Erin Lindsay McCabe is the author of the historical novel I Shall Be Near To You, a Goodreads Choice Awards semi-finalist. A 2010 graduate of the St. Mary’s College of California MFA program, she has taught composition at St. Mary’s and Butte College.

Gina L. Mulligan is the author of two historical novels, Remember the Ladies and From Across the Room. She’s won awards from the Abilene Writers Guild, San Francisco LitQuake, and the Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition. Gina is also the founder of the national charity Girls Love Mail.

Karen Joy Fowler has written literary, contemporary, historical, and science fiction. Her novels include Sarah Canary and The Jane Austen Book Club and most recently, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, which won the 2013 PEN/Faulkner Award and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2014.

Alex Myers's debut novel, Revolutionary, tells the story of his ancestor, Deborah Samson, who disguised herself as a man in 1782 and fought for over a year in the American Revolutionary War. In addition to writing, Alex also works as speaker and educator on topics around transgender identity.

Mary Volmer is the author of two novels: Crown of Dust and Reliance, Illinois. She’s the founding director of the Saint Mary’s College Honors Program, a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar, and she has been awarded residencies at Hedgebrook and the Vermont Studio Center. She teaches at Saint Mary’s College.

Ron Charles is the editor of Book World at The Washington Post, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, and an NBCC board member. Before moving to DC, he edited the books section of The Christian Science Monitor in Boston.

Jennifer Egan is the author of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize–winning novel A Visit from the Goon Squad. She has written four other critically acclaimed books and her nonfiction appears frequently in the New York Times Magazine. Egan is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in fiction, and a Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Fellowship at the New York Public Library.

Karen Joy Fowler has written literary, contemporary, historical, and science fiction. Her novels include Sarah Canary and The Jane Austen Book Club and most recently, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, which won the 2013 PEN/Faulkner Award and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2014.

Hannah Tinti is the author of the bestselling novel The Good Thief, which won The Center for Fiction's first novel prize, and the story collection Animal Crackers, a runner-up for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Her new novel, The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley, will be published in March 2017. She teaches creative writing at New York University’s MFA program and co-founded the Sirenland Writers Conference. Tinti is also the co-founder and editor-in-chief of One Story magazine, which won the AWP Small Press Publisher Award in 2014.

Ken Chen is the Executive Director of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and a recipient of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award for his poetry collection, Juvenilia, which was selected by Louise Glück. He is one of the founders of CultureStrike, an arts organization dedicated to migrant justice.

Monica Youn is the author of Blackacre, Ignatz, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and Barter. She has been a Wallace Stegner Fellow and a Witter Bynner Fellow. She currently teaches poetry at Princeton University and at the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.

Marie Myung-Ok Lee is the author of the novel Somebody's Daughter and one forthcoming. Her fiction has appeared the Kenyon Review, FiveChapters, TriQuarterly, Witness, and Guernica. Her nonfiction has appeared in the Atlantic, Salon, New York Times, and the Nation. She teaches creative writing at Brown and Columbia.

Juan Martinez is an assistant professor at Northwestern University. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Huizache, Ecotone, Glimmer Train, McSweeney’s, Conjunctions, Selected Shorts, Sudden Fiction Latino: Short-Short Stories from the United States and Latin America, and elsewhere.

Irina Reyn is the author of the novels The Imperial Wife and What Happened to Anna K, as well as the anthology, Living on the Edge of the World: New Jersey Writers Take on the Garden State. She teaches creative writing at the University of Pittsburgh.

Lesley Nneka Arimah is the author of the forthcoming collection What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky. Her short stories have appeared in the New Yorker, Harper's, GRANTA, and elsewhere.

Carmen Maria Machado is the author of the forthcoming collection Her Body and Other Parties. Her fiction, criticism, and essays have appeared in the New Yorker, Granta, NPR, and elsewhere. She’s a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and the Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers' Workshop.

Kendra Fortmeyer is the prose editor for Broad! magazine with an MFA in fiction from the New Writers Project at UT Austin. Her stories have appeared in One Story, Black Warrior Review, the Literary Review, the Toast, and elsewhere, and her debut novel is forthcoming.

Sofia Samatar is the author of the novels A Stranger in Olondria and The Winged Histories. Her work has appeared in the New Inquiry, The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, and elsewhere.

Juan Martinez is an assistant professor at Northwestern University. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Huizache, Ecotone, Glimmer Train, McSweeney’s, Conjunctions, Selected Shorts, Sudden Fiction Latino: Short-Short Stories from the United States and Latin America, and elsewhere.