Barton Sutter is the only author to win the Minnesota Book Award in three different categories: poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. He has written for public radio, he has had four verse plays produced, and he regularly performs as one half of The Sutter Brothers, a poetry-and-music duo.

Susan McLean is a poet, author of The Best Disguise and The Whetstone Misses the Knife, and translator of Selected Epigrams by Martial. She teaches at Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall, Minnesota.

David Jauss is the author of three books of short fiction, most recently Glossolalia: New & Selected Stories; two books of poetry; and a collection of essays on the craft of fiction, Alone with All That Could Happen. He teaches in the MFA in Writing Program at Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Stephen Dunn is the author of eighteen books of poetry, including the recently released Whereas, and Different Hours, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, among other honors.

Biljana D. Obradović, Serbian-American poet, has authored three collections, the newest of which is Incognito; translated authors such as Gery, Kunitz, Weigl, de Rachewiltz, Osundare, Milanovic, and the anthology Cat Painters of Serbian Poetry; and teaches at Xavier University of LA in New Orleans.