Marian Crotty is an assistant professor of writing at Loyola University Maryland. Recent writing has appeared in journals such as the Gettysburg Review, Guernica, and the New England Review.

Sheila O’Connor is the author of four novels including Keeping Safe the Stars, Sparrow Road, and Where No Gods Came. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she teaches fiction at Hamline University and serves as fiction editor for Water~Stone Review. Her work has been honored with the Michigan Prize for Literary Fiction.

Laurel Snyder is the author of five children's novels, six picture books, and two collections of poems. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, she has published essays in such places as Salon, The Boston Globe, and Utne Reader, and she is a commentator for NPR's All Things Considered.

Lynn Melnick is author of If I Should Say I Have Hope, a book of poems, and co-editor, with Brett Fletcher Lauer, of Please Excuse This Poem: 100 New Poets for the Next Generation. She teaches at 92Y and is the social media and outreach director for VIDA: Women in Literary Arts.

Stephanie Kuehn is the William C. Morris Award-winning author of Charm & Strange, Complicit, and the forthcoming Delicate Monsters. She writes realistic young adult fiction and is currently working toward a doctorate in clinical psychology.