She grew up in Chappaqua, New York, and studied at Barnard College and New York University. Swenson has been Poet-in-Residence at Skidmore College, the University of Idaho, University of Denver, Clark University, Scripps College and Barnard College. She taught at City College, New York. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Paris Review, American Poetry Review, "Saturday Review", and "The New Yorker".

Stewart O'Nan is the author of eighteen novels, including Emily, Alone; Last Night at the Lobster; A Prayer for the Dying; Snow Angels; and the forthcoming Ocean State, due out from Grove/Atlantic on March 8th, 2022. With Stephen King, I’ve also co-written Faithful, a nonfiction account of the 2004 Boston Red Sox, and the e-story “A Face in the Crowd.” You can catch me at stewart-onan.com, on Twitter @stewartonan and on Facebook @stewartONanAuthor

Margo Rabb is the author of the novels Lucy Clark Will Not Apologize, Kissing in America, Cures for Heartbreak, and the Missing Persons series. Kissing in America and Cures for Heartbreak both received four starred reviews; Kissing in America was named a best book of the year by the New York Public Library, the Chicago Public Library, and the American Library Association, and was named to the Amelia Bloomer Project’s List of Recommended Feminist Literature. Her essays, journalism, book reviews, and short stories have been published in The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, The Atlantic, Slate, Salon, Marie Claire, The Rumpus, Zoetrope: All-Story, Seventeen, Best New American Voices, New Stories from the South, One Story, One Teen Story, and elsewhere, and have been broadcast on NPR. She received the grand prize in the Zoetrope short story contest, first prize in The Atlantic fiction contest, first prize in the American Fiction contest, and a PEN Syndicated Fiction Project Award. She’s received fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, and the Sewanee Writer’s Conference. Margo grew up in Queens, New York, and has lived in Texas, Arizona, and the Midwest; she now lives in the Philadelphia area with her family. website: www.margorabb.com Instagram: @margo_rabb Twitter: @margorabb

James Carlos Blake is one of the America's most highly regarded living authors of historical crime fiction. Born in Mexico, his family moved regularly when he was a child, living in various towns along the border and coast before finally settling in Texas when he was six. After a stint in the army, Blake attended the University of South Florida and received a Master's degree from Bowling Green State University, both universities where he would later teach. In 1997 he left teaching to write full-time. Blake's first novel, The Pistoleer, was published in 1995 to overwhelming acclaim. Its unusual format—with each chapter told from a different character's perspective—caused critics to dub it an unusually promising debut. Since then Blake has written eight novels and one collection of stories, most of which dealt with real-life characters from the American west. He lives and works in Arizona.