Poet Bios

1.Katherine E. Schneider

Katherine E. Schneider is a poet living in Norwalk, CT and is the founder and editor of the new online literary journal The Northeast Coast. She holds an MFA from Fairfield University’s MFA in Creative Writing program and is a co-founder and co-host of FUMFA Poets & Writers Live which runs monthly open mics at Eco Evolution in South Norwalk. Her first chapbook, I Used to Remember the Story of How, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2019. Her publication credits for individual poems include Ruminate, Blue Line, The Poetry Porch, The Paddock Review, Collateral, and the 2023 and 2024 Connecticut Literary Anthology. Her poem “Breath” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and her manuscript Breaking the Fever was a finalist for the Fairfield Book Prize. She is very honored and proud to have been named the 2025 to 2027 Norwalk Poet Laureate.

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2.MayaRose

MayaRose (LeahJoy Pearson) writes to awaken. A Spoken Word poet, community builder, and relentless advocate for artistic expression, she believes poetry is more than ink on a page—it’s history. Her television show, Speak Your Mind (Spectrum Channel 192), brings together poets, storytellers, writers, and advocates, proving that every voice holds power. She has performed and facilitated writing workshops at CT Folk Fest, produced Poetry in Motion, Piece of Mind Poetry at CT Riverview Music Fest as well as creative diversity programs through Arts Alliance of Woodbury to name a few. She is the author of Poems from My Broken Heart: Expressions on the Spiral of Life, and past performances can be viewed on her YouTube channel, MayaRoseSpokenWord.

 

3.Ralph Nazareth

Ralph Nazareth is a poet, teacher, and publisher. Author of four books of poems – Ferrying Secrets (2005); Cristal: Poemas Selectos (2015); Between Us the Long Road (2017); & Dropping Death with Duane Esposito (2018) He has taught for over four decades in schools, colleges, universities and maximum-security prisons in the U.S. For twenty-two years, he led a community of poets who met weekly at Curley’s Diner in Stamford. He currently serves as chair of the advisory committee of GraceWorks, Inc., an international nonprofit (www.graceworksforall.org)

 

4.Sandy Carlson

Sandy Carlson is a poet and a public school teacher living in Southbury, Connecticut.  Poet laureate emerita of Woodbury, Sandy enjoys connecting people through poetry and leads the Orenaug Mountain Poetry Group in Woodbury and a managing partner of Orenaug Mountain Publishing. Find out more about Sandy and her work at sandycarlson.net.

 

5.Daweed Ben-Yehudah

Daweed Ben-Yehudah is a poet, playwright, and entrepreneur who has been a vital presence in New Haven’s spoken word scene since 1999. With over 30 years of experience in poetry, he has organized and led some of the city’s most powerful poetry venues, giving voice to raw, authentic storytelling. He is the writer and performer of Exodus of the Bastard Youth, a deeply personal one-man choreopoem that explores his experience growing up in the foster care and group home system. He is also producing a documentary based on the play, expanding its message beyond the stage. Daweed is the co-founder and CEO of Ujima The Collective, alongside Keisha Hamilton, an organization committed to empowering communities through art, healing, and entrepreneurship. A father of six, Daweed continues to create work rooted in truth, transformation, and liberation. Connect with him on Instagram at @ujima_2025 or email ujimathecollective@gmail.com.

 

6.Melissa Slattery

Melissa Slattery lives in Norwalk, Connecticut. She hosted the Stamford, Connecticut-based Curley’s Diner Poetry Group on Zoom weekly, from April 2022 to December 2024. A former graphic designer, she taught interdisciplinary studies and fine art for 20 years at Norwalk Community College. She currently works for a meditation nonprofit.

 

7.Robert Zwilling 

Robert Zwilling is a Digital/Analog Artist utilizing verbal brush strokes to fashion poetry and prose with unusual viewpoints. Along with text, he uses paint, print, collage, ink, and anything else handy to create everything from art to wall decor, illustrating the interaction of the Natural World with the virtual world we have all created. He lives in Norwalk.

 

8.Laurel S. Peterson

Laurel S. Peterson is a Professor of English at Norwalk Community College.  Her poetry has been published in many small literary journals. She has two poetry chapbooks, That’s the Way the Music Sounds (Finishing Line Press, 2009) and Talking to the Mirror (The Last Automat Press, 2010), and two full-length collection, Do You Expect Your Art to Answer?(2017) and Daughter of Sky (2021). She co-edited a collection of essays on women’s justice titled (Re)Interpretations: The Shapes of Justice in Women’s Experience (2009) and has written two mystery novels Shadow Notes and The Fallen (Woodhall Press). She has served on the editorial board of the literary magazine Inkwell, and as the town of Norwalk, Connecticut’s, Poet Laureate from April 2016 – April 2019. Currently, she sits on the Norwalk Public Library Board. You can find her on Substack at https://laurelspeterson.substack.com/archive.

