2023 UW Poetry MFA Graduates Reading

Megan Kim was raised in the foothills of the Siskiyou Mountains. She is the editor of Frontier Poetry. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Narrative Magazine, Ninth Letter, and The Adroit Journal, among others, and she has received support from the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop.

Renée Lepreau has worked as an out-of-hospital midwife, lactation consultant, and community organizer. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Seneca Review, The Worcester Review, Dunes Review, Santa Ana River Review, and others. Her photographs have been exhibited in group shows at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Harvey Milk Photo Center, and others.

Caleb A.P. Parker is a poet and musician from the industrialized Texas Gulf Coast. After spending years in the nexus of the Episcopal Church, cooperative housing, and the Austin music scene, he began his MFA following his father’s death from cancer.

Aurora Shimshak is a poet and educator from Wisconsin. She’s worked as a high school English teacher, a public radio intern, and as the managing editor of Ecotone. Her poetry and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Spillway, New Ohio Review, Shenandoah, and Poetry Northwest. She is currently an MFA candidate in Poetry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

Mandy Moe Pwint Tu is a pile of ginkgo leaves in a trench coat and the author of Fablemaker (Gaudy Boy, 2025). Her work has appeared in Poetry, Beloit Poetry Journal, Porter House Review, Waxwing, and elsewhere. She has published three poetry chapbooks: Monsoon Daughter (Thirty West Publishing House, 2022); Unsprung (Newfound, 2023); and Burma Girl (Gold Line Press, 2026). She received her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was the Hoffman-Halls Emerging Artist Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing.