Sena Jeter Naslund, program director and cofounder of the Spalding University brief-residency MFA in writing and writer in residence at the University of Louisville, has published nine works of fiction, most recently The Fountain of St. James Court, or, Portrait of the Artist as an Old Woman, as well as Ahab's Wife.

Jeanie Thompson directs The Alabama Writers' Forum and is poetry faculty at Spalding University low-res MFA writing program. Her five poetry collections include The Seasons Bear Us and The Myth of Water: Poems from the Life of Helen Keller. She was founding editor of Black Warrior Review.

Nana Lampton graduated from Wellesley College and earned an MA from the University of Virginia and an MFA from Spalding University. Her fourth book of poetry, Wash the Dust from My Eyes, was inspired by her grandfather’s World War I diary.

Parneshia Jones is the author of Vessel: Poems and recipient of the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award and the Aquarius Press Legacy Award. She currently holds positions as sales and subsidiary rights manager and poetry editor for Northwestern University Press.

A.H. Jerriod Avant is a graduate of Jackson State University. He has earned MFA degrees from Spalding University and New York University, where he was a Writers’ in the Public Schools Fellow. He has received fellowships & residencies from Poets & Writers, Vermont Studio Center, and Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center.