José Antonio Rodríguez is the author of House Built on Ashes: A Memoir and the poetry collections Backlit Hour and The Shallow End of Sleep. He is a fellow of CantoMundo and Macondo and teaches writing at The University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley.

Wiley Cash is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels A Land More Kind Than Home, This Dark Road to Mercy, and the forthcoming The Last Ballad. He is the writer-in-residence at the University of North Carolina–Asheville and teaches in the Mountainview low-residency MFA program.

Reggie Scott Young served as 2017 writer in residence at New College of Florida after retiring as professor of English at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He has published poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, and his most recent book is the poetry volume Yardbirds Squawking at the Moon.

Sarah Jefferis, MFA and PhD, is an author, editor, and mentor based in Ithaca, New York. Her business, Write. Now., offers generative creative writing workshops and editing services. Her poetry books include What Enters the Mouth and Forgetting the Salt.