Kathleen Driskell's newest poetry collection is Next Door to the Dead, a Kentucky Voices Selection. Her collection Seed Across Snow was listed as a national bestseller by the Poetry Foundation. Kathleen is a director of the Spalding Low-Residency MFA Program.

Rebecca Walker is an award-winning writer and lecturer, named by Time magazine as one of the most influential leaders of her generation. She is the author of the memoirs Black, White and Jewish and Baby Love, and the novel Adé: A Love Story.

Rachel Harper is the author of two novels: Brass Ankle Blues and This Side of Providence. She has received fellowships from Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and the RI State Council on the Arts. Harper is on the faculty at Spalding University’s brief-residency MFA in writing program.

Fenton Johnson is author of The Man Who Loved Birds and two previous novels, as well as Geography of the Heart: A Memoir and Keeping Faith. A contributor to Harper's Magazine and recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, he is on the creative writing faculty at the University of Arizona and Spalding University.

Julie Brickman