Cafe Muse Literary Salon

KARREN LALONDE ALENIER is author of eight poetry collections—including: how we hold on from Broadstone Books, 2021— and editor or co-editor of three anthologies, including From the Belly, Volumes I, II & III. Gertrude Stein Invents a Jump Early On, her jazz opera with composer Bill Banfield, premiered June 2005 in New York by Encompass New Opera Theatre. More at https://www.alenier.com/.

ANNE BECKER is author of Human Animal, The Transmutation Notebooks: Poems in the Voices of Charles and Emma Darwin, and The Good Body. She has collaborated with Carl Banner, director of Washington DC Musica Viva, on The Jamie Raskin Oratorio with Nathan Faingold, composer, Carl Banner, on piano, and Chris Royal on trumpet.

ELLEN ARONOFSKY COLE’s books are Notes from the Dry Country, (Mayapple Press, 2019) and Prognosis, (Finishing Line Press, 2011.) Journal publications include Bellevue Literary Review,  Ekphrastic Review,  Gargoyle,  Little Patuxent Review, Potomac Review,  Innisfree,  Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Fledgling Rag, and New Verse News.  Her work was featured on Verse Daily and nominated for Best of the Net.

HENRY CRAWFORD is author of three collections of poetry, American Software (CW Books, 2017), Binary Planet (The Word Works, 2020, 2nd ed. 2024) and Screens (Broadstone Books 2025). His poem, “The Fruits of Famine” won first prize in the 2019 World Food Poetry Competition. He is a long-time co-director of the Café Muse literary salon.

M. MACK (they/he) is a trans and disabled poet in Virginia. He is an Instructional Associate Professor in English at George Mason University where he works with multilingual students. They are the author of Theater of Parts (Sundress Publications) and the chapbooks Mine (Big Lucks Books), Imaginary Kansas (dancing girl press), and Traveling (Hyacinth Girl Press).