Jess Walter is the author of six novels, most recently The New York Times bestseller Beautiful Ruins. He was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Award for The Zero and winner of the 2005 Edgar Allan Poe Award for best novel for Citizen Vince. His short fiction and essays have appeared in Harper’s, McSweeney’s, and Playboy.

Gish Jen is the author of numerous award-winning novels, including World and Town, Mona In the Promised Land, The Love Wife, and Typical American, as well as a collection of stories, Who's Irish? Invited by Harvard University to deliver the Massey lectures in American Civilization, her lectures were recently published in a book entitled Tiger Writing: Art, Culture and the Interdependent Self. She is the recipient of the Lannan Award in Fiction as well as a Strauss Living Award and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Tobias Wolff’s books include the memoirs This Boy’s Life and In Pharaoh’s Army; the novels The Barracks Thief and Old School, and four collections of short stories, including In the Garden of the North American Martyrs, and, most recently, Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories. His work is translated widely and has received the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the PEN/Malamud Award. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Ward W. and Priscilla B. Woods Professor in the Humanities at Stanford.