Matthew Sharpe is the author of the novels You Were Wrong, Jamestown, The Sleeping Father, and Nothing Is Terrible. He has had fellowships from the NEA and NYFA, and has taught graduate and undergrad writing at Columbia, Wesleyan, and Bard. He has been meditating for six years, not continuously.

Marie Myung-Ok Lee is the author of the novel Somebody's Daughter and one forthcoming. Fiction has appeared the Kenyon Review, FiveChapters, TriQuarterly, Witness, Joyland, and Guernica. Nonfiction has appeared in The Atlantic, The Paris Review, and The New York Times. She teaches creative writing at Columbia.

Robin Coste Lewis is the author of Voyage of the Sable Venus. She is writer in residence at the University of Southern California and the poet laureate of the City of Los Angeles.

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.