Tyler McMahon is the author of the novels How the Mistakes Were Made and Kilometer 99. He studied at the University of Virginia and Boise State University. He teaches writing at Hawaii Pacific University, edits the Hawaii Pacific Review, and organizes the annual Ko`oalu Writers Workshop.

Joanna Luloff is the author of the short story collection The Beach at Galle Road. She is an assistant professor at the University of Colorado, Denver where she edits fiction and nonfiction for Copper Nickel.

Peter Chilson teaches writing and literature at Washington State University. He has written three books on West Africa. In 2012, on assignment for Foreign Policy magazine, he was one of the first Western journalists to travel the new border with the short-lived jihadist state in northern Mali.

Susan Rich is author of four books of poetry, including Cloud Pharmacy and The Alchemist’s Kitchen, and coeditor of The Strangest of Theatres published by the Poetry Foundation. A recipient of awards from the Times Literary Supplement and Fulbright Foundation, she teaches at Highline College.

Sandra Meek is the author of five books of poetry, including An Ecology of Elsewhere, Road Scatter, and the Dorset Prize–winning Biogeography, and the editor of Deep Travel: Contemporary American Poets Abroad. A 2011 NEA fellow, Meek served in the Peace Corps in Botswana from 1989–1991.