Welcome to the 30/30 Project, an extraordinary challenge and fundraiser for Tupelo Press, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) literary press. Each month, volunteer poets run the equivalent of a “poetry marathon,” writing 30 poems in 30 days, while the rest of us “sponsor” and encourage them every step of the way.
THE 30/30 PROJECT: VOLUNTEER POETS
October Poets
The volunteer poets for October are: Katerina Canyon, Sam Calhoun, Luka at/om Erausquin, Ellen Fergusun, Brett Gastineau, Joy Johnson, Nicoletta LaMarca-Sacco, H.T. Reynolds, Gabriel Phillips, and Colin Sturdevant.
Katerina Canyon
Katerina Canyon is a poet, writer, and peace advocate whose work explores memory, history, survival, and the political imagination. She is the author of Surviving Home and Changing the Lines, and her poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals. A Pushcart Prize nominee, she served as Poet Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga and just completed an MFA in Creative Writing at Mississippi University for Women. Her current work engages Black feminist poetics, inherited trauma, speculative memory, and the lyric as a site of resistance. She is also the Executive Director of Peace Economy Project, where she works to challenge militarism and redirect public resources toward human needs. Katerina lives in Harlem, New York.
Sam Calhoun
Sam Calhoun is a poet, geoscientist, and nature photographer. He is the author of seven chapbooks, including The Call-back from Bottlecap Press and First Things from Eulogy Press. His award winning work has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards, and can be found in Frogpond, Paddler Press, Dishsoap Quarterly, and GRIT magazine. A regular contributor to WLRH's weekly broadcast, The Sundial Writers Corner, he serves as the founder and editor-in-chief for the Tanasi River Review. He lives with his wife in Elkmont, Alabama.
Luka “at/om” Erausquin
Luka “at/om” Erausquin (he/they) is a poet and writer from New Hampshire. He is a transgender, mentally ill, poet in his early thirties who, like many, has a dream of being a full time artist. He began writing as a child when he realized he had more to say than any person was willing to listen to. He was always a person with a big heart and a passion for making other people feel. Luka is a firm believer that the spoken and written word is one of the most powerful tools we have to change the world, and believes that by sharing it we can all do exactly that.
Ellen Ferguson
Ellen Ferguson has been a 30/30 poet several times. She has written three chapbooks for Finishing Line Press largely made up of 30/30 poems: Small Fiasco, Raccoon Latrine & 6 Chobani Blueberry Yogurts in the Conference Room Fridge That Expire Today (forthcoming 2027).
Brett Gastineau
Brett Gastineau writes poems daily and stories about his former varied life and daydreams that have carried him from Indiana to Georgia to California to Minnesota and back again, through over forty odd jobs, countless fumbles of the heart, and a fascination with guitars and bus terminals. He has translated this meandering sojourn into the poetry manuscript, Postcard Intimacies, and am hoping to see its publication in the near future. Brett has also completed a chapbook length manuscript of a more surrealist nature, The In-Between. For fun, he has been working on his own translation of Neruda's Canto General.
Joy Johnson
Joy Johnson was born in Florida and lived in North Dakota, Georgia, Alabama, Saudi Arabia, and the UK. She has degrees in French, physics, and mathematics. After being thwarted in her writing endeavors as a child, she started to write poetry again about 25 years ago. She also produces a podcast on local politics: HSV Progressive.
Nicoletta LaMarca Sacco
Nicoletta LaMarca Sacco, PhD (she/her) is a writer, daughter, wife, teacher, and mom to two adults. She wrote the first multimedia hybrid creative writing dissertation at Binghamton University. Nicoletta is a bilingual first-generation Italian-American. Her writing is published in the Paterson Literary Review, quill&parchment, New York Magazine’s The Cut, parents.com, and Newsweek.com. Dr. LaMarca-Sacco is a past co-director of Binghamton University Poetry Project and Common Ground. Find updates at nicolettalamarcasacco.com
H.T. Reynolds
H.T. Reynolds is a teacher and father whose work has appeared in Rust & Moth, Moonstone Arts Center, The Rising Phoenix Review, Boundby, The Bombay Literary Magazine, and The Amazine, as well as in his full-length poetry collection, Chatter in the Skull (BookLeaf Publishing). His poetry often explores American mythology through persona, the effects of systems on the vulnerable, trauma through the body as witness, and grief’s transformative nature. He has served as poetry co-editor at River and South Review for over two years and holds an M.A. and an M.F.A. from Wilkes University, where he was awarded the Beverly Blakeslee Hiscox '58 Scholarship.
