Erin Saldin is the author of the Young Adult novels The Dead Enders and The Girls of No Return. Saldin holds an MFA from the University of Virginia, where she was a Henry Hoyns Fellow in Fiction. She teaches at the University of Montana.

Eliot Schrefer is a two-time finalist for the National Book Award. His New York Times-bestselling books have been named to the NPR Best of the Year list and the American Library Association best fiction list for young adults. He has also won the Green Earth Book Award and Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award.

Maria Dahvana Headley is the New York Times-bestselling author of seven books in a variety of genres, most recently The Mere Wife, a contemporary retelling of Beowulf. Upcoming are a new verse translation of Beowulf, a short story collection, and a queer young adult superhero novel, The Combustible.

Brandy Colbert is the award-winning author of the young adult novels Pointe, Little & Lion, and Finding Yvonne, as well as the forthcoming The Revolution of Birdie Randolph and critically acclaimed essays and short fiction that have been published in various anthologies.

Todd Mitchell is a Green Earth Honor Book award-winning author of several books for teens and middle grade readers including: The Last Panther, Backwards, and The Secret to Lying. Currently, he directs the Beginning Creative Writing Teaching Program at Colorado State University.