In The Swirl

Kathryn Ugoretz 

Kathryn Ugoretz’s chapbook, The Courtship and Other Tales, was published by Bright Hill Press in 2007. Her poems have appeared in The Madison Review (winner of the Phyllis Smart Young Award), Beloit Poetry Journal, Blue Mesa Review, Bellingham Review, RUNES, Water ~ Stone and others. She received the Barbara Bradley Award, was a semi-finalist for the “Discovery”/The Nation Award, and a finalist for Palette’s 2023 Resistance & Resilience Prize. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico with her son.

Lise Goett 

Moderator Lise Goett’s third collection "The Radiant" is forthcoming from Tupelo Press on Christmas Eve 2025. In addition to moderating generative poetry marathons, she edits manuscripts, 36 of which have found their way into publication. Her awards include The Paris Review Discovery Award, The Pen Southwest Book Award in Poetry, The Robert Winner Prize from the Poetry Society of America, and a grant from NM Writers and her work has appeared in such journals as Ploughshares, The Antioch Review, and Lana Turner. She resides in Taos, New Mexico.

Zoe Robles 

Zoé Robles was born in Puerto Rico where she climbed every available tree and loudly complained about raking leaves and helping out in the garden. She studied Comparative Literature and later traded the sandy shores of her hometown for the cornfields of Illinois where she studied Italian Literature. She has taught Italian in downtown Florence and English in the Española Valley. She currently works with 2nd and 3rd graders in Los Alamos. For several years, Zoé has participated in poetry marathons, resulting in an impressive collection of poems, about 60 of them have been compiled into a manuscript that she inexplicably hasn’t sent out for publication. She misses sunrise by the ocean yet loves the impossible blue of New Mexico skies. She now gardens to atone for all the complaining done decades ago.

Mike Burwell 

Mike Burwell’s poems have appeared in Abiko Quarterly, Alaska Quarterly Review, Atlanta Review (forthcoming), Cloudbank, Ice-Floe, Pacific Review, Poems & Plays, and Sin Fronteras. He has poems forthcoming in the poetry anthologies "Notes of Light and Dark: Southwestern Aubades," "Nocturnes" (Dos Gatos Press), and "Alaska Literary Field Guide" (Mountaineers Books). His poetry collection "Cartography of Water" was published by NorthShore Press in 2007, and in 2009 he founded the Northwest literary journal Cirque (www.cirquejournal.com). He’s been a Taos resident since 2013 where he found home among the wild landscape and its wildly generous poets. His new manuscript "Coin on My Tongue" was a semi-finalist for the Tupelo Press 2023 Berkshire Prize competition and the Black Lawrence Press 2024 Hudson Prize.

Katherine Seluja

Katherine DiBella Seluja is the author of three books of poetry, the most recent "Point of Entry" (UNM Press, 2023). Her poem “November Fruit” is on permanent display at the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation as part of the Taos Poetry in Nature project. Katherine recently co-edited with Dale Wisely an anthology of grief poems, "Memento" (Ambidextrous Bloodhound Press, 2025). She is a poetry editor at Unbroken Journal.

Alicia Elkort 

Alicia Elkort’s second book of poetry, "To Mother Some Small Living Thing," recently won the Two Sylvias Press Wilder Book Prize and will be published in 2026. Her first book "A Map of Every Undoing" was published in 2022 by Stillhouse Press with George Mason University, after winning their book contest. Her chapbook, "Disturb the Bones" is forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press. Alicia's poetry has been nominated several times for the Pushcart, Best of the Net, and inclusion in the Orison Anthology, and her work appears in numerous journals and anthologies. She reads for Tinderbox Poetry Journal for which she also writes reviews.