Erin Aubry Kaplan is a journalist, columnist, and author who began writing for the Los Angeles Times in 1992. She was a staff writer for the LA Weekly for nine years before returning to the Times in 2006 as a weekly op-ed columnist, the first African American to hold the position.

Tara Ison is the author of the novels Rockaway, The List, and A Child out of Alcatraz, as well as Reeling Through Life, a collection of essays, and the forthcoming short story collection Ball. She is an associate professor in the creative writing rogram at ASU.

Kelly Daniels is the author of the memoir Cloudbreak, California. A former MacDowell fellow, his work has appeared in the Sun, Cimarron Review, Hotel Amerika, Puerto del Sol, and elsewhere. A California expatriate, he teaches at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois.

Cris Mazza's latest book is Something Wrong with Her, a memoir. She recently wrote and starred in Turnaround, a feature film sequel to the memoir. She has sixteen other published books of fiction and nonfiction. Mazza is director of the program for writers at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Jane Rosenberg LaForge worked as a journalist for more than a decade on both coasts, before enrolling in the MFA program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She now teaches college composition and writes poetry, fiction, criticism, and personal essays.