Bob Morris is the author of Bobby Wonderful, Assisted Loving, and Crispin the Terrible, and is a frequent contributor to the New York Times. He has also been a commentator on NPR's "All Things Considered" and has written for the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, The Southampton Review, Elle, and other publications. His comic plays have been produced off Broadway and he collaborated with actress Diahann Carroll on her award-winning memoir, The Legs Are the Last to Go.

Dani Shapiro is the best-selling author of three memoirs: Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life; Devotion; and Slow Motion; and five novels: Black & White, Family History, Picturing the Wreck, Fugitive Blue, and Playing with Fire. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and magazines and has been widely anthologized. She has taught at Columbia, New York University, the New School, and Wesleyan. She is co-founder of the Sirenland Writers Conference and is a contributing editor at Travel + Leisure.

Ana Menéndez is the author of four books of fiction: In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd, Loving Che, The Last War, and Adios, Happy Homeland! She has worked as a journalist in the United States and abroad, lastly as a prize-winning columnist for The Miami Herald. Her work has appeared in Vogue, Bomb Magazine, Poets & Writers, and Gourmet Magazine and has been included in several anthologies, including Cubanisimo! and American Food Writing. She has lived in New Delhi, Istanbul, Cairo, Amsterdam, and Maastricht, where she recently developed a creative writing minor for Maastricht University.