2025 Authors & Vendors

Parisa Saranj is an Iranian-American writer and Persian translator. Her writings on contemporary Iranian politics and Persian (Farsi) translations have been published in several publications, including Ms. Magazine, Defunct, True, Hayden's Ferry Review, Faultline, Asymptote, and Two Lines. She has also translated two books, Empty and Me (Lee & Low, 2023) by Azam Mahdavi and Women, Life, Freedom: Our Fight for Human Rights and Equality in Iran (Cornell University Press, 2023) by Nasrin Sotoudeh and two documentaries, Nasrin (2020) and Sansur (2023), on women's rights in Iran. She is working on a memoir of growing up in Esfahan, Iran, in the 1990s.
Steph Sundermann-Zinger (they/she) is a queer poet living and writing in the Baltimore area. Her work explores themes of identity, relationship, and connection with the natural world, and has appeared in Blue Unicorn, Little Patuxent Review, Lines + Stars, Literary Mama, The Avenue, and other journals. Their poem, "In Praise of Solitude," was selected as the winner of the 2023 Ellen Conroy Kennedy Poetry Prize, and they served as a 2024 Writer in Residence for Yellow Arrow Publishing. She holds an MFA from the University of Baltimore.
Patti Ross graduated from Washington, DC’s Duke Ellington School for the Performing Arts and The American University. Retiring from a career in technology Patti has rediscovered her love of writing and shares her voice as the poet and spoken word artist “little pi.” Her poems are published in various literary journals, PoetryXHunger website, Oyster River Pages: Composite Dreams Issue and several ekphrastic and nature anthologies. Her debut chapbook, St. Paul Street Provocations, was released in July 2021 by Yellow Arrow Publishing. She is the founder of EC Poetry and Prose collective.
Terri Simon’s poetry chapbook, Ghosts of My Own Choosing, was published by Flutter Press in 2017. Her second chapbook, Ringing the Bell, was published by Clare Songbirds Publishing House in 2021. Her work has appeared in “The Avenue,” “Third Wednesday,” “Poetry Quarterly,” “Ariel Chart,” “Bay to Ocean 2019,” “Pen in Hand,” and other print and online journals and anthologies. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2023. In 2022, she founded Fallen Tree Press, LLC with Patti Ross. Fallen Tree Press is a small press specializing in publishing poetry chapbooks. She is a co-founder of EC Poetry and Prose. She grew up in Mount Vernon, NY, studied writing at Sarah Lawrence College, and lives in Laurel, Maryland.
Marielle “Mari” Bugayong is a budding writer ready to turn her Notes app ramblings to publishing and performance-quality work. She received a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University, where she also led the spoken word group Archipelag-a, a collective of Filipino female-identifying poets. After completing a Master’s in Public Health in Baltimore, she has now settled into the warmth and creative vibrancy of the DMV with her dozens of houseplants, books, and musings.
Zorina Exie Frey is a spoken word poet, SEO content writer, writing instructor, graphic designer, and video editor. Her poems are published in The American Journal of Poetry, Oyster River Pages, and Chicken Soup for the Soul, I’m Speaking Now. Zorina also contributes as a co-editor for South 85 Journal and hosts Writing Class Radio’s First Draft Happy Hour.
Kathleen Hellen’s latest collection is Meet Me at the Bottom from Main Street Rag Publishing Co. Her credits include The Only Country Was the Color of My Skin, the award-winning collection Umberto’s Night, published by Washington Writers’ Publishing House, and two chapbooks, The Girl Who Loved Mothra and Pentimento. Featured on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily, her work has appeared in Arts & Letters, Barrow Street, The Carolina Quarterly, Cimarron Review. Colorado Review, Massachusetts Review, New Letters, Nimrod, North American Review, Prairie Schooner, Salamander, The Sewanee Review, Southern Humanities Review, Subtropics, The Sycamore Review, Tampa Review Online, West Branch, Witness, World Literature Today, and elsewhere. Hellen’s awards include the Thomas Merton prize for Poetry of the Sacred and prizes from the H.O.W. Journal and Washington Square Review, as well as awards from the Maryland State Arts Council and the Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts.
Letitsa (Tisa) Melton is a poet, a self-published author of the poetry book Ever Evolving, and an entrepreneur based out of Richmond, Virginia. Tisa sees poetry as a way to heal the soul and as a means of unapologetic self-expression. She believes that there is no right or wrong way to express yourself through poetry.
Diane Wilbon Parks is an accomplished poet, visual artist, author, and literary advocate. She has written two poetry collections and a Children’s Book. Diane was brought in as an Expert Consultant to the National Trust for Historic Preservation through a National Endowment for the Arts Grant and is the founder of The Write Blend, a culturally diverse poetry circle. She has been recognized as Prince George’s County Poet of Excellence and Literary Leader. She celebrated the permanent installation of one of her poems and artwork as a permanent sign at the North Patuxent Research Refuge. Diane’s poetry has been featured and highlighted nationally and internationally in newsletters, online magazines, and included in the Maryland Bards Poetry Review Anthology; International Anthology, “Singing in the Dark,”; International Magazines, Wexford Women, and Beyond Words Literary Magazine. Her interviews are included in the 43rd and 44th Anniversary of Grace Cavalieri’s the Poet and the Poem at the Library of Congress. Diane is a USAF Veteran and Sr. IT Program Manager. She resides in Maryland.
Patrice Smith, life-long resident of the Washington DC area, long term educator and astute observer of the human condition has melded her experiences to become both a poet and a spoken word performer. In 2016, she released her first collection of poetry, Iris’s Eyes – Poetry for the Mind, Heart and Soul. The collection is the culmination of a lifetime of aspirations, inspirations, and experiences. Patrice’s first publication was quickly followed by a second volume, The Drum That Calls, and later Visions and Voices, a collection of poems and music from the two books. One of Patrice’s greatest joys has been to share her poetry and spoken word in performances throughout the area. She is published in the Sailors Review Art and Music magazine, the Marietta Museums Quarterly Newsletter and most recently in Anthology of Poetry by Maryland Bards. Patrice’s poetry and her performances exude passion, compassion, and power. Read her work and you will understand why she has been given the moniker “Poetic Blaze."
Janet Walenta worked in eldercare recreation for 25 years. She especially enjoyed engaging clients in cognitive activities, including writing exercises. A member of the Ellicott City Poetry & Prose Collective, she is active on the local poetry open mic scene in suburban Washington, D.C. Her novel, “Selections from the Jasp Bancroft Songbook” tells, from various points of view, a story of jealousy, neediness, gratitude, and benevolence. It explores the odd configurations that somehow constitute family, and how the unearthed secrets of the twentieth century guide the lives of the present-day people to whom they’ve been entrusted.