CHRIS BACHELDER is the author of several novels, including THE THROWBACK SPECIAL, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. His most recent book, co-written with Jennifer Habel, is the novel DAYSWORK. He lives in Cincinnati and teaches fiction writing at the University of Cincinnati.

SARAH SHUN-LIEN BYNUM is the author of two novels, MS. HEMPEL CHRONICLES, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, and MADELEINE IS SLEEPING, a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize. Her fiction has appeared in the New Yorker, Ploughshares, Tin House, the Best American Short Stories, and the O. Henry Prize Stories. Her most recent book, the story collection LIKES, was a finalist for the Story Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

LYDI CONKLIN has received a Stegner Fellowship, four Pushcart Prizes, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, a Fulbright, a grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation, and fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, Ucross, Emory, Hedgebrook, Djerassi, and elsewhere. Their fiction has appeared in The Paris Review, One Story, McSweeney’s, American Short Fiction, and VQR. They are an Assistant Professor of Fiction at Vanderbilt University. Their story collection, RAINBOW RAINBOW, was longlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Award and The Story Prize. Their novel, SONGS OF NO PROVENANCE, was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize.

AMITAVA KUMAR is the author of several works of nonfiction and four novels. His latest book, MY BELOVED LIFE, was praised by James Wood in The New Yorker as “beautiful, truthful fiction,” and Salman Rushdie called it “magnificent.” Kumar’s work has appeared in Granta, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Harper’s, BRICK, Guernica, The Nation, and many other publications. Kumar’s awards include a Guggenheim fellowship, a Cullman Center Fellowship at the New York Public Library, and residencies from Yaddo, MacDowell, the Lannan Foundation, and the Hawthornden Foundation. He is the Helen D. Lockwood Professor of English at Vassar College.

MARGOT LIVESEY has taught at numerous colleges, writing programs and writers’ conferences, including Emerson College and the Warren Wilson College low residency MFA program. She is currently an emeritus professor at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She has received grants from the NEA, the Guggenheim Foundation and the Radcliffe Institute. She is the author of a collection of stories and ten novels, including THE FLIGHT OF GEMMA HARDY, THE BOY IN THE FIELD, and most recently, THE ROAD FROM BELHAVEN. She has also published a craft book: THE HIDDEN MACHINERY: ESSAYS ON WRITING.

JILL MCCORKLE is the author of seven novels and five story collections; her latest novel HIEROGLYPHICS was published in 2020 and her new collection, OLD CRIMES, was published in January 2024. Her work has appeared in numerous periodicals and four of her short stories have been selected for Best American Short Stories. She has taught at Harvard, Brandeis, NC State and in the Bennington College Writing Seminars.

CLAIRE MESSUD’S bestselling novels include THE EMPEROR’S CHILDREN, THE WOMAN UPSTAIRS, and THE BURNING GIRL, a finalist for the LA Times Book Award in Fiction. She is also the author of a book of novellas, THE HUNTERS (2001), and a memoir-in-essays, KANT’S LITTLE PRUSSIAN HEAD & OTHER REASONS WHY I WRITE (2020). Her work has been translated into over twenty languages. She writes for Harper’s Magazine, The New York Review of Books, and the New York Times, among other publications. Her most recent novel, THIS STRANGE EVENTFUL HISTORY (2024) was awarded an American Book Award, and was selected as a book of the year by the Washington Post, the Financial Times, the New Yorker, Vogue, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly and as a top ten historical novel by the New York Times.

CHINELO OKPARANTA is the author of HAPPINESS, LIKE WATER; UNDER THE UDALA TREES; HARRY SYLVESTER BIRD; and the forthcoming novel, THIS IMPOSSIBLE LIFE. Her honors include two Lambda Literary Awards, an O. Henry Prize and finalist selections for the International Dublin Literary Award, the NAACP Image Award in Fiction, the NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award, and the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative in Literature, among others. She has been longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize and the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. In 2017, Okparanta was named one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists, and in 2018 she served as a fiction judge for the U.S. National Book Awards.

MAURICE CARLOS RUFFIN is the author of National Bestseller, THE AMERICAN DAUGHTERS, as well as THE ONES WHO DON’T SAY THEY LOVE YOU, a One Book One New Orleans selection, which was longlisted for the Story Prize. His debut, WE CAST A SHADOW, was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and the PEN America Open Book Prize. All three books were New York Times Editor’s Choice selections. Ruffin is the winner of the Iowa Review Award in fiction and the Louisiana Writer Award. Ruffin is an associate professor of Creative Writing at Louisiana State University.