 

9.Victoria Buitron

Victoria Buitron is a writer who hails from Ecuador and resides in Connecticut. She received an MFA in creative writing from Fairfield University. She is currently the competitions editor for Harbor Review. Her debut memoir-in-essays, A Body Across Two Hemispheres (Woodhall Press, 2022), was the 2021 Fairfield Book Prize winner. In 2023, she received the Artistic Excellence Award from the Connecticut Office of the Arts, which also receives federal funding. She has been the series editor for the Connecticut Literary Anthology since 2023. Craigardan, Tin House, GrubStreet, Sundress Publications, VONA and more organizations have championed her work through grants or writing residencies. Her debut poetry collection, Unburying the Bones, is 2025's VersoFrontera prize winner and will be published by Texas Review Press.

 

10.Van Hartmann

Van Hartmann taught English at Manhattanville College for over forty years. In addition to trying to satisfy Calder’s insatiable desire for catching frisbees, he enjoys tennis, kayaking on the Sound, seeing art and theater in New York City, and imbibing the occasional martini. He was born in Ohio, grew up and went to college in California, lived for a couple of years in France, completed a Ph.D. in English in North Carolina, then finally settled in New York/New England. He has published two previous books of poems, Shiva Dancing (Texture Press, 2007) and Riptide (Texture Press, 2016), and a chapbook, Between What Is and What Is Not (The Last Automat Press, 2010), along with poems in a variety of journals.  My third book of poems, Afloat, was published in the fall of 2023.

 

11.Sahmra K. Sawyer (SupremeDivinity)

Sahmra K. Sawyer is a Writer and Spoken Word Poet born and raised in Norwalk, CT. Sahmra Sawyer graduated from UConn Stamford in 2022 with a degree in Psychological Sciences and is now a second-year MSW student at Fairfield University, pursuing a career in Clinical Social Work. Sahmra is passionate about promoting mental well-being through both clinical practice and creative expression. In 2023, she became the Founder and Host of We’ve Got Something To Say, a thriving poetry platform based in Bridgeport, CT. Her mission is to create safe spaces where voices are heard, using the transformative power of storytelling to foster healing and connection. Sahmra combines her passions for advocacy, mental health, and the arts to empower individuals and communities. Enter Supreme.

 

12.Rick Magee

Rick Magee  grew up in California, then moved to the east coast for graduate school and never left. He teaches literature and writing at Sacred Heart University, and he teaches in study abroad programs in Ireland and Italy whenever possible. His monthly column can be found in CT Hearst papers.  He lives in Bethel, where he is the current Poet Laureate, with his wife, son, and two dogs.

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13.B. Fulton Jennes

B. Fulton Jennes is an award-winning poet whose work has appeared widely in literary journals and anthologies, including CALYX, Comstock Review, Extreme Sonnets, Rust and Moth, SWWIM, and Tupelo Quarterly. In 2022, “Glyphs of a Gentle Going” was awarded the Lascaux Prize; another poem, “Father to Son,” won the 2023 New Millennium Award. Her collection Blinded Birds received the 2022 International Book Award for a poetry chapbook. FLOWN—an elegy-in-verse to her late sister—was published by Porkbelly Press in April 2024. Jennes is poet laureate emerita of Ridgefield, CT, where she directs the Poetry in the Garden reading series each summer and served for many years as poet-in-residence at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum.

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14.Sean Sharkey Diaz

Sean Sharkey Diaz has always had a passion for writing, going on to minor in Creative Writing during his time at Western Kentucky University. Outside of writing, Sharkey enjoys reading a wide variety of novels, particularly sci-fi and horror, on a moody autumn evening. Sharkey is the editor of two short novels by author A.H. Zamparelli, “The Darkness Within” and “Three Deadly Shorts & A Poem.” He also wrote poems to be choreographed for the New England Ballet Theater’s show “Poetry in Motion.”  He resides in Connecticut with his loving husband and cat.

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15.Bill Hayden

Bill Hayden has been writing poems since his teens, as well as painting en plein air and more recently abstract works, and has enjoyed singing & playing guitar with his wife Brandi at coffeehouses, at their church and at their friends’, nieces and nephews’ weddings for the past 56 years!  Happy to have found these outlets for his creativity and honored to have been chosen to serve as the Poet Laureate of Norwalk since April of 2019.  A resident of Norwalk since 1970.