress run out of Athens, Georgia by Gina Abelkop. A note from her about this project runs after this excerpt of Sade Murphy’s Self Portrait, which can be pre-ordered via BoL’s 2016 Kickstarter campaign. 

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Sade Murphy a poet and artist from Houston, TX. They do not have an accent. Sade is the author of Dream Machine (co-im-press, 2014), a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and a Master Artist with Silk Creations in South Bend, IN. Last fall they began pursuing an MFA at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.

KOKUMỌ is a musician. Have you heard her debut EP, “There Will Come A Day”? Stop sleepin’. KOKUMỌ is the thought leader responsible for influencing the very framework of the modern-day Trans Movement. Yep! She’s your fav’rite advocates, fav’rite advocate. KOKUMỌ is a performance artist. Her first play, “The Faggot Who Could Fly” headlined the world’s biggest African-American poetry conference, The Gwendolyn Brooks Conference, when she was only 23. She even put together a cute tour. Dat’z cool! Broadway wudn’t ready. KOKUMỌ is a poet! And this, is her first book of poems. Enjoy! Fat/intersex/dark-skint/femmes fuckin rock. You ain’t know?