Ruth Dickey has spent over twenty-five years working at the intersection of community building, writing, and art, now as executive director of the National Book Foundation. Ruth previously had the pleasure of leading organizations in Washington, D.C.; New Orleans, Los Angeles; Cincinnati, Ohio; and, most recently, in Seattle, Washington as executive director of Seattle Arts & Lectures. An ardent fan of dogs and coffee, she served as a fiction judge for the 2019 National Book Awards and holds an MFA in poetry from UNC-Greensboro, a BS in Foreign Service, and an MA in Latin American Studies from Georgetown University.

Susan Choi is the author of five novels, including Trust Exercise, which received the 2019 National Book Award for fiction. She has also been recipient of the Asian-American Literary Award for fiction, the PEN/W.G. Sebald Award, a Lambda Literary award, the 2021 Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. She serves as a trustee of PEN America and teaches in The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University.

Sarah Thankam Mathews is the author of All This Could Be Different, which was shortlisted for the 2022 National Book Award in Fiction. It was also a New York Times Editor's Choice and named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, Vogue, Vulture, Los Angeles Times, TIME, Slate, and Buzzfeed. Mathews grew up between Oman and India, immigrating to the United States at seventeen.