Derek Palacio is the author of the novella How to Shake the Other Man and the novel The Mortifications. He is the co-director, with Claire Vaye Watkins, of the Mojave School, a free creative writing workshop for teenagers in rural Nevada. He teaches at IAIA and Ashland University.

Michael Spurgeon is a tenured professor at American River College, the author of the novel Let The Water Hold Me Down, cofounder of the Sacramento creative writing nonprofit 916 Ink, and one of the founders and organizers of SummerWords, American River College's summer creative writing festival.

Kirstin Chen's new novel, Bury What We Cannot Take, has been named a Most Anticipated Upcoming Book by Electric Literature, The Millions, The Rumpus, Harper’s Bazaar, and InStyle, among others. She is also the author of Soy Sauce for Beginners.

Nayomi Munaweera's debut novel, Island of a Thousand Mirrors, won the 2013 Commonwealth Prize for Asia. The New York Times called it "incandescent." Her second novel, What Lies Between Us drew comparisons to the voices of Michael Ondatjee and Jumpha Lahiri.