Melissa Wyse is a fiction writer and essayist. She has held residencies at MacDowell, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Ragdale. Her work appears in publications including Shenandoah, the Rumpus, Momus, and Urbanite, and her first book is forthcoming from Chronicle. She founded and directs the Idlewild Writers Retreat.

Andrea Wilson is the Founding Director of the Iowa Writers' House based in Iowa City, Iowa. IWH's mission is to extend the Iowa literary legacy, building community among writers, editors, readers, audiences, and all those who honor the power of words.

Shawn Girvan received his MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College. His work has appeared in The Pitkin Review, Wraparound South, and West Texas Literary Review. Shawn currently teaches and works at the Muse Writers Center in Norfolk, Virginia and is finishing his first memoir.

Maggie Marshall is a novelist and award-winning screenwriter, and is the co-founder of the Flatiron Writers Room in Asheville, NC. She has written for numerous 1-hour TV dramas, and has had fiction and nonfiction pieces published in The Great Smokies Review.

Andrea Dupree is program director for Lighthouse Writers Workshop, a nonprofit literary center she co-founded in 1997. A recipient of two MacDowell fellowships, her fiction has appeared in places including Ploughshares, VQR, Colorado Review, and the Normal School.