Office Hours Poetry Fellows from the Fall 2019 cohort will read the innovative poetry they’ve developed over the course of six workshop sessions. The Office Hours free workshop provides post-MFA poets access to continued support for manuscript-development and everyday writing. We welcome all poets, especially people of color, LGBTQ+, and those who are femme-identified. Our name derives from our side hustle. Many of us are freelance, adjunct instructors, who continue to thrive in the margins of academia.
 
 
Laura Cresté is the author of the forthcoming chapbook You Should Feel Bad, which was selected for a 2019 Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship. She holds an MFA in poetry from New York University and a BA from Bennington College. The winner of Breakwater Review’s 2016 Peseroff Prize, she has published poems in No Tokens Journal, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Powder Keg, and Bodega. She lives in Brooklyn.
 
 
Sharon Her is a Brooklyn-based writer and filmmaker who comes from a non-profit and community organizing background. A 2001 Jerome Travel and Study Grant recipient and former instructor for the Loft Literary Center and SASE: the write place, Sharon brings a passion for multi-cultural and social equality programming and storytelling. She is currently a workshop leader with the New York Write’s Coalition and her work has been published in Asian Week, City Pages, New York Press, and the Hmong creative writing anthology, “Bamboo Among the Oaks” (Minnesota Historical Society Press).
 
 
Sophie Herron received an MFA in poetry from NYU, where they were a Goldwater Fellow. They work at the 92nd Street Y’s Poetry Center, live in Brooklyn, and love their cat. Their poetry can be found in Bodega and Cleaver Magazine.
 
 
Emily Hockaday is the author of five chapbooks, including the forthcoming Beach Vocabulary from Red Bird Chaps. Her poems have appeared in a number of journals, most recently Newtown Literary, The Maine Review, and Salt Hill. She is the managing editor of Analog Science Fiction & Fact and Asimov’s Science Fiction, and she can be found on the web at www.emilyhockaday.com and @E_Hockaday.
 
 
Jen Levitt‘s debut collection is The Off-Season (Four Way Books, 2016). Her poems have appeared in Tin House, Boston Review, The Literary Review, Sixth Finch, and elsewhere. She lives in New York City and teaches high school students.
 
 
Paco Márquez is a poet based out of Manhattan, author of the chapbook Portraits in G Minor (Folded Word Press, 2017). He has poems forthcoming in Fence, and previously published in Apogee, Ostrich Review, Live Mag! and Huizache. As Spanish Editor for William O’Daly, he assisted in translating Pablo Neruda’s initial book, Crepuscualrio, for the first time into English as, Book of Twilight, (Copper Canyon Press, 2017). He is currently working with Mexican poet Coral Bracho to translate her work into English. Paco’s work has been supported by The Center for Book Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and New York University, where he acquired an MFA in creative writing and was poetry editor of Washington Square. Originally from León, México, Paco has spent most of his life in Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area. pacomarquez.net
 
 
Holly Mitchell is a poet from Kentucky. A winner of the 2017 Amy Award from Poets & Writers and a 2012 Gertrude Claytor Prize from the Academy of American Poets, she received an MFA in Creative Writing from New York University. Her poems have appeared in several journals including Baltimore Review, Day One, Juked, Narrative Magazine, and Paperbag. Holly first joined Office Hours in 2017.
 
 
Sarah Sala is a queer poet of Polish-Lebanese descent. Her debut collection, Devil’s Lake is forthcoming from Tolsun Books June 2020. She is the founder of the free poetry workshop, Office Hours, and Assistant Poetry Editor at the Bellevue Literary Review. Her work appears in BOMB, The Southampton Review, and The Los Angeles Review. Visit her at sarahsala.com and @sarahmsala.