Tree Swenson is executive director of Richard Hugo House in Seattle. She was previously executive director of the Academy of American Poets. A former AWP board president, her work in the literary arts began with co-founding Copper Canyon Press, where she was the publisher and director for twenty years.

Tess Gallagher is the author of eight books of poetry, most recently Midnight Lantern, New & Selected Poems, as well as three books of fiction and two of essays, and writings about the work of her late husband Raymond Carver.

Ru Freeman is a Sri Lankan & American writer whose political and creative work appears internationally. Her novels, A Disobedient Girl and On Sal Mal Lane, are published in English and in translation. She is a national speaker, and writes for the Huffington Post.

Justin Hocking is the Executive DIrector of the Independent Publishing Resource Center (IPRC) in Portland, Oregon. His writing has appeared in The Rumpus, The Normal School, Thrasher, and The Portland Review. He is also author of the memoir The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld.