Lauren Brazeal Garza is a PhD candidate in literature at UT Dallas. Her published poetry collections include Gutter, which chronicles her homelessness as a teenager. Her recent work includes an epistolary novel of poems and flash fiction that features fictional interviews with Texan ghosts.

Jennifer Givhan is a Mexican-American and Indigenous poet and novelist and the recipient of the Southwest Book Award and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and PEN/Rosenthal Emerging Voices. She is the author of eleven books and raises her children in New Mexico.

Erika T. Wurth’s novel White Horse is a New York Times editors pick, a Good Morning America buzz pick, and an Indie Next, Target Book of the Month, and BOTM Pick. She is a Kenyon and Sewanee fellow, and a narrative artist for Meow Wolf. She is an urban Native of Apache/Chickasaw/Cherokee descent.

Hailey Piper is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Queen of Teeth, No Gods for Drowning, The Worm and His Kings, and other books of dark fiction. A Locus Award Finalist and member of the HWA, she's also published over ninety short stories in various venues. She lives with her wife in Maryland.

Erin E. Adams is a first-generation Haitian American writer and theatre artist. She received her BA with honors in literary arts from Brown University, her MFA in acting from The Old Globe, and her MFA in dramatic writing from the NYU Tisch School of the Arts.