“Mighty” Mike McGee is an international spoken word artist, writer, performer, speaker, slam poet and comic. He has performed in thousands of venues all over North America, and was one of the first Americans ever to perform poetry at the University la Sorbonne in Paris, France.

McGee began performing comedy and poetry to audiences at home in San Jose, California in 1998. As a Poetry Slam competitor in the U.S., Mike has competed at the National Poetry Slam on team San José several times. In 2003, McGee won the coveted National Poetry Slam Individual Grand Championship, besting over 300 nationally ranked poetry slammers. He has since toured over 300,000 miles throughout the United States and Canada where fellow National Poetry Slam Indy Champ, Shane Koyczan and beat-boxer poet extraordinaire C.R. Avery (of Vancouver, B.C.) joined him to form the group Tons of Fun University in 2004. They have since headlined music festivals across Canada, bringing their unique blend of poetry-laden “talk rock” to massive audiences all over the great north.

In 2006, McGee became the first person to win two separate individual titles by being crowned the 2006 Individual World Poetry Slam Champion, besting over 70 of the world’s best ranked slam poets. His “stand-up poetry” has been written about in Writer’s Digest magazine, and been featured on NPR, HBO and CBC. Mike McGee books internationally and is on tour damn-near 300 days a year.

Mike McGee was born with Spina Bifida in Fort Campbell, Kentucky and Tennessee, but grew up in and around San José, California. He writes and performs all over the world. He discovered a love of words at the age of three, but didn’t write poetry until the age of twenty-three. In 2003, he won the National Poetry Slam Individual Grand Championship in Chicago, and then in 2006 he won the Individual World Poetry Slam Championship in Charlotte, N.C., becoming the first person to attain both titles.

Mike has a mighty appetite, an uncanny relationship with ladybugs, several tattoos and siblings, and a passable Scottish accent. He breathes somewhere between Silicon Valley, California and Vancouver, B.C. as often as possible. Mike thoroughly enjoys weather, beverages, and the scent of mock orange blossoms in the spring.

Learn more about Mike McGee on his website: http://www.mikemcgee.net.

Mahogany L. Browne The Cave Canem Fellow is the Editor of the women's anthology His Rib: Stories, Poems & Essays by HER and author of several books including her latest book of poems: Swag. She has released five LPs including the live album Sheroshima. As co-founder of the Off Broadway poetry production, Jam On It, and co-producer of NYC's 1st Performance Poetry Festival: SoundBites Poetry Festival, Mahogany bridges the gap between lyrical poets and literary emcee. Her freelance journalism can be found in magazines Uptown, KING, XXL, The Source, Canada's The Word and UK's MOBO. She facilitates performance poetry and writing workshops throughout the country, focusing on women empowerment and youth mentoring. She is the publisher of Penmanship Books, a small press for performance artists and owns PoetCD.Com, an on-line marketing and distribution company for poets. Mahogany is currently the slam host & curator of the Friday Night Slam Series at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe.

Learn more about Mahogany Browne at her website: http://www.mobrowne.com.

Emily Kagan Trenchard uses writing and design to help make sense of the infinitely complicated world. From performance poetry to fiction, science journalism to documentary films, Emily prefers to create at the intersections between science and society, metaphor and fact.

As a writer, her work has appeared everywhere from ABC News to HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, literary journals to dive bars, film festivals to universities.

Emily does not believe that good ideas should be held back by bad design. As such, much of her work as a web and graphic designer is done in support of non-profits and small businesses at reduced costs.

Emily believes she can eat an elephant if she takes small bites.

Learn more about Emily Kagan Trenchard at her website: http://www.kagantrenchard.com/emily

Wess Mongo Jolley is a poet and poetry promoter, who spends his time moving between his home in rural Vermont, and his adopted city of Manhattan.

Mongo's first excursion into the internet poetry world began in the 1995, when he created the website ginzy.com as a tribute to the great poet Allen Ginsberg. The site quickly grew to become the most respected and comprehensive source about Ginsberg on the internet. At the time of Ginsberg's death in 1997, the site was selected by major media sources as the primary resource for information on the poet, and Mongo became key in organizing readings to celebrate Ginsberg's life, all across the country. Ginzy.com was closed in 2001, as Google and other search engines made the clearinghouse nature of the site unnecessary.

