Liz Egan is director of the Writing Center and assistant professor of creative writing at Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi. She is also director of the McMullan Young Writers Workshop and coeditor of Gazing Grain Press.

Margaret McMullan is the author of nine award-winning books including In My Mother's House, Sources of Light, and the anthology Every Father's Daughter. She received an NEA grant and a Fulbright to Hungary to write Where the Angels Lived: One Family’s Story of Exile, Loss, and Return.

Mary Miller is the author of two novels, Biloxi and The Last Days of California, as well as two collections of stories, Big World and Always Happy Hour. She is a former Michener Fellow in Fiction at the University of Texas and Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi.

Shalanda Stanley is a contemporary young adult writer and is the author of two novels, Drowning Is Inevitable and Nick and June Were Here. In addition to writing, she is an assistant professor of literacy and teaches reading and writing methods to education majors at her local university.

Maurice Carlos Ruffin is novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He writes on the subjects of family, race, economics, and art.