Richard Bausch is the author of 11 novels, most recently Peace, and eight collections of stories. In addition to other honors, he has received the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. Past Chancellor of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, he holds the Moss Chair of Excellence at the University of Memphis.
John Casey is the author of a story collection, a novella, and four novels, most recently Compass Rose. His novel Spartina won the National Book Award in 1989. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he is a professor of English literature at the University of Virginia.
Tony Earley is the author of a story collection, Here We Are in Paradise, which won him recognition from Granta and The New Yorker as one of America’s best young fiction writers. His novels are Jim the Boy and its sequel, The Blue Star. He is the Samuel Milton Fleming Professor of English at Vanderbilt University.
Randall Kenan is author of a novel, A Visitation of Spirits, and a collection of stories, Let the Dead Bury Their Dead, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, a nominee for a Los Angeles Times Book Prize for fiction, and was named a Notable Book by The New York Times. He teaches creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Margot Livesey is the author of a collection of stories and seven novels, most recently The House on Fortune Street, which received the L. L. Winship/PEN New England Award, and The Flight of Gemma Hardy. The fiction editor of Ploughshares, she is a Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at Emerson College in Boston.
Jill McCorkle has four story collections, most recently Going Away Shoes, and five novels. Recipient of the New England Book Award, the John Dos Passos Prize, and the North Carolina Award for Literature, she serves on the faculty at North Carolina State University.
Alice McDermott is the author of six novels, including Charming Billy, which received the National Book Award in 1998. A three-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction, she is currently the Richard A. Macksey Professor of Creative Writing in the Writing Seminars at The Johns Hopkins University.
Erin McGraw is the author of the novel The Baby Tree, and three story collections, most recently The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard. She teaches at The Ohio State University and lives in Columbus, Ohio.
Christine Schutt is the author of two short-story collections, Nightwork and A Day, a Night, Another Day, Summer. Her novel Florida was a National Book Award Finalist. Her second novel, All Souls, was a finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize. She lives and teaches in New York.
Steve Yarbrough is the author of three story collections—Family Men, Mississippi History, and Veneer—and five novels, most recently Safe from the Neighbors. A professor at Emerson College, he lives with his wife in Stoneham, Massachusetts.
Daisy Foote’s produced plays include Bhutan, When They Speak of Rita, God’s Pictures, and Farley and Betsy. This fall, her play Him will have its world premiere at Primary Stages in New York and her screenplay for The Church of Dead Girls will also be filmed. She was nominated for an Outer Critics Circle Award for Bhutan and awarded the Roger L. Stevens Incentive Award for her play Living with Mary.
Dan O’Brien’s widely produced plays include The House in Hydesville, The Voyage of the Carcass, The Dear Boy, and The Cherry Sisters Revisited, as well as the new plays The Body of an American and The Three Christs of Ypsilanti. His awards include the American Theatre Critics Association’s Osborn Award.
Daniel Anderson has published two books of poetry, Drunk in Sunlight and January Rain, and edited The Selected Poems of Howard Nemerov. He currently teaches in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Oregon.
Claudia Emerson was awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for her book, Late Wife: Poems. Her other poetry collections are Pharaoh, Pharaoh; Pinion: An Elegy; Figure Studies; and Secure the Shadow. She is a professor of English and Arrington Distinguished Chair in Poetry at The University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
Andrew Hudgins is the author of eight books of poetry and two books of essays, most recently American Rendering: New and Selected Poems and Diary of a Poem. He is Humanities Distinguished Professor of English at The Ohio State University and lives in Columbus, Ohio.
Maurice Manning’s fourth book of poetry, The Common Man, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2011. His other books include Lawrence Booth’s Book of Visions, A Companion for Owls, and Bucolics. Manning teaches in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College and lives in Kentucky.
Mary Jo Salter has published six books of poetry, most recently A Phone Call to the Future: New and Selected Poems. She also edited The Selected Poems of Amy Clampitt. She is Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Writing Seminars at The Johns Hopkins University.
Dave Smith has published numerous volumes of poetry and two collections of essays, most recently Hawks on Wires and Hunting Men: Reflections on a Life in American Poetry. He is the Elliot Coleman Professor of Poetry in the Writing Seminars at The Johns Hopkins University.
A.E. Stallings is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Olives, and a verse translation of Lucretius’s philosophical epic, The Nature of Things. She lives in Athens, Greece, where she serves as director of the poetry program at the Athens Centre.
Mark Strand has written numerous volumes of poetry, among them Blizzard of One, winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize. His many honors include a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship and serving as Poet Laureate of the United States in 1990. He teaches at Columbia University.