Maya Shanbhag Lang is the author of What We Carry, named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and a “Best Of 2020” by Amazon. She is also the author of The Sixteenth of June, a modern reinterpretation of Ulysses that was long listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Lang’s essays have been widely published and anthologized. The American Civil Rights Museum named her a “Woman You Should Know.” Winner of the Neil Shepard Prize in Fiction, she serves as President of the Authors Guild.

Meredith Talusan is the author of Fairest, a widely praised memoir which Kirkus Reviews called, “captivatingly eloquent.” It was excerpted in the New York Times and selected as a most anticipated book of 2020 by O: The Oprah Magazine. She is founding executive editor of them., Condé Nast’s first-ever platform devoted to the queer community. She has written features, essays, and opinion pieces for many publications including The Guardian, The New York Times, and The Atlantic, and her fiction is published or forthcoming in Guernica, Boston Review, Epoch, The Rumpus, Grand, Catapult, and BLR.

Kai Cheng Thom is a writer, performance artist, and community healer. She is the author of Falling Back in Love with Being Human, a national bestseller in Canada, and the novel Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars, which was chosen by Emma Watson for her online feminist book club and shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award. Her poetry collection a place called No Homeland was an American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book, and her essay collection, I Hope We Choose Love, received a Publishing Triangle Award. She writes the advice column “Ask Kai: Advice for the Apocalypse” for Xtra.