V.V. Ganeshananthan's debut novel, Love Marriage, was longlisted for the Orange Prize and named one of Washington Post Book World's Best of 2008. Her work has appeared in Granta and The New York Times, among others. She teaches at the University of Minnesota and was a 2014 NEA and Radcliffe Fellow.

Julie Schumacher is the author of nine books, including The Body Is Water—an ALA Notable Book of the Year and PEN/Hemingway Award finalist—and Dear Committee Members, winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor. She directs the MFA program at the University of Minnesota/Twin Cities.

Eileen Pollack is the author, most recently, of the novels The Bible of Dirty Jokes and A Perfect Life and the memoir The Only Woman in the Room. Her story collection In the Mouth was a New York Times Editors' Choice selection and won the Wallant Award. She teaches at the University of Michigan.

Asali Solomon is the author of Disgruntled. She received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award for the stories later collected in Get Down, her first book. In 2007, she was named one of the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35.” Solomon teaches fiction writing and literature at Haverford College.

Mo Daviau is the author of the novel Every Anxious Wave. Her nonfiction has appeared in The Toast, The Offing, and Nailed magazine. She is a graduate of Smith College and the Helen Zell Writers' Program at the University of Michigan.