Mallory Hellman is director of the the Iowa Youth Writing Project, a K–12 literacy outreach nonprofit. At the University of Iowa, she teaches Writers in the Community, a service-learning course focused on empowering marginalized youth through writing. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

Over the last two decades, Maya Nussbaum has grown Girls Write Now into a dynamic community of women writers and a nonprofit distinguished by the Nonprofit Excellence Awards and the White House as one of the top in New York and the nation.

Dora Malech is the author of two books of poems, Say So and Shore Ordered Ocean. Her poems have appeared in the New Yorker, Poetry, and elsewhere. She is an assistant professor of poetry at The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University.

Jonathan B. Tucker is a poet, teacher, DJ, and activist. Coach of the DC Youth Slam Team and Youth Programs Coordinator for the nonprofit Split This Rock, he uses performance poetry to raise issues of social justice and inspire dialogue and action. Jonathan has twice represented DC at the National Poetry Slam. His book, I Got the Matches, and other poems are available at jonathanbtucker.com.

James Kass is an award-winning writer, educator, producer, and media maker. He is the founder and Executive Director of Youth Speaks, and creator and coexecutive producer of the eight-part HBO series Brave New Voices. James is widely credited with helping to launch the youth spoken word movement.