Melissa Stein is the author of the poetry collection Rough Honey, winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize, and the forthcoming book Terrible Blooms. She has received fellowships from the NEA, Bread Loaf, Yaddo, and the MacDowell Colony.

Mark Doty's nine books of poems—most recently, Deep Lane—have received the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the T.S. Eliot Prize. A new prose study of Walt Whitman is forthcoming. He is a Distinguished Professor at Rutgers University.

Chris Abani's recent books are The Secret History of Las Vegas, The Face: A Memoir, and Sanctificum. His honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the PEN/Hemingway Award, an Edgar Prize, a Ford USA Artists Fellowship, and the PEN Beyond the Margins Award. He is a professor of English at Northwestern University.

Ada Limón is the author of four books of poetry, including Bright Dead Things, which was named a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award in Poetry, a finalist of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award, and one of the Top Ten Poetry Books of the Year by The New York Times.

Hannah Tinti is the author of Animal Crackers,The Good Thief, and The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley. She is also cofounder and executive editor of One Story magazine. She teaches at New York University's MFA program.