Gabriel Phillips
Gabriel Phillips is a surrealist poet from Alabama who returned to writing in 2025 after a twenty-three-year hiatus. His poems appear in the Miscreant Anthology. An image-first poet, he believes a poem should be felt before it is understood. He enjoys time with his wife and two daughters, cold weather, outdoor fires, coffee and whiskey. He posts micro-poems on Instagram as @poet_of_the_surreal.
Colin James Sturdevant
Colin James Sturdevant is a poet, writer, and food journalist from Houston, TX. Aside from being a high school teacher during the daytime, by night he is a an MFA Candidate in Creative Writing, Poetry in a low residency program at Western Colorado University. He is the founder of pass the salt presse which houses table//FEAST Literary Magazine and other literary art endeavours. During his spare time, he works with unhoused youth in the inner city to write poetry they are compensated and said poems become published in an annual anthology. He's more interested in knowing your story.
September Poets
The volunteer poets for August are: Laura Bandy, Alicia Boemi, Jesse DeLong, Shelly Krehbiel, Rob Mclennan, Piper Rasmussen, Connor Simons, Veronica Vo, and Melinda Wilson.
Laura Bandy
Laura Bandy attended the University of Southern Mississippi’s Center for Writers PhD program from 2009 to 2013, where she received the Joan Johnson Poetry Award. In 2018, she won first prize in the 'Trio of Triolets' contest judged by Allison Joseph, and received third place in the Illinois Emerging Writers Competition that same year. She has had work published in Soft Skull's Saints of Hysteria: A Half-Century of Collaborative American Poetry, Midwest Review, AUTOCORRECT, River Styx, Action/Spectacle, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Florida Review, and The Laurel Review, among others, and has work currently in Bennington Review. Her chapbook, HACK, was published by Dancing Girl Press in August 2021, and her full collection, MONSTER MOVIE, was published by Gold Wake Press in spring 2023. She will spend most of the coming August (2026) at a Ragdale residency and finds herself looking forward with delight. Laura hails from Jacksonville, Illinois, home of the Ferris wheel.
Alicia Boemi
Alicia Boemi writes under the pen name, Antonia Wilde and is an emerging poet. Her first chapbook, THE LAKE REMAINS, was published by Kelsay Books in June 2026 and is available where books are sold. Alicia's work can also be seen in the Spring 2026 issue of Moss Puppy Magazine and Poetry in Brief (PiB) in fall 2026. Her poetry explores the raw, unfiltered depths of human emotion and the natural world. Alicia is also enrolled at UTEP in their MFA program.
Jesse DeLong
Jesse DeLong works as Assistant Director of Creative Writing at Louisiana State University. He is the author of The Amateur Scientist's Notebook (Baobab Press) and The Vinegar in Our Hearts (Cornerstone Press). Other work has appeared in Colorado Review, Mid-American Review, American Letters and Commentary, Indiana Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, and Typo, as well as the anthologies Best New Poets 2011 and Feast: Poetry and Recipes for a Full Seating at Dinner. His chapbooks, Tearings, and Other Poems and Earthwards, were released by Curly Head Press.
Shelly Krehbiel
Shelly Krehbiel holds an M.F.A. from Antioch University Los Angeles, permaculture design certification from Lost Valley Education Center, and currently works for Oregon State University in a position unrelated to either. Her poems have appeared in publications such as Sinister Wisdom, Lunch Ticket, The Midwest Quarterly, and Clackamas Review. Oregon’s Willamette Valley, the Pacific Ocean, and the Kansas plains greatly inform her spirit and her work. She makes poems to help herself pay attention, to believe that hope is possible, and to let music have it’s way.
rob mclennan
rob mclennan was born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa, where he is home full-time with the two wee girls he shares with Christine McNair. The author of some fifty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, his most recent titles include On Beauty: stories (University of Alberta Press, 2024), the poetry collections the book of sentences (University of Calgary Press, 2025) and edgeless (Caitlin Press, 2026), and the anthology groundworks: the best of the third decade of above/ground press 2013-2023 (Invisible Publishing, 2023). The current Artistic Director of VERSeFest: Ottawa’s International Poetry Festival, he spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta.
