Andrew Proctor is the executive director of Literary Arts, a nonprofit literary center in Portland, Oregon. Previously, he was the Membership and Operations Director at PEN American Center, an associate editor at HarperCollins publishers, and he worked at the Canadian High Commission in London (UK).

Ursula K. Le Guin has published twenty-one novels, eleven volumes of short stories, four collections of essays, twelve books for children, six volumes of poetry, four of translation, and has received many honors and awards including the Hugo, Nebula, National Book Award, and the PEN/Malamud Award for Short Fiction. Her most recent publications are Finding My Elegy (New and Selected Poems, 1960-2010) and The Unreal and the Real (Selected Short Stories).

Molly Gloss is the author of the novel The Jump-Off Creek, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, and a winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award and the Oregon Book Award; The Dazzle of Day, a New York Times Notable Book, and recipient of the PEN Center West Fiction Prize; Wild Life, winner of the James Tiptree, Jr. Award; and the national best seller, The Hearts of Horses. Other honors include a Whiting Writers’ Award and appearances in The Norton Book of Science Fiction and The Year’s Best Science Fiction.