Edward McPherson is the author of two nonfiction books, Buster Keaton: Tempest in a Flat Hat and The Backwash Squeeze and Other Improbable Feats. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in a number of venues, including The New York Times magazine. He teaches at Washington University in St. Louis.

Ethan Rutherford’s first book, The Peripatetic Coffin and Other Stories, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection for Summer 2013, has been long-listed for the Frank O’Connor Award, and was named by Publishers Weekly as one of the Best Books of Summer 2013.

Sandra Lim is the author of Loveliest Grotesque, a book of poems, and the forthcoming collection, The Wilderness, which was awarded the 2013 Barnard Women Poets Prize. She is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.

Amy Leach is the author of Things That Are. Her work has appeared in Best American Essays, A Public Space, and Orion. She has been recognized with the Whiting Writers' Award, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Award, and a Pushcart Prize, and she holds an MFA from the University of Iowa.

Jim Shepard is the author of six novels, including most recently Project X, and four story collections, including most recently Like You’d Understand, Anyway, which was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award and won The Story Prize, and You Think That’s Bad, released in 2011.