Michael Khandelwal writes and publishes fiction and poetry and teaches workshops for The Muse Writers Center in Norfolk, Virginia, for which he is the executive director (and co-founder). He is a columnist for Coastal Virginia magazine and a former webmaster for The American Council on Education.

Rob Arnold (he/him) is a Chamoru poet, editor, and Interim Executive Director of Hugo House, Seattle's independent writing center. His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Hyphen, Gettysburg Review, Poetry Northwest, RED INK, Yes Poetry, The Ocean State Review, and The Volta, among others.

Dariel Suarez is the Cuban-born author of the novel The Playwright's House and the story collection, A Kind of Solitude, winner of the International Latino Book Award. He is education director at GrubStreet and resides in the Boston area.

Erika Krouse is the author of Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation (memoir), Contenders (novel), and Come Up and See Me Sometime (short stories). Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Ploughshares, and One Story. She teaches at Lighthouse and the Regis MFA.

Jake Friedman is a poet, editor, and culture worker. Past affiliations / employments include the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at ASU, the City of Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture, and Four Chambers Press. He is currently an MFA candidate at Colorado State University.