Newer Poets XIV

Erica Erdman was born and raised in Los Angeles. A longtime student of Laurel Ann Bogen, she began her poetic pursuits as a member of the Iguana Café Poets' Circle. She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize for work from her first book, The Apocalyptic Kid. She is also an accomplished illustrator whose work has appeared in several books by other poets, including FrancEyE and Ellyn Maybe.

Peter Eirich grew up in Europe and spent most of his life in trains and planes. At UCLA, he was nominated for the Ina Coolbrith Memorial Poetry Prize in 2007 and was awarded the Fred and Edith Herman Memorial Prize from the Academy of American Poets in 2008.

Billy Burgos, a Los Angeles-based illustrator and designer, is a curator on staff at Gotpoetry.com and has been featured at many local poetry venues including the Anansi Writers Workshop at the World Stage and the Poets Jazz House, as well as a recent video feature for Poetry.LA. His first collection is forthcoming from Deadbeat Press.

Sri Lankan born Ro Gunetilleke attempts to capture the recent dark history of his motherland through his poetry. Ro has presented his work at Art Wallah 2004 and 2005. His poems have appeared in Poetic Diversity and Best of the Net 2006 anthology. He studed poetry with Suzanne Lummis and fiction writing with Lou Mathews. Currently he's working on a novel -- which began as a poem.

As a member of the Emerging Urban Poets and the Echospace Poetry Collective, Mary Torregrossa has led writing workshops,organized special events and hosted readings in the San Gabriel Valley. She has been profiled in the LA Times and the Pasadena Journal. Her latest chapbook, Shoebox Poems, was compiled as part of a fundraiser for Hillsides, a foster care center in Pasadena.

Cathie Sandstrom's work has appeared in Solo, Lyric, Cider Press Review, Runes, Ploughshares, and the anthologies Matchbook, So Luminous the Wildflowers, and Open Windows. A two-time winner in the Arroyo Arts Collective's "Poetry in the Windows" contest, she has lived in Japan, England, Denmark, the Deep South, the Carolinas, and Appalachia.