STEPHANIE POWELL WATTS is the Robert D. Rodale Chair of Writing at Lehigh University. She is the author of the novel NO ONE IS COMING TO SAVE US, the winner of an NAACP Award for Fiction. Her story collection, WE ARE TAKING ONLY WHAT WE NEED is a recipient of the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in the Best American Essays, Oxford American, the New York Times, BBC International and many other venues.

Born in Puerto Rico, JAQUIRA DÍAZ was raised between Humacao, Fajardo, and Miami Beach. She is the author of ORDINARY GIRLS: A MEMOIR, winner of a Whiting Award, a Florida Book Awards Gold Medal, a Lambda Literary Awards finalist, an American Booksellers Association Indies Introduce Selection, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection, an Indie Next Pick, a Library Reads pick, and finalist for the B&N Discover Prize. Her debut novel, THIS IS THE ONLY KINGDOM, longlisted for the Center for Fiction 2025 First Novel Prize, was published October 2025. She lives in New York and teaches at Columbia University.

AMY LEACH is the author of three books of nonfiction: THINGS THAT ARE, THE EVERYBODY ENSEMBLE, and THE SALT OF THE UNIVERSE, a 2025 Finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. She earned her MFA from the Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa, and her work has appeared in The Best American Essays, The Best American Science and Nature Writing, and numerous other publications, including Granta, Orion, Tin House, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. She is a recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Award, and a Pushcart Prize.

ALEX MARZANO-LESNEVICH is the author of THE FACT OF A BODY: A MURDER AND A MEMOIR, which received a Lambda Literary Award, the Chautauqua Prize, the Grand Prix des Lectrices Elle, the Prix des Libraires du Quebec, and the Prix France Inter-JDD. Their essays appear in The Best American Essays 2020 and 2022 editions, as well as many magazines and journals. A 2023 United States Artist fellow, they now live in Vancouver and teach at the University of British Columbia. Their next book is the transgender and trans-genre memoir BOTH AND NEITHER, forthcoming from Doubleday and publishers internationally.

ELENA PASSARELLO’s essays on pop culture and the natural world have appeared in publications including National Geographic, Paris Review, Oxford American, Audubon, and McSweeney’s. She is the author of two essay collections, LET ME CLEAR MY THROAT and ANIMAL’S STRIKE CURIOUS POSES, which was a best book of the year in New York Times, the Guardian, and Publisher’s Weekly and listed among LitHub’s best essay collections of the last decade. Elena is the recipient of a Whiting Award and the Blackwell Prize, and she appears weekly across the country on PRX’s arts and culture radio program, Live Wire.

MARIANNE CHAN grew up in Stuttgart, Germany, and Lansing, Michigan. She is the author of ALL HEATHENS (Sarabande Books, 2020), which was the winner of the 2021 GLCA New Writers Award, and LEAVING BIDDLE CITY (Sarabande Books, 2024). Her poems have appeared in Poetry, Best American Poetry, New England Review, Kenyon Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. She is an assistant professor of creative writing at Old Dominion University and teaches poetry in the Warren Wilson College MFA program for Writers.

EDUARDO C. CORRAL is the son of Mexican immigrants. He's the author of GUILLOTINE and SLOW LIGHTNING, which won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition. He’s the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lannan Foundation Literary Fellowship, a Whiting Writers’ Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a Hodder Fellowship. He teaches in the MFA program at Washington University in St. Louis.

DANIELLE CADENA DEULEN is a poet and essayist. Her most recent collection, DESIRE MUSEUM, won a 2024 Lambda Literary Award. Her previous books include LOVELY ASUNDER, OUR EMOTIONS GET CARRIED BEYOND US, and a memoir, THE RIOTS. Her honors include a Pushcart Prize, the AWP Prize in Creative Nonfiction, an Oregon Literary Fellowship, the GLCA New Writers Award, the Utah Book Award, an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship, and a Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellowship. She teaches for the graduate creative writing program at Georgia State University in Atlanta.

ANANDA LIMA is the author of CRAFT: STORIES I WROTE FOR THE DEVIL (Tor Books, 2024) and MOTHER/LAND (Black Lawrence Press, 2021), winner of the Hudson Prize. Her work has appeared in American Poetry Review, Poets.org, Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. She is a Contributing Editor at Poets & Writers and Program Curator at StoryStudio, Chicago. CRAFT, her fiction debut, was longlisted for the Story Prize and the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. The New York Times describes it as “a remarkable debut that announces the arrival of a towering talent in speculative fiction.”

CARL PHILLIPS’s latest book of poems is SCATTERED SNOWS, TO THE NORTH (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2024). His THEN THE WAR: AND SELECTED POEMS 2007-2020 (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2022) won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize. Other honors include the Jackson Poetry Prize, the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Award, the Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Library of Congress. Phillips has also written three prose books, most recently MY TRADE IS MYSTERY: SEVEN MEDITATIONS FROM A LIFE IN WRITING (Yale, 2022). He lives in Massachusetts.

