Loren D. Estleman graduated from Eastern Michigan University in 1974 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature and Journalism. In 2002, his alma mater presented him with an honorary doctorate in letters. He left the job market in 1980 to write full time, after a few years spent "pounding out beat-the-train journalism" during his day job as a reporter before going home and writing fiction at night.

His first novel was published in 1976, and has been followed by 80 books and hundreds of short stories and articles. His series include novels about Detroit detective Amos Walker, professional killer Peter Macklin, L.A. film detective and amateur sleuth Valentino, and the Detroit crime series. On the western side is the U.S. Deputy Marshal Page Murdock series. Additionally, he's written dozens of stand-alone novels.

His books have been translated into 27 languages and have won multiple Shamus, Spur, Western Heritage, and Stirrup awards. He has been nominated for the National Book Award and the Edgar Allan Poe Award. In 2012, the Western Writers of America honored him with the Lifetime Achievement Award.

He lives in Michigan and is married to writer Deborah Morgan. Find out more about Estleman and his books on his website: lorenestleman.com

P.J. Parrish is actually two sisters, Kristy Montee and Kelly Nichols. Their books have appeared on both the New York Times and USA Today best seller lists. The series has garnered 11 major crime-fiction awards, and an Edgar® nomination. Parrish has won two Shamus awards, one Anthony and one International Thriller competition. Her books have been published throughout Europe and Asia. Parrish's short stories have also appeared in many anthologies, including two published by Mystery Writers of America, edited by Harlan Coben and the late Stuart Kaminsky. Their stories have also appeared in Akashic Books acclaimed Detroit Noir, and in Ellery Queen Magazine. Most recently, they contributed an essay to a special edition of Edgar Allan Poe's works edited by Michael Connelly.

J. Malcolm Garcia is the author of The Khaarijee: A Chronicle of Friendship and War in Kabul; What Wars Leave Behind: The Faceless and Forgotten; Without A Country: The Untold Story of America's Deported Veterans; Riding through Katrina with the Red Baron's Ghost: A Memoir of Friendship, Family and a Life Writing; Fruit of All My Grief: Lives In the Shadows of the American Dream; and A Different Kind of War: Uneasy Encounters in Mexico and Central America. His book, Most Dangerous, Most Unmerciful: Stories from Afghanistan, will be published by Seven Stories Press in July 2022. Garcia is a recipient of the Studs Terkel Prize for writing about the working classes and the Sigma Delta Chi Award for excellence in journalism. His work has been anthologized in Best American Travel Writing, Best American Nonrequired Reading, and Best American Essays.

Kevin Prufer is the author of six books of poetry and the editor of numerous anthologies, the most recent of which are Churches (Four Way Books, 2014), In a Beautiful Country (Four Way Books, 2011), National Anthem (Four Way Books, 2008), New European Poets (Graywolf Press, 2008; w/ Wayne Miller), Until Everything is Continuous Again: Essays on the Work of W. S. Merwin (WordFarm Editions, 2012; w/ Jonathan Weinert), and Catherine Breese Davis: on the Life & Work of an American Master (Unsung Masters, 2015; w/Martha Collins & Martin Rock).

His forthcoming book of poems, How He Loved Them, will be published by Four Way Books.

His forthcoming edited volumes include Into English: An Anthology of Multiple Translations (Graywolf, 2016, w/Martha Collins) and Literary Publishing in the 21st Century (Milkweed, 2016; w/Wayne Miller and Travis Kurowski).

Prufer is also Editor-at-Large of Pleiades: A Journal of New Writing, Co-Curator of the Unsung Masters Series, and Professor in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston and the low-residency MFA at Lesley University.

Dennis Lehane (born Aug 4th, 1966) is an American author. He has written several novels, including the New York Times bestseller Mystic River, which was later made into an Academy Award winning film, also called Mystic River, directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, and Kevin Bacon (Lehane can be briefly seen waving from a car in the parade scene at the end of the film). The novel was a finalist for the PEN/Winship Award and won the Anthony Award and the Barry Award for Best Novel, the Massachusetts Book Award in Fiction, and France's Prix Mystere de la Critique.

Bio and photo from Goodreads.

George P. Pelecanos was born in Washington, DC in 1957. His first novel was published in 1992 and alongside his consequential success as an author, he has also worked as producer, writer and story editor for the acclaimed and award-winning US crime series, The Wire. His writing for the show earned him an Emmy nomination.

He is the author of fifteen crime novels set in and around Washington, DC. The Big Blowdown was the recipient of the International Crime Novel of the Year award in both Germany and Japan; King Suckerman was shortlisted for the Gold Dagger Award in the UK. His short fiction has appeared in Esquire and the collections Unusual Suspects and Best American Mystery Stories of 1997. He is an award-winning journalist and pop-culture essayist who has written for the Washington Post.

Pelecanos can also claim credit for involvement in the production of several feature films. Most recently, as a screenwriter for film, he has written an adaptation of King Suckerman for Dimension Films, and was co-writer on the Paid in Full.

His novel Right as Rain is currently in development with director Curtis Hanson (LA Confidential, Wonder Boys) and Warner Brothers. He is a writer on the upcoming World War II miniseries The Pacific, to be produced by Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, and HBO. Pelecanos lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with his wife and three children. He is at work on his next novel.

