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
May Poets
M. Anne Avera
M. Anne Avera is a writer of Southern gothic prose and poetry from Auburn, Alabama. A member of the 2025/26 Lighthouse Poetry Collective, her work has appeared in Waxing + Waning, Third Wednesday, The Awakenings Review, and elsewhere. She is the author of the debut poetry collection Complete and Total Honesty (Neon Origami Press). Find her at http://writeranneavera.ghost.io/ or on Instagram (at)prosperity.anguish.
Desirae Chacon
Desirae Chacon writes poetry that ranges from the simple joys of a personified Dandelion who has deep intellectual thoughts of its purposes when others wish upon it to the devastating fresh after effects of the loss of precious human life after nuclear warfare. She loves writing with a purpose to enhance humanism and to write with a sense of depth for others to enjoy the richness of life’s treasures. As a participant in the performing arts she infuses her writing with a cinematic approach for one of the stylistic forms you can see through her writing. Desirae was previous published by Brattle Street Review and she is grateful to expand her poetry by contributing to Tupelo Press as well. You can find her previously published work in the Kindle or print edition of: Brattle Street Review: An Anthology.
Heather Frankland
Heather Frankland holds an MFA and a MPH from New Mexico State University. She was a Peace Corps and Peace Corps Response Volunteer in Peru and Panama. Her poetry chapbook, “Midwest Musings,” was published Fall 2023 by Finishing Line Press. She has been published in ROAR, Thimble Lit, Sin Fronteras Press, and others. She attended the Marge Piercy Intensive Poetry Workshop in 2022. Originally from Indiana, she currently lives in Silver City, NM where she teaches English at Western New Mexico University and serves as the poet laureate of Silver City and Grant County.
John Hanright
John Hanright is a Cape Cod-based poet, playwright, and actor. An alum of both Cape Cod Community College and the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, John’s work has been featured in Sea Change Magazine and Temper Literary Review. He is currently revising his poetry chapbook, Unrequited.
Jillian Humphrey
Jillian is a gardener, mother, and practicing poet. She earned her BA from Malone College and Masters from Kent State University, and she currently lives with her husband, three children, and golden retriever puppy in Ohio. She spends most of her time doing the invisible, repetitive acts of caretaking and homemaking. The mundane, midwestern, and mystical are prominent themes in her work.
Shane Moran
Shane Moran is a poet and writer whose work explores the intersections of memory, place, and devotion. He was shortlisted for the 2025 Vallum Chapbook Award and is a recipient of an American Poets Prize. He has been featured in The Common Online and is forthcoming in spring printed edition of The Common. A graduate of William & Mary, he is currently studying and writing at NYU’s Low-Residency MFA Writers Workshop in Paris. Dividing his time between Richmond, New York City, and Paris, he is always eager to talk about God, poetry, love, and grief—if you can find him.
Hali Sofala-Jones
Hali Sofala-Jones is a Samoan American writer from Eatonton, Georgia. Her work appears in or is forthcoming from The Rumpus, Main Street Rag, Slipstream, CALYX, The Missouri Review, Blue Mesa Review, and the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series. She is the author of Afakasi | Half-Caste (Sundress Publications, 2019). She teaches in Middle Georgia and enjoys traveling with her family and watching her daughter play softball. Learn more at halisofalajones.com.
Christina Vagenius
Christina Vagenius is a writer and artist of multiple mediums, including papercut illustration and ceramics. She has received numerous awards for her children’s book, The Gift as well as an SCBWI manuscript prize for her middle grade novel, The Forest Heart. She was a Top-25 ArtPrize Artist as well as the creator of numerous art camps for children. Christina lives on the shores of Lake Michigan with her husband where she teaches yoga and meditation at her local studio, offering a range of modalities to bridge body, mind and creativity. When she’s not writing, you can find her snuggled with a cat waiting on the perfect rainy day.
Sonya Wohletz
Sonya Wohletz is a poet whose work has appeared in Latin American Literary Review, Blue Unicorn, Roanoke Review, Thimble Literary Magazine, and others. Her first collection of poetry, Bir Sıra Sonra/One Row After, was published by First Matter Press in 2022, and her second collection, +Milklings+, is forthcoming from South Broadway Press. She is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee.
April Poets
Maureen Alsop
Maureen Alsop, Ph.D. is the author of a novel, Today Yesterday After My Death (Erratum Press, 2024, UK) a finalist for The Big Other, and seven books of poetry: Arbor Vitae; Tender to Empress (Visual Poems); Pyre; Later, Knives & Trees; Mirror Inside Coffin; Mantic; Apparition Wren (also a Spanish Edition, Reyezuelo Aparición, translated by Mario Domínguez Parra); and several chapbooks She is the winner of several poetry prizes including those from Harpur Palate and Bitter Oleander and was shortlisted for Montreal International Poetry Prize. She is the winner of the Roderick Centre Fellowship for Regional and Remote Writers (in partnership with Varuna House and James Cook University). Her short stories have appeared at South Dakota Review, TEXT, Lincoln Review, among others. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals including Columbia Review, AGNI, Blackbird, Tampa Review, DIAGRAM, Memorious, The Kenyon Review, and featured on Verse Daily. Her translations of the poetry of Juana de Ibarbourou (Uruguay, 1892-1979) and are available through Poetry Salzburg Review. She teaches online with the Poetry Barn. She is a dual citizen of the United States and Australia and currently resides in North Queensland, Australia. She holds an MFA from Vermont College and a PhD in psychology from James Cook University.
