An Evening of Emily Dickinson

DANA LEVIN is the author of five books poetry. Her latest is Now Do You Know Where You Are (Copper Canyon), a 2022 New York Times Notable Book and NPR “Book We Love.” She is a grateful recipient of honors from the National Endowment for the Arts, PEN, and the Library of Congress, as well as from the Whiting and Guggenheim Foundations. Levin teaches for the Bennington Writing Seminars, the MFA program at Bennington College, and serves as Distinguished Writer in Residence at Maryville University in St. Louis. Her first book of prose, House of Feels, comes out from Graywolf Press in 2027.

MELISSA QUALLS has taught literature, composition, and creative writing in the English department at Lindenwood University since 2002. She earned her MFA from Lindenwood University in 2018 and is an active member of Saint Louis Poetry Center, Babler Poetry Society, and Poetry in the Woods (2023, 2024, & 2025). Most recently, her poem “They look so small, lying there” won Honorable Mention in the 2024 Wednesday Club Original Poetry competition, she has published two poems “For Nora” and “Wednesday Afternoon, April 4th” in Nine Mile Literary Magazine (Fall 2024), and her poem “Wabi Sabi” won first place in Saturday Writers “Anything Goes” Contest (March 2025).

TEDDY NORRIS is a retired professor of English who taught composition, poetry, and creative writing for two decades and edited a community college literary journal for five years. Her work has appeared in various journals, including Adanna, Broad River Review, Cable Street, Flying South, Kakalak, Little Patuxent Review, and The Switchgrass Review. She is the author of two chapbooks, Pillars of Salt and In Transit, published by Finishing Line Press and The Poetry Box, respectively.

KRISTIN EMANUEL is a PhD candidate researching poetry and poetics at Washington University in St. Louis. Her debut poetry collection, Birdwatching in the 4th Dimension, was recently selected by Shann Ray as the winner of the 2025 Emma Howell Rising Poet Prize, and it will be published by Willow Springs Books in early 2026. Poems from this collection have appeared or are forthcoming in Ecotone, Boston Review, and Poetry Northwest.