Brendan Bense
Brendan Bense is a Pennsylvania native with a degree in Creative Writing and Religious Studies from American University in D.C. His work can be found in Columbia Journal, The Crab Orchard Review, and Press 53. Before joining the MFA cohort at UCI, he’s worked as a writer and editor in New York and Philadelphia.
Adam De Petris
Adam De Petris is a third year poetry student. He isn't good at introductions. He walks around, reads books, etc. Mostly he just drinks coffee. Pictured above is his dog Ellie Mae, the love of his life.
Jacob Deason
Jacob Deason is a writer who lives in Long Beach, CA. He prefers spending his time watching horror movies, writing poetry, reading, lounging in nature, and listening to music.
Alejandro Derieux-Cerezo
Alejandro Derieux-Cerezo is a poet from Ann Arbor, Michigan. His work has appeared in Adroit, Laurel Moon and elsewhere. He has been awarded a Roy W. Cowden Memorial Fellowship in 2021 and a Hopwood Undergraduate Poetry Award in 2022 from the University of Michigan. In his spare time, you can find him watching videos of people making slime.
Griffin Fay
Griffin Fay is from Southern California. Before coming to Irvine, he moonlighted as a journalist named Blue. His work can be found in The Daily Californian, The San Francisco Standard, and The Harvard Advocate. He is currently the host of Orange Peel Poetry on KUCI 88.9.
Mo Fowler
Mo is a writer from California and Chicago. Their work currently focuses on tapestry, water, and contemporary conceptions of the American West.
Somi Jun
Somi Jun was born in Korea and raised in/near Los Angeles.
Andie Klarin
Andie Klarin is a first year poetry student returning to Orange County after a brief stint making trouble in Indianapolis. You can find their work in miniskirt magazine, Harpur Palate, and the Chaotic Merge zine.
Asusena Lopez
Asusena Lopez is a native Angeleno who dreams of living in an enchanted forest but doesn’t want to abandon the grime and glamour of the city. She holds a B.A. in music education and creative writing from California State University, Northridge where she received the Academy of American Poets George Dillon Memorial Award in 2021. When not lost in her latest lyrical labyrinth or living in the surreal realm of an art house film, she loves gardening, hiking, playing guitar, visiting museums, and draping herself in velvet.
Nick Martino
Nick Martino grew up beside the ocean of Lake Michigan. A 2022 Best of the Net nominee, his work has been featured in or is forthcoming from Frontier Poetry, Meridian, Hobart, Five South, and Sugar House Review, among others. He lives in LA.
Luan Nguyen
Luan Nguyen is a second-year poetry student from Sacramento, California.
Amaka Nwabunnia
Amaka Nwabunnia is a second year poetry student from the Washington, DC area. She came to the program immediately following a BA from Georgetown University in Political Science and Creative Writing.
Harriet Weaver
Harriet Weaver graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in Theater Studies, and for several years pursued a career as an actor and producer before allowing herself to write. She lived in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, and New York before relocating to the pleasant culture shock that is Los Angeles. She owes much of her love of poetry to her late great teachers, Harold Bloom and Wynn Handman.
Alexandria Brooke Williamson
Alexandria Brooke Williamson is a poet whose current endeavors include a poem about holding hands with Blue and a play about the mysterious fate of an unidentified substance caught between a forefinger and a thumb. Alexandria holds a degree in photography from the University of Notre Dame, and they once famously shoveled an entire ham off Dallas asphalt. Their favorite objects in poetry are Dorianne Laux’s old flames and dust and Rae Armnatrout’s pigeons - clean because of the morning. A special place in their heart is occupied by Andy Warhol’s drawings of feet and Agnes Varda’s spaghetti dinners.
