Jess Row is the author of the novel Your Face in Mine, the story collections The Train to Lo Wu and Nobody Ever Gets Lost, and a book of essays, White Flights: Race, Fiction, and the American Imagination. He teaches at The College of New Jersey.

Lacy M. Johnson is a Houston-based professor, curator, activist, and author of the essay collection The Reckonings, the widely acclaimed memoir The Other Side, and Trespasses: A Memoir. She teaches creative nonfiction at Rice University.

Kiese Laymon is a black southern writer, born and raised in Jackson. He is a professor of English and creative writing at University of Mississippi and is the author of Long Division and How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America. His memoir is Heavy.

Marcos Gonsalez is a queer MexiRican writer. He writes on fat, queer, of color erotics and embodiment, the role of literature in society, and the experimental possibilities of the essay genre. He and his agent are currently on submission with his first essay collection/memoir.

Meghan O’Rourke is the editor of The Yale Review and the author of The Long Goodbye, as well as the poetry collections Sun In Days, Once, and Halflife. The recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, among other prizes, she is working on a book about chronic illness.