Jane Ciabattari is author of the short story collections Stealing the Fire and California Tales. She is National Book Critics Circle Vice President/Online (NBCC President 2008–2011), a book columnist for BBC Culture, contributor to NPR.org and Lit Hub, and a San Francisco Writers Grotto member.

Phil Klay served in the United States Marine Corps and was deployed to Iraq in 2007. He is the author of the short story collection, Redeployment. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Daily Beast, Newsweek, and elsewhere.

Hector Tobar is a novelist and journalist. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling Deep Down Dark, on the saga of the Chilean miners, and the critically acclaimed novels The Barbarian Nurseries and The Tattooed Soldier. He is an assistant professor at the University of Oregon.

Amy Wilentz is the author of Farewell, Fred Voodoo, winner of the 2013 National Book Critics Circle autobiography award, The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier, Martyrs’ Crossing, and I Feel Earthquakes More Often Than They Happen. She teaches literary nonfiction at UC Irvine and has been honored with PEN, Whiting, and American Academy of Arts and Letters Rosenthal awards.