Kevin Brockmeier is the author of the memoir A Few Seconds of Radiant Filmstrip; the novels The Illumination, The Brief History of the Dead, and The Truth About Celia; the story collections The Ghost Variations, Things That Fall from the Sky and The View from the Seventh Layer; and the children’s novels City of Names and Grooves: A Kind of Mystery. His work has been translated into seventeen languages. He teaches frequently at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and lives in Little Rock, Arkansas, where he was raised.

Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay is an award-winning Lao American poet, playwright, essayist, children’s book author, cultural producer, arts & cultural consultant, and philanthropist.

Willie Perdomo is the author of Smoking Lovely: The Remix (Haymarket Books, 2021), The Crazy Bunch (Penguin Random House, 2019), The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon (Penguin Random House, 2014), and Where a Nickel Costs of Dime (Norton, 1996). Winner of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Cy Twombly Award for Poetry, the New York City Book Award in Poetry, and the PEN Open Book Award, Perdomo was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Poetry Society of America Norma Farber First Book Award. He is co-editor of the anthology, Latínext, and his work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Poetry, Washington Post, The Best AmericanPoetry 2019, and African Voices. He is currently a Lucas Arts Literary Fellow, a core faculty member at VONA/Voices of our Nation Writing Workshop, and teaches at Phillips Exeter Academy.

Carson Faust is the debut author of When the Living Haunt the Dead (Viking, 2025). He is two-spirit, and an enrolled member of the Edisto Natchez-Kusso Tribe of South Carolina. He is the recipient of artist fellowships the McKnight Foundation and the Jerome Hill Foundation. His fiction has appeared in TriQuarterly, ANMLY, Waxwing Magazine, among other journals, and has been anthologized in Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology (Vintage, 2023). He lives in Minnesota, where he works in the philanthropic sector, and is at work on a second novel.

Claire Dederer is a memoirist, essayist, and critic. Her books include the national bestseller Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma; the critically acclaimed Love and Trouble: A Midlife Reckoning; and Poser: My Life in Twenty-three Yoga Poses, which was a New York Times bestseller.