Bob Bradshaw
Bob Bradshaw is retired and living south of San Francisco. He is a fan of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Mick may not be gathering moss, but Bob is. He is looking for the perfect hammock to spend his retirement in. Work of his can be found at Autumn Sky Poetry DAILY, Dodging the Rain, Eclectica, Ekphrastic Review, Open Arts Forum and other publications on the net.
Stan Galloway
Stan Galloway writes from West Virginia. He is the author/(co-)editor of 9 collections of poetry, most recently Savor: Poems for the Tongue (Friendly City Books, 2024).
Ava Hu
Ava M. Hu is an artist and poet who lives in upstate New York. Most notably, Ava received the Amy Award from Poets & Writers and Jane Hirshfield picked her poem, Varanasi, as first place for The America's Review Poetry contest. She attended Bennington College, Sarah Lawrence College, and The New School. She designs clothing for her line called avalove, one poem, one metaphor at a time. This is Ava’s tenth year participating in the 30/30 Project!
Kirsten Miles
Kirsten is in her fourteenth year managing the Tupelo Press 30/30 Project and wakes up each morning to the joy and honor of holding and sharing words and dreams of incredible poets. She holds a degree from the University of Virginia in Environmental Sciences and led a seminar series at UVA in research ethics for a number of years. She founded the Tupelo Press Teen Writing Center in Charlottesville, Virginia, for nine years supporting teen writers and developing programming for scalable community support for writing as an art for teens. She is currently managing the Gentle House writing residency on the Olympic Peninsula where she explores writing and printing the marvels that surround her every day in view of the Olympic National Park, and welcomes poets from around the nation and the world to do the same.
Sergiy Pustogarov
Sergiy Pustogarov (they/them) is a nonbinary Ukrainian medical student, poet, runner, and activist whose work bridges the worlds of art and medicine. A multilingual writer, Sergiy explores themes of identity, migration, grief, resilience, and healing, drawing from both personal experience and clinical training.
Their work has been shared by literary platforms such as The Word Faire, Moonstone Arts Center, Wayfarer Magazine, and Poets Choice.
Through both their medical studies and creative practice, Sergiy is committed to amplifying underrepresented voices, and envisioning a future where art and science collaborate to heal both body and soul.
nat raum
nat raum is a queer disabled artist, writer, and editor based on unceded Piscataway and Susquehannock land in Baltimore. Past and upcoming publishers of their writing include Split Lip Magazine, Poetry.onl, Baltimore Beat, Poet Lore, beestung, and others. Find them online at natraum.com.
Daniel Avery Weiss
Daniel Avery Weiss is a poet, ceramicist, and archaeologist from River Forest, Illinois. When conducting fieldwork, Daniel writes one poem per day to practice his craft. At home, he enjoys writing haiku, ekphrastic poetry, and free-form. He earned his B.A. in anthropology from Kenyon College, where he was an Associate at The Kenyon Review and co-founder of FOCUS, an anthropology oriented literary magazine. Daniel's poetry appears in The Ekphrastic Review, Shadowplay, and Wayfarer Magazine.
MK Zariel
mk zariel {it/its + masc terms} is a transmasculine neuroqueer theater artist, Best Of The Net and Monarch Award nominated poet, movement journalist, and BashBack aligned anarchist translocally rooted in the Great Lakes region. the author of VOIDGAZING (2026, Whittle Micropress), DIFFERENT WITH HIM (2026, Rockwood Press), and BOY APPARITION (2025, Vinegar Press), it creates conflictual spaces for trans survival and queer desire—spaces of insurgent genders, mutual aid beyond the nonprofit gaze, and the kind of care that negates (and negation that provides care). BashBack! remains close to its heart, as do anarchonihilism/egoism, experimental theater, and the defiant tenderness of queer collectivity. mk’s organizing is often underground, but its poetics and podcast crackle with the same unruly energy: community as generative+atemporal destruction, poetry as direct action.
Its writing has appeared in Querencia Press, Akpata, J Journal, Witches Magazine, Fifth Estate, ANMLY, OurLives Wisconsin, Library Of Eris, #EnbyLife, Oyster River Pages, and Seattle Journal of Social Justice, among many others. It contributes columns to Asymptote and the Anarchist Review of Books, its mixed media work is featured through Open Sorcery, and it authors the advice column DEBATE ME BRO and hosts the podcast THE CHILD AND ITS ENEMIES. it has also collaborated with Urban Ganges on a line of themed reed diffusers, and its poetry has been released as part of a live album on SHIFTCTRL Records. mk is the author of eleven self-published zine projects, and performs regularly at anarchist gatherings, zine fests, and queer liberation events. You can find its offerings, commissions, and chaotic love letters to the world at mkzariel.carrd.co
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