Tony Koji Wallin-Sato and Jeff Knorr’s recent publications are in the intimate dance and response to the effects of mass incarceration. Between lived experience with the carceral system and having a loved one experiencing incarceration, their work interweaves through the broken criminal justice system and how far reaching carcerality is beyond physical walls.

Tony Koji Wallin-Sato is a multicultural Nisei writer who works with currently and formerly incarcerated students in higher education through Project Rebound. He is a lecturer in the Critical Race Gender and Sexuality Studies department at Cal Poly Humboldt and an in-prison teaching artist with the William James Association. His chapbook, Hyouhakusha: Desolate Travels of a Junkie on the Road, was published through Cold River Press and his first book of poems, Bamboo on the Tracks: Sakura Snow and Colt Peacemaker (2024, Finishing Line Press) was selected by John Yau for the 2022 Robert Creeley Memorial Award. His second book of poems, Okaerinasai, was published in October 2024 through Wet Cement Press. His poetry, photography, fiction, and non-fiction have appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, Asian American Writer's Workshop, Yellow Medicine Review, LIT Magazine, New Delta Review, and everyone’s favorite socialist publication Haymarket Book's Asian American and Pacific Islander Anthology We the Gathered Heat. He is a graduate of Sacramento City College, Humboldt State, and CSU Long Beach. In September he begins a PhD program at UW in Seattle. All he wants is to see his community's thoughts, ideas, and emotions freely shared and expressed.

Jeff Knorr is a Professor of literature and creative writing at Sacramento City College. He is the author of five books of poetry, most recently Fire Season (Flowersong Press,) The Color of a New Country (Mammoth Books), The Third Body (Cherry Grove Collections), Keeper (Mammoth Books), and Standing Up to the Day (Pecan Grove Press). His other works include Mooring Against the Tide: Writing Poetry and Fiction (Prentice Hall); the anthology, A Writer's Country (Prentice Hall); and The River Sings: An Introduction to Poetry (Prentice Hall). His poetry and essays have appeared widely in literary journals and anthologies including Chelsea, Poetry Northwest, New Ohio Review, The Journal, North American Review, Hamilton Stone Review, Barrow Street, and Like Thunder: Poets Respond to Violence in America. Jeff was the Poet Laureate for the city and county of Sacramento from 2012-2016.