Jim Ferris is author of poetry collections Slouching Towards Guantanamo, Facts of Life, and The Hospital Poems. Past president of the Society for Disability Studies, he holds the Ability Center Endowed Chair in Disability Studies at the University of Toledo.

Leilani Hall is the author of the poetry collection Swimming the Witch. Her work has appeared in the anthologies In a Fine Frenzy and The Norton Mix. She directs the creative writing program at Cal State University Northridge, where she was awarded the Faculty Scholars Award for her work in disability studies.

Stephen Kuusisto is the author of the memoirs Planet of the Blind (a New York Times Notable Book of the Year) and Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening and of the poetry collections Only Bread, Only Light, and Letters to Borges. He teaches at Syracuse University.

Sheila Black coedited Beauty Is a Verb: New Poetry of Disability. She is the author most recently of poetry collections Love/Iraq and Wen Kroy. She is a 2012 Witter Bynner Fellow in poetry selected by Philip Levine.