Tree Swenson is executive director of the Richard Hugo House in Seattle. She was previously executive director of the Academy of American Poets. A former AWP board president, her work in the literary arts began with co-founding Copper Canyon Press, where she was the publisher and director for twenty years.

Sherman Alexie is the author of, most recently, War Dances, stories and poems, and Face, poetry. He is the winner of the 2010 PEN/Faulkner Award, 2007 National Book Award for Young People's Literature, 2001 PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story, and a Special Citation for the 1994 PEN/Hemingway Award for Best First Fiction. Smoke Signals, the film he wrote and co-produced, won the Audience Award and Filmmakers Trophy at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival.

Timothy Egan is the author of seven books, including The Worst Hard Time, winner of the 2006 National Book Award for nonfiction, and most recently Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher—The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis. He is an op-ed columnist for the New York Times, writing his "Opinionator" feature weekly. As a correspondent for the Times, he shares a Pulitzer Prize with a team of reporters for their series, “How Race is Lived in America.”