Neil Connelly has taught writing for twenty years, including a decade running an MFA fiction workshop. Now at Shippensburg University, he advises the undergraduate journal the Reflector. He has published over a dozen short stories and five books. A collection and a third YA novel are forthcoming.

Cheryl Klein is the author of The Magic Words: Writing Great Books for Children and Young Adults. She is also the executive editor at Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., and she has taught editing at the School of Professional Studies at New York University.

Susan Shreve is the author of fourteen novels, most recently You Are the Love of My Life, a memoir, Warm Springs: Traces of a Childhood. She has published thirty books for children, six for Arthur A Levine/Scholastic, most recently The Search for Baby Ruby. She is professor of fiction in the George Mason University MFA program.

Eric Gansworth (Onondaga Nation) is the author of ten books in multiple genres, including the novels Extra Indians (American Book Award) and Mending Skins (PEN Oakland Award). His most recent book, If I Ever Get Out of Here, is a YA Novel. He is Lowery Writer in Residence at Canisius College.