Mariya Deykute is a teacher, writer, performing artist and translator. Mariya received her MFA from UMass: Boston and has taught at UMass, the OLLI Institute, PEN New England and at Tohatchi High School. She currently teaches creative writing at Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan.

Ariella Katz is a graduate of the University of Chicago. She is a poet and a coeditor of A Literary Criminal Almanac, an anthology of stories by formerly incarcerated people in Moscow. Supported by a Fulbright Fellowship, she founded a writing program for former prisoners in Russia.

Heather Derr-Smith is the author of four books of poetry, Each End of the World, The Bride Minaret, Tongue Screw, and Thrust. She is the founder and director of Cuvaj se/Take Care, a nonprofit supporting writers in conflict zones and post-conflict zones and communities affected by trauma.

Tara Skurtu is a poet, teacher, and public speaker based in Bucharest. A two-time US Fulbright grantee and recipient of two Academy of American Poets prizes and a Robert Pinsky Global Fellowship in Poetry, she is the author of Skurtu, Romania and The Amoeba Game.

Caitlin E. Krause works in interdisciplinary arenas connecting learning, leadership, technology, writing, and immersive VR storytelling. A graduate of Duke University (BA) and Lesley University (MFA), she founded MindWise in 2015; her book Mindful by Design addresses mindfulness and creativity.