In 2006, Mongo founded the IndieFeed Performance Poetry Channel, which features the best spoken word artists in the field today.  He remains the proprietor and host of the podcast, which, over the past six years has featured more than 300 poets in the almost 1,000 episodes the show has released. As of late 2011, the channel boasted a total download count of  over seven million episodes distributed.  The show is consistently listed as one of the top three poetry podcasts in the iTunes music store, and can be found at http://performancepoetry.indiefeed.com.

In 2010 Mongo, along with Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz and Thomas Bouliane, founded the Performance Poetry Preservation Project (P4).  This partnership between the poetry slam community and the academic world has ambitions to collect, preserve, protect, and provide access to the recorded history of the poetry slam movement.  Incorporated as a private non-profit in 2011, the Project is in the process of securing funding and building relationships for a roll out in 2012.  The P4 website can be found at http://poetrypreservation.org.

In another life, Mongo is a Certified Records Manager and an information management professional with over 30 years experience in the field. For the past 17 years he has been the Records Manager at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, where he has also served as the Interim Manager of the Special Collections Library at the College. In these two roles, he has indulged a keen interest and built extensive experience in both historical preservation issues, as well as information technology, data system design, and digital record keeping. Prior to his work at Dartmouth College, Mongo spent a half dozen years as a Crisis Counselor and Data Management Coordinator for the California Runaway Hotline in Sacramento, California.

Mongo's poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Off The Coast, PANK, The New Verse News, Danse Macabre, The November 3rd Club, The Legendary, decomP, and in the Write Bloody Press book The Good Things About America. Audio versions of his poetry have been featured on the IndieFeed Performance Poetry Channel, and Cloudy Day Art. He has performed his work at many open mics across the country, including The Green Mill, The Bowery Poetry Club, The LouderArts Project, and the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. His first book and CD is planned for 2012.

In between all of these things, Mongo characterizes himself as a polyamorous queer faerie pagan poet bear, living happily on a ten acre mountain in very rural Vermont, along with his partner of a dozen years and an extensive chosen family that he cherishes. He can be contacted at mongo@indiefeed.com, and you can learn more about him on the web at his main web site: http://mongopoet.com.

Born in New York City in 1965 into a family some of whose members had lived there since the early 1500s, Taylor Mali is an unapologetic WASP, making him a rare entity in spoken word, which is often considered to be an art form influenced by the inner city and dominated either by poets of color or those otherwise imbued with the spirit of hip-hop.

Mali is a vocal advocate of teachers and the nobility of teaching, having himself spent nine years in the classroom teaching everything from English and history to math and S.A.T. test preparation. He has performed and lectured for teachers all over the world, and his New Teacher Project has a goal of creating 1,000 new teachers through “poetry, persuasion, and perseverance.”

He is the author of two books of poetry, The Last Time As We Are (Write Bloody Books 2009) and What Learning Leaves (Hanover 2002), and four CDs of spoken word. He received a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant in 2001 to develop Teacher! Teacher! a one-man show about poetry, teaching, and math which won the jury prize for best solo performance at the 2001 Comedy Arts Festival.

Formerly president of Poetry Slam, Inc., the non-profit organization that oversees all poetry slams in North America, Taylor Mali makes his living entirely as a spoken-word and voiceover artist these days, traveling around the country performing and teaching workshops as well as doing occasional commercial voiceover work. He has narrated several books on tape, including The Great Fire (for which he won the Golden Earphones Award for children’s narration).

Learn more about Taylor Mali at his website: http://taylormali.com.

Tim Stafford is a poet and public school teacher from Chicago, Illinois. This former graphic designer, mixed martial arts referee, and Chicago poetry slam champion draws on his real-life experiences and sense of humor to tell engaging stories and poems that have educated, inspired and entertained audiences worldwide. He has appeared on Chicago Public Radio, NPR, Borders Open Door Poetry, and season 5 of the HBO series “Def Poetry Jam." Whether he’s in front of his classroom or a sold out theatre in Germany, his enthusiasm and belief in the power of the spoken word is contagious.

Learn more about Tim Stafford at his website: http://brazencaucasian.livejournal.com.

Shappy Seasholtz is what you might call a "salad bar nerd" as he likes a little bit of everything, but he mostly likes old Marvel Comics, Hanna Barbera, advertising icons, viewmasters and Peanuts! He is widely known as the surly barkeep at the BOWERY POETRY CLUB from 2002 until 2011, and as the slammaster and host of their weekly poetry slam, NYC-URBANA. He has toured with Lollapalooza, has been featured on season three of HBO'S DEF POETRY and has been running the National Nerd Slam for the past 8 years.