Piper Rasmussen
Piper Rasmussen (she/her) is a Manhattan-based poet and nonprofit data person. Her writing has appeared in Rust & Moth, orangepeel, Shot Glass Journal, Kyoto Journal, and other literary magazines, as well as in place-based poetry anthology Writing the Land: Horizons. Her plays have been performed in Ohio, Oregon, and New York. Piper holds a BA in Theatre from Barnard College and an MFA in Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte. Additionally, Piper is pursuing an MS in Library and Information Science with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. piperrasmussen.com & @piperennial
Connor L Simons
Connor L Simons is a queer poet and translator based in the Twin Cities. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Minnesota. His work has previously appeared in Poetry Northwest, Triquarterly, the Colorado Review, and elsewhere. When he's not writing, he's working for a community-led think tank or telling his cat to get off the kitchen counter.
Veronica Vo
Veronica Vo is a Vietnamese American writer from Southern California. She received her MFA in creative nonfiction at UC Riverside, and her work can be found in Electric Literature, The Offing, and Tint Journal. You can find her on Instagram @vo.bamba.
Melinda Wilson
Melinda Wilson is a poet and educator living in the Bronx, New York. A graduate of The New School MFA program and the doctoral program at Florida State University, she also curates the monthly poetry reading series--Poor Mouth Writers Night--at An Beal Bocht Cafe. She is the author of What It Was Like to Be a Woman (2024) from Indolent Books and Amplexus (2010), a chapbook, from Dancing Girl Press. She is a dog lover and routinely fosters for Friends with Four Paws. You can find her on Instagram at dogs_rule_everything_around_me.
September Poets
August 2026 30/30 Project Participants
The volunteer poets for August are: Zoe Berger, Ashley Howell Bunn, Dahhee Chung, Alison Henderson, Ash Kemp, Hannah Page, PF Potvin, Janette Schafer, and Kate Thuma.
July 2026 30/30 Project Participants
The volunteer poets for July are: Clayre Benzadon, RJ Ingram, MeraBaid Kuar, Kes Maro, Azmia Ricchuito, Tammy Smith, and Daphne Stanford
June 2026 30/30 Project Participants
The volunteer poets for June are: Kristina Byas, Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson, Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason,
Shane Moran, Jingyu Li (李静雨), and Stefanie Zito
May 2026 30/30 Project Participants
The volunteer poets for May are: Meredith Ann Avera, Desirae Chacon, Heather Frankland, John Hanright III, Jillian Humphrey, Shane Moran, Hali Sofala Jones, Christina Vagenius, and Sonya Wohletz.
April 2026 30/30 PROJECT PARTICIPANTS
The volunteer poets for April are Maureen Alsop, Bob Bradshaw, Sarah Carson, Stan Galloway,
Ava Hu, Sergiy Pustogarov, Nate Raum, Daniel Avery Weiss, and MK Zariel.
March 2026 30/30 PROJECT PARTICIPANTS
The volunteer poets for March are Kathleen Bednarek, Mymona Bibi, Susan Hankla, Amy Haworth,Elizabeth McGraw, Christina McCleanhan, and Alexis Wolfe
FEBRUARY 2026 30/30 PROJECT PARTICIPANTS
The volunteer poets for February are Kristine Anderson, Barbara Audet, Bee Cordera, Ashby Logan Hill, Amy Marques, Sonia Sophia Sura, and Samuel Spencer.
JANUARY 2026 30/30 PROJECT PARTICIPANTS
The volunteer poets for December are Tess Adams, Haley Bosse, Jess Bowe, Joanna Lee, Thomas Page, Sarah Paley, and Amy Snodgrass.
December 2025 30/30 Project Participants
The volunteer poets for December are Kate Bowers, Katie Collins, Ellen Ferguson, Chris Fong Chew, Davis Hicks, Victor Barnuevo Velasco, Jen Wagner, and Stacey Walker.
November 2025 30/30 Project Participants
The volunteer poets for November are Megan Bell, Jono Crefield, Alison Lake, Maya Cheav, Jada D’Antignac, Laurie Fuhr, Dominic Leach, Dawn McGuire, and Samantha Murphy
October 2025 30/30 Project Participants
The volunteer poets for September are Lilly Frank, Anna Ojascastro Guzon, Kathryn Johnson, Kimberly McElhatten, and H.T. Reynolds
September 2025 30/30 Project Participants
The volunteer poets for September were: Yael Valencia Aldana, Catherine Bai, Danielle Boodoo-Fortune, Kimberly Gibson-Tran, Kendra Brooks, Yvette Perry, Abigail Ardelle Zammit, and Amber Wei
August 2025 30/30 Project Participants
The volunteer poets for September are: Allison Baldwin, Daniel Becker, Ayana Cole Fletcher, Jaclyn Youhana Garver, Shivani G, Beth Siciliano, Ariana Suits, and Benin Lemus