Rigoberto González is the author of thirteen books. He is the recipient of Guggenheim and NEA fellowships, winner of the American Book Award, the Poetry Center Book Award, the Shelley Memorial Award, and a grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts. He is professor of English at Rutgers-Newark.

LeAnne Howe writes novels, plays, creative nonfiction, and poetry. Her latest book, Choctalking on Other Realities is a memoir. She’s has won multiple awards including the 2012 United States Artist Ford Fellowship, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas, and American Book Award.

Alison Hawthorne Deming is author of five poetry books, with the forthcoming Stairway to Heaven, and four nonfiction books including Zoologies: On Animals and the Human Spirit. She is Agnese Nelms Haury Chair of Environment & Social Justice at the University of Arizona and a Guggenheim Fellow.

Neela Vaswani is author of the short story collection Where the Long Grass Bends; a memoir, You Have Given Me a Country; and coauthor of the YA novel-in-letters, Same Sun Here. She teaches at Manhattanville College's MFA in writing program and Spalding University’s brief-residency MFA program.

Bret Lott