Learn more about Shappy Seasholtz at his website: http://uncleshappy.com.

Sean Gallagher is a filmmaker & editor based out of Westchester, New York. When not viewing the world behind the camera lens, Sean writes a haiku every day and is a member of the Intangible Collective. He is a graduate of SUNY Oneonta and currently coaches their slam program. 

Learn more about Sean Gallagher at his website: http://seanhasawebsite.com.

Nathan Curnow is a writer and performer who has been working it hard for about ten years now. This has led to him being called a number of things, but the more complimentary titles include: Captain, C-dog, Ghost Poet, the poet-bunny-rockstar and the Inventor of the Facebook DanceTrain (okay, so he calls himself that last one). His poetry and plays do the rounds in Australia and he has had some pretty stupid adventures in the name of it all, like staying overnight at ten haunted sites around the country and writing a book about his experiences. The Ghost Poetry Project (Puncher and Wattmann) has been featured widely on ABC radio and is out right now. You can find it at Readings or Gleebooks or order it through your local bookstore. Check out details on his blog. Nathan is currently working on his third play How the Goose Broke Open (working title) which is based upon convict stories and escape attempts.

Learn more about Nathan Curnow on his website: http://www.ncurnow.blogspot.com.

Learn more about Lisa Greenaway at her website: http://lapkat.com.

Writer/performer/humorist, J.W. Basilo, is equal parts poignant and perverse, hilarious and heart-wrenching. His raucous performances and uncanny charisma have earned him a reputation as one of the most sought-after and compelling spoken word artists working today. His work has appeared on NPR, in the Chicago Tribune, several literary journals and in hundreds of theaters, dive bars, schools and comedy clubs across North America. His one man dramedy, No One Can Fix You, debuted in 2009 to rave reviews in Chicago, Seattle, and New York City. As a competitor, Basilo was a finalist at the 2007 Individual World Poetry Slam, finished 2nd at the 2009 National Underground Poetry Individual Championship, and has represented Chicago at the National Poetry Slam four times. To date, he has released three full-length albums, Poet Laureate of Apt. 2E (2006), Love Crimes, Etc. (2007), and When I Woke Up, I Ran as well as the chapbook I Dare You to Believe This. Currently, he is a Writer in Residence at Chicago’s Real Talk Ave. All things considered, he’s doing pretty well for a guy who failed Creative Writing in high school.

Learn more about JW Baz at his website: http://www.myspace.com/jwbaz.

Jersey City resident and Rutgers graduate Justin Woo is a Chinese-American poet, theatre artist, and DJ. He has performed at universities and theatres in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, including the 2007 NYC Fringe Festival and the Tony Award-winning Crossroads Theatre. He has collaboratively created many multidisciplinary spoken word theatre pieces, and is currently working with the New Street Collective and The Spoken Word Almanac Project to create two new shows. He is also a member of the 2011 J.C. Slam team.

His goal is to encourage positive social and political change through the creation and performance of startling, extraordinary poetry and theatre. Justin firmly believes that more people need to ask if Jersey is in the house.

Learn more about Justin Woo at his websites: http://www.myspace.com/justinwoo and https://www.facebook.com/justinwooartist.

Ian Khadan was born in Georgetown, Guyana and is now a co-curator at the Urbana Poetry Slam in New York City. Find out more at: http://www.iankhadan.com.

Darian Dauchan is an accomplished solo performer and actor who has appeared on both Broadway (Twentieth Century starring Alec Baldwin and Anne Heche) and Off-Broadway theatre (Jean Cocteau Rep., Classical Theatre of Harlem). TV credits include Law and Order and Nickelodeon's Bet the House, as Darian the "SoundFX" Guy. His solo pieces, which include Fallen Patriots, Entertainer's Eulogy, Texaco's Last Stand, and Media Madness, have had productions at the NYC Fringe, Ohio Theatre/IGNITE Festival, Playhouse on the Square(Memphis, TN) and the Kitchen Theatre in& Ithaca, New York, as well as workshops and readings at the Roundabout Theatre Company, Lark Play Development Center, and Classical Theatre of Harlem.

As a spoken word artist, Dauchan was a member of the 2006 National Poetry Slam Team for the legendary Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and was crowned the 2007 Urbana Grand Slam Champion for the Bowery Poetry Club. He has toured across the country at poetry venues including the famous Green Mill in Chicago, and has also performed at prestigious colleges that include Yale, FIT, and New York University. His popular Obama poem during the historic 2008 election has received over 60,000 views on YouTube and counting. His first spoken word album Darian Dauchan (Live): The Big Apple Recordings is now available at PoetCD.com. He recently formed the band The Mighty Third Rail with bassist Ian Baggette and violinist Curtis Stewart. He's currently developing the film Lost Harmony with writer Ivan Weiss, writer/director Tatia Pilieva, and producer Jenny Schweitzer.

