We are very happy to welcome these poets to the Milk & Cake community. Look for their books over the next year (August 2021-August 2022).

Joan Kwon Glass, If Rust Can Grow on the Moon

Joan Kwon Glass (B.A./M.A.T. Smith College) is author of poetry chapbooks How to Make Pancakes For a Dead Boy (Harbor Editions, 2022) and If Rust Can Grow on the Moon (Milk & Cake Press, 2022). She was a finalist for the 2021 Harbor Review’s Editor’s Prize, the 2021 Subnivean Award and the 2021 Lumiere Review Writing Contest. She serves as Poet Laureate (2021-2025) for the city of Milford, Connecticut, Poetry Co-Editor for West Trestle Review and Poetry Reader at Rogue Agent. Joan’s work explores trauma, grief, memory, motherhood, and recovery. She is a biracial Korean American who grew up in Michigan and South Korea, and she finds inspiration in the writings of Rachel McKibbens, Lucille Clifton, Eugenia Leigh, Margaret Atwood, Anne Sexton and Ellen Bass. Since 2018, her poems have been nominated four times for the Pushcart Prize.

Joan’s poems have recently been published or are upcoming in Diode, Kissing Dynamite, Rust & Moth, Rattle, SWWIM, Mom Egg Review, Lantern Review, Pirene’s Fountain, Honey Literary, Literary Mama, Barnstorm, South Florida Poetry Journal and many others. Her work has been featured on Frontier’s “exceptional poetry” for March, 2021, on the series “A Mighty Blaze,” “Poetry as it Ought to Be,” in “Every Day Poems” through T.S. Poetry Press and on “Wednesday Night Poetry,” the longest consecutive spoken word poetry broadcast in the United States.  Joan tweets @joanpglass.

Rebecca Griswold, The Attic Bedroom

Rebecca Griswold is an emerging poet and novelist out of Cincinnati, Ohio. Her debut collection of poems, The Attic Bedroom, is forthcoming with Milk & Cake Press. Her poems have appeared in Revolute, Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, Connecticut River Review, Coalesce and Mock Turtle. Rebecca holds a BS from University of Cincinnati, and she owns and operates White Whale Tattoo alongside her husband.

Leah Claire Kaminski, Root

Leah Claire Kaminski is a poet, writer, and editor living in Chicago with her husband and son. She holds degrees in poetry from Harvard University and UC Irvine’s Programs in Writing. Recent work can be seen in Massachusetts Review, Prairie Schooner, Fence, Rhino, Vinyl Poetry & Prose, and ZYZZYVA. Grand Prize Winner of the Summer Literary Seminars’ Poetry & Fiction Contest, and of Matrix Magazine’s LitPop Awards, judged by Eileen Myles, Leah’s first chapbook, Peninsular Scar, was released from Dancing Girl Press in 2019.

Don Krieger, When Danger Is Past

Don Krieger is a biomedical researcher whose focus is the electric activity within the brain. He is author of the hybrid collection, “Discovery,” a 2020 Pushcart nominee, and  a 2020 Creative Nonfiction Foundation Science-as-Story Fellow. His work has appeared in American Journal of Nursing, Neurology, Seneca Review, The Asahi Shimbun, The Blue Nib, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,  and others, and has been translated into Farsi, Greek, Italian, German, and Turkish. 

Nicole Kurlich, Girls Are Figs

Nicole Kurlich is an Albion College graduate whose work has appeared in a handful of magazines including Poet Lore, the Hollins Critic, and Contrary Magazine. She lives and works in Chicago, Illinois. 

Marcus Whalbring, A Concert of Rivers

Marcus Whalbring lives in southern Indiana with his wife and children. He earned his MFA from Miami University and his work has appeared in The Cortland Review, Spry, The Oakland Review, Underwood Press and others.

Angelique Zobitz, Burn Down Your House

Angelique Zobitz (she/her/hers) is the author of the chapbook Love Letters to The Revolution from American Poetry Journal and the forthcoming chapbook Burn Down Your House from Milk & Cake Press. She is a 2020 Pushcart Prize nominee, 2021 and 2020 Best New Poets nominee, Spring 2019 Black River Chapbook Competition Finalist, and a five-time Best of the Net nominee. Her work appears in The Journal, Sugar House Review, Obsidian: Literature & Arts of the African Diaspora, Yemassee, The Adirondack Review and many others. She is a poetry editor of The Night Heron Barks and Ran Off with the Star Bassoon. Luna Luna Magazine named her one of ‘5 Poets of Color to watch in 2021′ alongside Chen Chen and Amanda Gorman. She can be found at www.angeliquezobitz.com and on Twitter and Instagram: @angeliquezobitz