Theodore Wheeler is the author of four books, most recently The War Begins in Paris (Little, Brown & Co., 2023). He has won fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Nebraska Arts Council, and Akademie Schloss Solitude in Germany, and teaches creative writing at Creighton University.

Chris Harding Thornton is a seventh-generation Nebraskan and holds an MFA from the University of Washington and a PhD from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her first novel, Pickard County Atlas, was a PBS Masterpiece Best Mystery. It was also featured in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and the New Yorker. Her second novel, Little Underworld, is forthcoming.

James Han Mattson is the author of two novels, The Lost Prayers of Ricky Graves and Reprieve. His third novel, The Grand Impostors, is forthcoming. He currently lives in Austin, Texas.

Moisés R. Delgado is a Latinx writer from the Midwest. He holds an MFA from the University of Arizona. His prose appears in Gulf Coast, SmokeLong Quarterly, Passages North, Puerto del Sol, and elsewhere. Moisés is currently working on a memoir/game about home, anxiety, self-acceptance, and chance.

Julie Iromuanya is the author of Mr. and Mrs. Doctor, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction, the Etisalat Prize for Literature, and the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize for Debut Fiction. She teaches at the University of Chicago.