Erin Latimer is a lifetime Idyllwild resident and an Idyllwild Arts Academy alumna from the class of 2002. She has a BA in English with an emphasis in creative writing and book art from Mills College, and has self-published several chapbooks of poetry, as well a full-scale edition artist’s book, entitled Mythology in 2008, under her private press name, Washtub Press.

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Carey Powers of Idyllwild Arts Academy was the winner of the 2008 Louise Louis /Emily F. Bourne Student Poetry Award. Carey received the award as a senior at Idyllwild Arts Academy, where she received full scholarship in Creative Writing and where she was senior editor of poetry for the Academy's magazine, Parallax.

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Mackenzie Raymond-Vernacchio, along with Erick Jordan, Paul Jenkins, Jon Estes and Mark Bordenet, in 2006, form the band The Rosewood Thieves whose song “Los Angeles” has been featured in TV shows such as Grey’s Anatomy and Entourage. According to redandblack.com, an independent student newspaper serving the University of Georgia community, “The band's brand of blended retro tunes is perfectly punctuated by Mackenzie Vernacchio's lively Wurlitzer and the remarkably Lennon-esque vocals of frontman and guitarist Erick Jordan (IAA ’04).

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Laura Ruffino was selected by Thomas Sayers Ellis to receive the 2007 Louise Louis/Emily F. Bourne Student Poetry Award for her poem “Water Line.” The prize, perhaps the highest national recognition for a high school poet, is awarded by the Poetry Society of America for the best unpublished poem by a student in grades 9 through 12 from the United States.

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David Shook’s poetry, translations, and criticism have appeared in Oxford Magazine, Poetry, PN Review, World Literature Today, and many other publications. A chapbook of his translations from the Isthmus Zaptec of Víctor Terán is available from the Poetry Translation Centre, and his work also appears in the anthologies Oxford Poets 2010 (Carcanet) and Initiate (Blackwell).

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