Janice Eidus has won two O. Henry Prizes. Her seven books of fiction include The War of the Rosens, Urban Bliss, Vito Loves Geraldine, and The Last Jewish Virgin. Her personal essays on topics such as adoption and writing appear regularly in the lifestyle magazine PurpleClover and The New York Times.

Ann Hood is the author of thirteen books, including most recently the novels The Obituary Writer and The Knitting Circle, and the memoir, Comfort: A Journey Through Grief. She has been the recipient of two Pushcart Prizes and Best American Spiritual, Travel and Food Writing Awards.

Joanna Sit is the author of three books of poetry: Track Works, My Last Century, and In Thailand with the Apostles. She is working on an intergenre oral narrative entitled The Reincarnation of Red. She teaches writing at Medgar Evers College.

Ernesto Mestre is an award-winning novelist and editor. He has taught at several prestigious MFA writing programs over the last two decades. He is a Guggenheim Fellow in fiction. His novels include The Lazarus Rumba and The Second Death of Unica Aveyano.

Donna Baier Stein is the author of Sympathetic People (Iowa Fiction Award Finalist) and The Silver Baron’s Wife (PEN/New England Discovery Award). She founded and publishes Tiferet Journal and was a founding poetry editor of Bellevue Literary Review.