Patricia Ann McNair is the author of And These Are The Good Times and The Temple of Air, winner of Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year. She directs the undergraduate programs in Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago where she is an Associate Professor in Fiction and Nonfiction.

Robin Mukherjee is a Lecturer in Scriptwriting at Bath Spa University. He has contributed extensively to television, film and radio, winning numerous awards, including the London Film Festival's Audience Prize, an AWGIE for Best Adapted Screenplay, and a BAFTA nomination for an original series.

Randall Albers, Professor/Chair Emeritus of Fiction, Department of English and Creative Writing, Columbia College Chicago, chaired the Fiction Writing department for nineteen years, and in that role, initiated and supervised innovative abroad programs in Moscow, Prague, Bath, Florence, and Rome.

Carrie Etter is the author of four collections of poetry, The Tethers, Divining for Starters, Imagined Sons, and The Weather in Normal, and edited Infinite Difference: Other Poetries by UK Women Poets. She is Reader in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University.

Alison MacLeod’s latest story collection, All the Beloved Ghosts, was shortlisted for Canada’s Governor General’s Award for Fiction. Her last novel, Unexploded, was longlisted for The 2013 Man-Booker Prize. She is Director of Thresholds International Online Short Story Forum. www.alison-macleod.com