Learn more about Darian Dauchan at his website: http://www.myspace.com/darianurbangriot.

Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz is the author of five books of poetry -- Dear Future Boyfriend (2000), Hot Teen Slut (2001), Working Class Represent (2003), Oh, Terrible Youth (2007) and Everything is Everything (2010) -- all available on Write Bloody Publishing. She is also the author of the canonical slam history, Words In Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam (Soft Skull Press, 2008). 

Born and raised in Philadelphia, Cristin moved to New York City in 1996 to attend NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she majored in Dramatic Writing. It was there where she was first introduced to poetry slams by her classmate, Beau Sia. In 1998 at the age of 19, Cristin co-founded the NYC-Urbana Poetry Slam, a weekly series dedicated to showcasing the most innovative voices in poetry. NYC-Urbana won the National Poetry Slam Championship three times and won the first ever Group Piece Nationals, which celebrates multi-voice poems. The NYC-Urbana Poet Slam is still held weekly at NYC’s famed Bowery Poetry Club.

Post-college, Cristin has worked as an editor for the “Adult” section for online portal About.com (which served as the inspiration for her book, Hot Teen Slut), slung coffee as the founding cafe manager for the Bowery Poetry Club and served as a rights manager at the Artists Rights Society. 

In July 2010, she was named the 2010-2011 ArtsEdge Writer-in-Residence at the University of Pennsylvania, where she spent the year researching and writing a book on Thomas Dent Mütter, founder of the Philadelphia’s (in)famous Mütter Museum. 

Aptowicz currently is living in Austin, TX, with her partner, poet Shappy Seasholtz,  and their two rescue two dachshunds: a nine-pound chocolate wire-haired named Max Bialystock and an eight-pound silver dapple short-haired named Alvy Singer.

Cristin continues to perform and lecture internationally & nationally, including residencies with or performances at the Sydney Opera House, the Gasworks Art Complex (Melbourne Australia), Joe’s Pub (at NYC’s Public Theatre), the Largo Theatre (Los Angeles) and universities & colleges, such Yale University, University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College and Amhearst College, among many others. Her poetry and non-fiction has been published in various journals, including Rattle, McSweeney’s Internet Tendencies,Pank, La Petite Zine, decomP, Umbrella, The Other Journal, Danse Macabre, Conduit, Barrelhouse and Monkeybicycle, among others…

Recent awards include a 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry and the 2013 Amy Clampitt Residency.

For more information, please visit her website at www.aptowicz.com.

Brian Dillon is a performance poet, author, educator, and organizer from New York City. Currently a professor of performance poetry at NYU's Gallatin School, he is also the 4th ranked slam poet in the world and a writer-in-residence at the Nuyorican Poet's Cafe. In 2011 Brian finished in second place alongside his Nuyorican teammates at the National Poetry Slam. His debut novel "Eat The Rich" was published in the winter of 2011 by Intangible Books. He has served as a guest host and featured poet on the world renowned Indiefeed performance poetry podcast numerous times. In his free-time, Brian is an aficionado of youth ice hockey, designer lighting, and bad music.

Learn more about Brian Dillon at his website: http://www.brianomnidillon.tumblr.com.

Learn more about Badilish Poetry Radio at their website: http://badilishapoetry.com/

Anis Mojgani is a two time National Poetry Slam Champion and winner of the International World Cup Poetry Slam. A National Book Award Nominee and former resident of the Oregon Literary Arts Writers-In-The-Schools program, Anis has performed at numerous universities, festivals, and venues around the globe. He has performed for audiences as varied as the House of Blues and the United Nations, and his work has appeared on HBO, NPR, and in the pages of such journals as Rattle, Bestiary, and The Legendary. A founding member of the touring Poetry Revival, Anis is also the author of two poetry collections, both published by Write Bloody Publishing: Over the Anvil We Stretch (2008) and The Feather Room (2011). Originally from New Orleans, he currently lives on the east side of Austin TX in a tiny house with his wife.

Learn more about Anis at his website: http://thepianofarm.com: 

Some of the best poets from across the UK spoken word scene, hosted by London based stand up poet Pete the Temp.