Fred L. Joiner is a poet and curator based in Carrboro, NC. His first book Mirror in Our Music is forthcoming from Birds, LLC. His work has been published in various journals and anthologies, and he has presented his work nationally and internationally. Joiner recently served as the Poet Laureate of Carrboro and was awarded a 2019 Academy of American Poets Poets Laureate Fellowship and has received awards, fellowships, and residences from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art, the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities, and St Mary's College of Maryland. He is also the founder of Black Ekphrastic, a website that seeks to highlight the work of Black creative writers and their engagements with other art forms.