Valery Chereshnya:  was born in 1948 in Odessa, Ukraine, now lives in St. Petersburg, Russia.  He published 5 poetry books: most recent, Recognition 2018; a book of essays, View from himself and many other publications in major Russian literary journals.

Igor Bulatovsky:  is a poet, literary critic, translator from Yiddish and French, and publisher.  He authored 10 books of poetry.  He received Joseph Brodsky Foundation Prize for poetry and was shortlisted for Andrey Bely Prize.  He lives in St. Petersburg.

Ivan Akhmetyev:  (born 1950) was first published in samizdat, but has since 1990 published five books of poetry in a tradition of minimalism and concretism associated with the “Lianozovo” poets.  In 2013 he was awarded an Andrey Bely Prize for his services to literature, and in 2018 a Brodsky Fellowship.

Mikhail Aizenberg:  is an architect, poet, and essayist, born in 1948, Moscow.  He graduated from the Moscow Architectural Institute in 1972 and has been writing poems since the mid 1960s.  In 2002 he was awarded a Brodsky Fellowship for residence in Rome and he won the Andrey Bely Prize in 2003.