Our Team
Nancy Lynée Woo
Founder, Poet, Teacher
Nancy Lynée Woo is a poet, organizer, and eco-activist who harbors a wild love for the natural world. Her debut poetry collection is I’d Rather Be Lightning (GASHER Press, 2023). Nancy is a 2023 recipient of the California Creative Corps grant, and she has received fellowships from Artists at Work, PEN America, Arts Council for Long Beach, California Center for the Book, Idyllwild Writers Week and Literary Women. Her work has been published in The Shore, Tupelo Quarterly, Stirring, Radar Poetry, and others. Nancy has degrees in sociology and creative writing from UC Santa Cruz and Antioch University LA. Find her cavorting around Long Beach (Tongva land) in California, and on social media @fancifulnance.
Shelly Holder
Shelly Holder is a poet, bookclub and workshop facilitator who is working on founding a library of literary magazines. She is a Women Who Submit chapter lead for the San Gabriel Valley. Her poetry can be found (in various formats) at Iron Horse Literary Review, One Art, and Gyroscope Review, among others, as well as on YouTube. You can follow up by visiting www.shellyholder.com or her Facebook profile /shellyholderpoet. Shelly lives in what she calls an “outer-outer-outer” suburb of Los Angeles, where she struggles to get an orange tree to fruit.
Matthew Feinstein
Matthew Feinstein is a neurodivergent poet originally from Tracy, California. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing, Poetry from Randolph College, a BA in English - Creative Writing from CSU Long Beach, and an AA from Butte College. His poems have appeared in Poetry Online, HAD, Inflectionist Review, Kissing Dynamite, and elsewhere. He served as a poetry reader for Revolute Magazine and co-founded Plum Recruit Magazine. He serves as a poetry reader for Pidgeonholes. Website: www.matthewfeinsteinwriter.com
Arminé Iknadossian
Poet, Teacher
Born in Beirut, Lebanon, Arminé Iknadossian’s family fled to California when she was four years old to escape the civil war. After graduating from UCLA, Iknadossian earned an MFA in Creative Writing at Antioch University. The author of All That Wasted Fruit (Main Street Rag), Iknadossian has been published in Whale Road Review, Southern Florida Poetry Journal, KYSO Flash/MacQueen’s Quarterly and The American Journal of Poetry. She has received fellowships from Idyllwild Arts, The Los Angeles Writing Project and Otis College of Art and Design. She lives in Long Beach, California, where she offers writing workshops and private manuscript consultations. Discover more at www.armineiknadossian.com.
Alise Brillault
Marketing Assistant
Alise Brillault (AKA Batiza) is a poet, rapper, and multilingual communications professional from Long Beach, CA. She holds an M.A. in International Relations from the Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals, where she helped create and write for Argus- a student magazine about international affairs. Alise has worked in communications and administrative roles at Kenya Climate Innovation Center, UCI's Merage School of Business, and is currently employed at L.A. public radio station KCRW. In 2020, she released her debut hip hop EP, The Genesis of Brío. In her spare time, Alise loves belly dancing, cooking Mediterranean food, and yoga.