Catherine Thorpe is managing director of the Napa Valley Writers' Conference. A writer, book researcher, technology consultant, and recovering journalist, she received an MPhil in literature from Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland.

Angela Pneuman, MFA, PhD, is the author of the novel Lay It on My Heart and the story collection Home Remedies. A former Stegner Fellow, she currently teaches creative writing in Continuing Studies at Stanford University and directs the Napa Valley Writers Conference.

Sands Hall is the author of the memoir, Flunk. Start.; the novel Catching Heaven; as well as Tools of the Writer’s Craft. The Teaching Professor at Franklin & Marshall College, he teaches at the Community of Writers, Squaw Valley and the Iowa Summer Writing Festival.

Jack Boulware is cofounder/Executive Director of San Francisco's annual Litquake festival, which launched in 1999 and has since expanded to year-round author programs and workshops, and a network of Lit Crawls worldwide. Author/co-author of three nonfiction books, he is working on a fourth.

Steph Opitz is the founding director of Wordplay at The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis.