St. Petersburg/Tampa Regional Chapter

Anthony Borruso is a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at The University of South Florida. He holds a Ph.D. in Creative Writing from Florida State University, where he served as Poetry Editor for Southeast Review. His poems have been published or are forthcoming in Denver Quarterly, Beloit Poetry Journal, Pleiades, The Cincinnati Review, The Journal, Gulf Coast, Frontier, and elsewhere. Winner of the 2024 Louise Bogan Poetry Award, his debut collection Splice will be published in July 2025 by Trio House Press.

Jennyfer Gilgan is a semi-retired educator and continues to stay active by facilitating student tours at the Tampa Museum of Art and teaching first-year writing classes at Ringling College of Art and Design. She explores imaginary and real worlds with her pen, paper, and camera. In 2023 and 2024, her Young Adult fiction won Honorable Mention in Writer’s Digest Annual Competition. She is querying a contemporary YA novel and drafting a YA fantasy while she waits for the one “yes.” She’s a regular attendee of the Yale Writers’ Workshop, and Lesley University recently accepted her into their Writing for Young People MFA program. Her nonfiction is published in War, Literature and the Arts and Florida English Journal. Jenn lives in Tampa, Florida, where her cat graciously allows her to feed and play with him.

Ben Sperduto writes weird fiction that slithers across the boundaries of fantasy, horror, and sci-fi. His most recent novel, Blackspire (2020), is available from Owl Hollow Press. He studies and teaches writing as a graduate student at the University of South Florida, where he also served as Managing Editor for the 20th anniversary issue of Saw Palm literary journal. He remains optimistic that his work will one day be banned by the State of Florida or cause it to sink into the ocean.