Joanna Rakoff is the author of the bestselling memoir, My Salinger Year, and the bestselling novel A Fortunate Age, which won the Goldberg Prize for Fiction. She writes for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and Vogue, and teaches at Columbia University.

Tova Mirvis is the author of three novels, Visible City, The Outside World, and The Ladies Auxiliary, and a forthcoming memoir, The Book of Separation. Her essays have appeared in publications such as The New York Times and The Boston Globe Magazine, and her fiction has been broadcast on NPR.

Dani Shapiro is the bestselling author of the memoirs Still Writing, Devotion, and Slow Motion, and the novels Black & White and Family History. Her new book, Hourglass, will be published in spring 2017.

Marie Mutsuki Mockett's memoir, Where the Dead Pause and the Japanese Say Goodbye, examines grief against the backdrop of the 2011 Great East Earthquake in Japan. It was a finalist for the 2016 PEN Open Book Award, 2016 Indies Choice Best Book of Nonfiction, and 2016 Northern California Book Award.

Christa Parravani' s Her: A Memoir was a Wall Street Journal, Salon, and Library Journal best book of 2013. Parravani's work has appeared in The Washington Post, Salon, Marie Claire, Daily Beast, The Guardian, and Catapult, among other places. She is assistant professor of creative writing at WVU.