CAKI WILKINSON is the author of three poetry collections: THE SURVIVAL EXPO (2021), THE WYNONA STONE POEMS (2015), and CIRCLES WHERE THE HEAD SHOULD BE (2011). She is the recipient of a Ruth Lilly Fellowship, the Vassar Miller Prize, the Lexi Rudnitsky Editor’s Choice Award from Persea Books, and a Tennessee Arts Commission Fellowship. Her poems have appeared in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The Nation, Kenyon Review, and other magazines. She lives in Memphis and teaches at Rhodes College.

BRITTANY K. ALLEN is a Brooklyn-based writer and actor. Her plays have been produced and developed by Manhattan Theatre Club, Clubbed Thumb, Ensemble Studio Theatre, WPLab, Bushwick Starr, Portland Center Stage, Jungle Theater, Studio Theatre, and KC Rep, among other places, and her radio plays and podcasts have been produced by Audible/Fresh Produce Media and Playing On Air. She currently holds commissions from Playwrights Horizons, The Civilians/NYSCA, and Portland Center Stage, and she's an alumna of EST/Youngblood, the Emerging Writers Group at The Public Theater, and the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group at Primary Stages. Awards include the Daryl Roth Creative Spirit Award, the Dramatists Guild Foundation Comedic Playwriting Prize, recognition on the Kilroys List, and a Van Lier New Voices Playwriting Fellowship via the late Lark. Her writing life has been supported by fellowships to Hedgebrook, MacDowell, and Ucross, and she is a resident playwright with Colt Coeur. As an actor, she’s recently appeared off-Broadway in world premieres by Julia May Jonas, Michael Walek, Abe Koogler, and Talene Monahon. As an educator, she has taught and dramaturged at ESPA, Portland Center Stage, and Washington University in St. Louis.

NATHAN ALAN DAVIS is a playwright and screenwriter based in New York and Boston. His writing for the stage includes THE REFUGE PLAYS (Roundabout Theatre/NYTW), NAT TURNER IN JERUSALEM (NYTW), THE HIGH GROUND (Arena Stage), ETERNAL LIFE PART 1 (Wilma Theater), ORIGIN STORY (Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park), THE WIND AND THE BREEZE (Cygnet Theatre), and DONTRELL WHO KISSED THE SEA (NNPN Rolling World Premiere). For his body of work, Nathan has received a Windham-Campbell Prize, a Steinberg Playwright Award, and a Whiting Award in Drama. His TV/film work includes projects for Netflix, AMC, BET, and Paramount. He is the Director of the MFA Playwriting Program at Boston University.

ANNE WASHBURN’s plays have been produced nationally and internationally and include MR. BURNS, A POST ELECTRIC PLAY, 10 OUT OF 12, ANON, ANTLIA PNEUMATICA, THE BURNING CAULDRON OF FIERY FIRE, A DEVIL AT NOON, APPARITION, THE COMMUNIST DRACULA PAGEANT, I HAVE LOVED STRANGERS, THE LADIES, LITTLE BUNNY FOO FOO, THE INTERNATIONALIST, SHIPWRECK, THE SMALL, and transadaptations of Euripides’ IPHIGENIA IN AULIS and ORESTES. Honors include an Alpert Award, a Guggenheim, a PEN/Laura Pels award for artist in mid-career, twice a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn, a Whiting, the Hermitage Major Theater Award, and residencies at MacDowell and Yaddo.

LAUREN YEE’s plays include CAMBODIAN ROCK BAND (South Coast Rep, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, La Jolla Playhouse, Signature Theatre, and others), KING OF THE YEES (Goodman Theatre, Center Theatre Group, and others) MOTHER RUSSIA (Seattle Rep, upcoming at Signature Theatre), and THE GREAT LEAP (Denver Center, Steppenwolf, Seattle Rep, Atlantic Theatre, and others). She is writing the book for the musical adaptation of Madeleine L'Engle's A WRINKLE IN TIME. Honors include the Doris Duke Artists Award, Whiting Award, Steinberg/ATCA Award, Horton Foote Prize, and Kesselring Prize. TV: Pachinko (Apple), Soundtrack (Netflix), Interior Chinatown (Hulu), Billions (Showtime), Clipped (FX). She has developed pilots for Apple and Netflix. Current commissions: Arena Stage/Second Stage, Geffen Playhouse, La Jolla Playhouse, South Coast Rep. B.A: Yale. M.F.A: UCSD. laurenyee.com