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
September Poets
The volunteer poets for August are: Laura Bandy, Alicia Boemi, Jesse DeLong, Shelly Krehbiel, Rob Mclennan, Piper Rasmussen, Melissa Reed, 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
M. Ann Reed
M. Ann Reed is now an international private teacher who, in the past, has taught with United World Colleges and other IB colleges overseas. She has published essays remarked by literary, psychology, and medical journals. An award winning poet, she co-authored with Mabel Tow, “Strange Kindness,” initially published by U of A, now curated by Rowman & Littlefield. She authored the chapbook, “making oxygen,” published by FLP 2020, the chapbook "ekphrastics & eccentricities,” published by Kelsay Books, July 2023, and the full-length book of poems, "he for she she for he," published by Kelsay Books, February 2025.
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.
August Poets
Zoe Berger
Zoe Berger is a writer whose work appears in The Poetry Society of New York's journal Milk Press, Antiphony Press, Wild Roof Journal, and Thimble Literary Magazine, among others. She has been supported by residencies from Tupelo Press and is the Poetry Editor for Pinky Magazine. Zoe is an incoming MFA candidate in NYU’s Creative Writing Program. She can be found on Instagram @sadspot.
Ashley Howell Bunn
Ashley Howell Bunn (she/they) completed her MFA in poetry through Regis University and holds a MA in Literature from Northwestern University. Their first chapbook, in coming light, was published in 2022 by Middle Creek Publishing, and her first full-length collection, burning, breaking, building, was published by South Broadway Press in 2026. Their work has been supported by Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and Sundress Publications. She is an adjunct instructor of English at the Community College of Denver and the Youth Program Manager at Lighthouse Writers Workshop. When she isn’t writing, she is practicing yoga, running in the sunshine, playing with her kids, or daydreaming and staring off into space.
Dahhee Chung
Dahhee Chung is a forty-five year old Korean American female writer and Yoga Teacher from Los Angeles California. Until recently, she asked herself each smoke break, “What do I want to be when I grow up?” She taught yoga for exactly 20 years this June and wrote in private journals and notes on her phone, but didn’t dare submit anything because of the forms to fill and converting to pdf is daunting. But the answer to her question has always been, “A published author.”
Alison Henderson
Alison Henderson is a poet and interdisciplinary writer based in Los Angeles. Originally from Montreal, her work explores incarceration, recovery, wilderness, family, and the institutions that shape identity and belonging. She is currently completing her first full-length poetry collection. She is honored to be part of the Tupelo Press 30/30 Project.
Ash Kemp
Ash Kemp reads and writes about things others avoid thinking about so she can find a way to process them. She is neurodivergent, chronically ill, always trying to lighten the mood with a bit of dark humor. A Midwestern home educator by day, voracious speculative fiction reader at night, she has reviews in Hyperfocus Horror and The New Territory. Find her on Instagram and Threads @occasionally_educational
Hannah Page
Hannah Page’s poetry has been featured in New Feathers Anthology, Tupelo Quarterly, Suburban Witchcraft Magazine, StreetLit, Merion West, Pink Disco Magazine, and elsewhere. She is currently polishing her debut collection, To Unravel is Not Always to Fall Apart. Hannah serves as Production Assistant for Tupelo Quarterly. She holds an MFA from Columbia University and lives and works in NYC. Find her on Instagram at @blank_page47
PF Potvin
A few years ago, PF Potvin participated in a 30/30 Project and found the experience motivating and instrumental in germinating new work. A few poems from that time were published in Bear River Review. Potvin is the author of the prose poetry collection The Attention Lesson (No Tell Books). His writing has appeared in Black Warrior Review, Boston Review, PANK, MiPOesias, PBS NewsHour, Sentence, Passages North, An Introduction to the Prose Poem anthology, and elsewhere. His manuscripts have been finalists for the New Issues Press Competition and Cleveland University's Poetry Center Prize. Potvin has received fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center and Casa Libre en la Solana. He holds an MFA from Bennington College where he was awarded the Jane Kenyon poetry scholarship. Potvin teaches writing, chairs the campus writing awards, and serves as faculty advisor for the student-run journal Lyceum at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.
Janette Schafer
Janette Schafer is a poet, photographer, playwright, and realtor living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Chatham University. She is the author of three poetry collections and the chief editor of two literary anthologies. Her writing and photographs have appeared in numerous journals, newspapers, and websites, including Vox Populi, The Missouri Review, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Eunoia Review. She is a winner of the Academy of American Poets Prize, the Pittsburgh Original Short Play Series, and the Pittsburgh Fringe Festival.
Kate Thuma
Kate Thuma is a poet living and writing in the Greater Boston area. She is a winner of The Letter Review Prize for Poetry (2026). Her work explores embodiment, memory, and the thresholds between the tangible and the unseen, with an interest in how language approaches what resists expression. Her poems are drawn to the body as a site of inherited knowledge, where instinct and memory intersect. Her work has been supported by GrubStreet Boston, The Almanac workshop series, the Boston Writer's Salon, and Two Page Tuesday. She is currently developing her first collection. Find her on Instagram @katethumawrites.
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