Bryanna (she/her) was born and raised in Tucson. She is a high school teacher and a writer of fiction, memoir, and poetry. She is a previous Grand Prize winner in Tucson's Hearst undergraduate poetry competition.  Most recently, she was nominated for a 2024 Pushcart Prize. She holds a Bachelor's degree in English and Creative Writing from the University of Arizona. Bryanna joined the board in 2021 and served as Co-Director for one year before taking on the Director position in 2024.   

Laura is a writer, editor, potter, and teacher based in Tucson, AZ for the last quarter century. She writes fiction, personal essays, and poetry. Her prose poems have been published in Sandscript and she was selected as a two-time fiction finalist of the Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards. Laura hails from the Garden State of New Jersey, graduated with an M.A. in Anthropology from the University of Arizona, and was a Fulbright scholar in India. She’s thrilled to be serving as the treasurer for the Tucson Poetry Festival since October 2015.

Eleanor Kedney (she/her) is the author of three books: Twelve Days From Transfer (3: A Taos Press, 2024), Between the Earth and Sky (C&R Press, 2020), and the chapbook The Offering (Liquid Light Press, 2016). Twelve Days From Transfer is a 2024 New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards finalist; Between the Earth and Sky was a finalist for the 2021 New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards and the American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Awards. Her work has been published in various journals, magazines, and anthologies. Honors for individual poems include the 2019 riverSedge Poetry Prize (University of Texas Rio Grande Valley) and a finalist mention in the 2020 Mslexia Poetry Competition. Kedney founded the Tucson branch of the New York-based Writers Studio and served as the director for ten years. Inspired by craft techniques utilized in her books, Eleanor developed the “Writing Toward Forgiveness” workshop. She joined the Tucson Poetry Festival board in 2021. She lives in Tucson, Arizona, and Stonington, Connecticut, with her husband, Peter Schaffer, their dog Fred, and their cat, Ivy.

Sarah (she/her) is a poet and librarian who has called Tucson home for the last 13 years. Her debut collection of poems, Ganbatte, won the Felix Pollak Prize from the University of Wisconsin Press, and her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Ploughshares, Alaska Quarterly Review, and The Feminist Wire, among others. She currently serves as Library Director at The University of Arizona Poetry Center. A long-time admirer of the Tucson Poetry Festival, she was delighted to join the Board in 2021.  

Wyatt (they/them) is a local Tucson poet and English teacher. Welch earned an MA in Linguistics from the University of Florida, and as a linguist, is interested in phonology and language revitalization movements. Welch's debut book of poetry, Capitalism Calls Poetry Lazy, was released in 2022 by FlowerSong Press with many of these poems having previously been published in some really exciting journals. Welch is currently working on their third book, The Tarot, which is a comprehensive, tarotic poetry collection of the 78 cards." They joined the board in 2024.