Liza Wolff-Francis, 8th Poet Laureate of Carrboro, N.C. (2023-2025), is a writer and poet with an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Goddard College. She has taught creative writing workshops for over a decade and her prose and poetry have been widely published. She wrote the play Border Rising about immigrant justice and the history of the Mexico- U.S. border; it was performed in 2010 in south Tucson, Silver City, NM and Albuquerque, NM. She was on the Albuquerque Poetry Slam team in 2008, was co-director for the 2014 Austin International Poetry Festival, and now works organizing the West End Poetry Festival with the Town of Carrboro and the Carrboro Poets Council. Her poetry has been nominated for Best of the Net and has most recently appeared in The Bombay Literary Magazine, Cider Press Review, Unbroken: Prose Poems, and the Phare. She has written poetry book reviews that have been published on Adroit, Compulsive Reader, LitPub, and in Tupelo Quarterly. She has a full-length book: 48 hours down the shore (Kelsay Books). Her collaborative manuscript with Brenda Beardsley, “sky they yearned to call mine” was a semifinalist for the 2024 Donna Wolf Palacio prize and is forthcoming from Unsolicited Press in November 2026.