Jessica Traynor's debut poetry collection, Liffey Swim (Dedalus Press, 2014) was shortlisted for the 2015 Strong/Shine Award.  In 2016, it was named one of the best poetry debuts of thepast five years on Bustle.com.  She's currently under commission by the BBC and also Music for Galway to write an opera with composer Elaine Agnew for Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture.  A choral song cycle, 'An Island Sings', was commissioned by Poetry Ireland and Chamber Choir ireland and was performe in the National Concert Hall in march 2019.  Her second collection, The Quick, was publiched in 2018.  She is the 2020 Carlow Writer in Residence and is the recipient of the 2020 Banagher Public Art Commission.  She is an inaugural Creative Fellow in UCC.

Rehan Ali was born in the city of Rawalpindi in Pakistan. His mother fled the country when he was six, taking him and his siblings to the land they would come to know as Ireland.  He spent his childhood in a hostel called Bridgewater House in Carrick-on-Suir. He now studies at UCC.

Nokukhanya Dlamini is from South Africa, and is a single mother to four boys and one girl.  She showed interest in reading books at an early age and was a great story teller.  Her family used to gather around and listen to her stories, and she had a scribbling books in which she wrote many poems.  One of the poems that she wrote was read at her mother's funeral in 2007.  Most of the poems she writes are about life journey and those who are around her. Now based in Clonakilty Lodge, she has read her work at Fiction at the Friary.

Deborah Oniah Blankson is a Nigerian mother of four, a writer, speaker and intercultural dialogue facilitator.  She has been in Ireland for almost three years.  She has a law degree from her home country, she is also a certified life coach, and is a member of the sub advocacy group Cork City of Sanctuary.