Marian Crotty is the author of the story collection, What Counts as Love, winner of the John Simmons Award. She is an assistant professor at Loyola University Maryland and an assistant editor at The Common.

David James Poissant is the author of The Heaven of Animals, winner of the GLCA New Writers Award, and a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize and the PEN/Bingham Prize. His work has appeared in The Atlantic and The New York Times. He teaches in the MFA program at the University of Central Florida.

Manuel Gonzales is the author of the collection, The Miniature Wife and Other Stories, and the forthcoming novel, The Regional Office is Under Attack!. He teaches creative writing at the University of Kentucky in Lexington and at the low-residency MFA program at IAIA.

Rion Amilcar Scott's story collection, Insurrections, won the 2017 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction. He earned an MFA from George Mason University, and he teaches English at Bowie State University.

Amina Gautier is the author of three short-story collections: The Loss of All Lost Things, which won the Elixir Press Award; Now We Will Be Happy, which won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize; and At-Risk, which won the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction.