Antonio Ochoa

Episode 12 – Sam Cha

Sam Cha was born in Korea. He earned an MFA from UMass Boston. A winner of two Academy of American Poets prizes and a St. Botolph’s Club Emerging Artists Grant, his work has appeared in apt, Anderbo, Better, Best New Poets, Boston Review, decomP, DIAGRAM, Memorious, Missouri Review, Rattle, RHINO, and Toad. He’s a poetry editor at Radius. He is the author of a chapbook, American Carnage, that was published by Portable Press @ Yo-Yo Labs in 2018, and of The Yellow Book, a full-length collection of cross-genre writing, forthcoming from [PANK] Books in 2020.

Episode 11 – Ruth Lepson

Ruth Lepson is poet-in-residence at the New England Conservatory and has often collaborated with musicians. Her most recent book, Ask Anyone (Pressed Wafer), is accompanied by musical settings—see her website, ruthlepson.com, and received the Phillip Whalen Award from Chax Press. Her other books of poetry are Dreaming in Color (Alice James Books), Morphology (blazeVOX), and I Went Looking for You (BlazeVOX). She edited Poetry from Sojourner: Feminist Anthology (Illinois). She has just put together a book of her new & selected poems. Her work has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including spoKe, Ping Pong, Let the Bucket Down, Agni, Ploughshares, and The Women’s Review of Books, and she has given many readings, including in St. Petersburg, Russia, and in Barcelona, as well as on NPR’s “All Things Considered.” She grew up in the D.C. area and lives in Cambridge.

Episode 10 – Oliver Strand

Oliver Strand is a visiting lecturer in Studio Foundation at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and Wood Shop Coordinator at Harvard University’s Dept. of Art, Film, and Visual Studies. He received an MFA from Brown University, where he received the Keith and Rosmarie Waldrop Prize for Innovative Writing. His poetry has appeared in Entropy, The Fanzine, Poor Claudia, Burning House Press, and the Spoon River Poetry Review.

Episode 9 – Cheryl Clark Vermeulen

Cheryl Clark Vermeulen received an M. F.A. from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop after a decade of experience in organizations focused on social change. Author of chapbooks This Paper Lantern and Dead-Eye Spring, she has published poems and translations in the journals The Bombay Gin, Transom, Small Po[r]tions, Drunken Boat, Caketrain, Jubilat, Sixth Finch, Third Coast, Solstice Literary Magazine, TWO LINES Online, DIAGRAM, EOAGH, Split Rock Review, among others, as well as the anthology Connecting Lines: New Poetry from Mexico. She is an Assistant Professor in Liberal Arts at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, where she initiated a Creative Writing Minor. She is also the Poetry Editor for the literary magazine Pangyrus. She was a finalist recipient for a Massachusetts Cultural Council’s Artist Fellowship. Originally from Illinois, she has lived in Jamaica Plain for twenty years, now with her husband, twin sons, and several pets. She loves, more than anything, to laugh.