Walker, Frank X.: - Frank X Walker, the first African American writer to be named Kentucky Poet Laureate, is an artist, writer, educator, and has published eleven collections of poetry, including Masked Man, Black: Pandemic & Protest Poems, Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers, which was awarded an NAACP Image Award and the Black Caucus American Library Association Honor Award. He is also the author of the forthcoming A is for Affrilachia. The recipient of the 35th Annual Lillian Smith Book Award and the Thomas D. Clark Award for Literary Excellence, he is a founding member of the Affrilachian Poets.

Davis, Ronald W.: - upfromsumdirt, aka Ronald W. Davis, is an autodidactic poet, visual artist, and designer from Louisville, Kentucky. He is the illustrator of A is for Affrilachia and the NAACP Image Award-winning Perfect Black. He is the author of many chapbooks and the full-length collections The Second Stop Is Jupiter: Poems, To Emit Teal, and Deifying a Total Darkness.