One of the best crime writers working today, Ace Atkins has been nominated for every major award in crime fiction, including the Edgar three times, twice for novels about former U.S. Army Ranger Quinn Colson. He's written eight books in the Colson series, with many more to come. He continued Robert B. Parker's iconic Spenser character after Parker's death in 2010, and has added seven best-selling novels in that series.

A former newspaper reporter and SEC football player, Ace also writes essays and investigative pieces for several national magazines including Time, Outside, and Garden & Gun.

He lives in Oxford, Mississippi with his family, where he’s friend to many dogs and several bartenders.

Find out more about Ace and his novels on his official website: aceatkins.com, on Facebook Ace Atkins, and on Twitter @aceatkins.

Linda L. Richards is the award-winning author of fifteen books. The founder and publisher of January Magazine and a contributing editor to the crime fiction blog The Rap Sheet, she is best known for her strong female protagonists in the thriller genre. Richards is from Vancouver, Canada and currently makes her home in Phoenix, Arizona. Her latest book, ENDINGS, was published by Oceanview Publishing in 2021. A PW starred review said that this “harrowing tale of love, loss, and the value of life is not to be missed.” A sequel, EXIT STRATEGY, will be published spring 2022. Linda’s 2021 novel, ENDINGS, was recently optioned by a major studio for series production.

Luis Alberto Urrea, 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist for nonfiction and member of the Latino Literature Hall of Fame, is a prolific and acclaimed writer who uses his dual-culture life experiences to explore greater themes of love, loss and triumph.

Born in Tijuana, Mexico to a Mexican father and an American mother, Urrea has published extensively in all the major genres. The critically acclaimed and best-selling author of 13 books, Urrea has won numerous awards for his poetry, fiction and essays. The Devil's Highway, his 2004 non-fiction account of a group of Mexican immigrants lost in the Arizona desert, won the Lannan Literary Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Pacific Rim Kiriyama Prize. An historical novel, The Hummingbird's Daughter tells the story of Teresa Urrea, sometimes known as the Saint of Cabora and the Mexican Joan of Arc. The book, which involved 20 years of research and writing, won the Kiriyama Prize in fiction and, along with The Devil's Highway, was named a best book of the year by many publications. It has been optioned by acclaimed Mexican director Luis Mandoki for a film to star Antonio Banderas.

Urrea's most recent novel, Into the Beautiful North, imagines a small town in Mexico where all the men have immigrated to the U.S. A group of young women, after seeing the film The Magnificent Seven, decide to follow the men North and persuade them to return to their beloved village. A national best-seller, Into the Beautiful North, earned a citation of excellence from the American Library Association Rainbow's Project. A short story from Urrea's collection, Six Kinds of Sky, was recently released as a stunning graphic novel by Cinco Puntos Press. Mr.Mendoza's Paintbrush, illustrated by artist Christopher Cardinale, has already garnered rave reviews and serves as a perfect companion to Into the Beautiful North as it depicts the same village in the novel.

Into the Beautiful North, The Devil's Highway and The Hummingbird's Daughter have been chosen by more than 30 different cities and colleges for One Book community read programs.

Urrea has also won an Edgar award from the Mystery Writers of America for best short story (2009, "Amapola" in Phoenix Noir). His first book, Across the Wire, was named a New York Times Notable Book and won the Christopher Award. Urrea also won a 1999 American Book Award for his memoir, Nobody's Son: Notes from an American Life and in 2000, he was voted into the Latino Literature Hall of Fame following the publication of Vatos. His book of short stories, Six Kinds of Sky, was named the 2002 small-press Book of the Year in fiction by the editors of ForeWord magazine. He has also won a Western States Book Award in poetry for The Fever of Being and was in The 1996 Best American Poetry collection. Urrea's other titles include By the Lake of Sleeping Children, In Search of Snow, Ghost Sickness and Wandering Time.

Urrea attended the University of California at San Diego, earning an undergraduate degree in writing, and did his graduate studies at the University of Colorado-Boulder.

After serving as a relief worker in Tijuana and a film extra and columnist-editor-cartoonist for several publications, Urrea moved to Boston where he taught expository writing and fiction workshops at Harvard. He has also taught at Massachusetts Bay Community College and the University of Colorado and he was the writer in residence at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette.

Urrea lives with his family in Naperville, IL, where he is a professor of creative writing at the University of Illinois-Chicago.

Joe R. Lansdale is the author of over thirty novels and numerous short stories. His work has appeared in national anthologies, magazines, and collections, as well as numerous foreign publications. He has written for comics, television, film, newspapers, and Internet sites. His work has been collected in eighteen short-story collections, and he has edited or co-edited over a dozen anthologies.

Lansdale has received the Edgar Award, eight Bram Stoker Awards, the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Grinzani Cavour Prize for Literature, the Herodotus Historical Fiction Award, the Inkpot Award for Contributions to Science Fiction and Fantasy, and many others.

A major motion picture based on Lansdale's crime thriller Cold in July was released in May 2014, starring Michael C. Hall (Dexter), Sam Shepard (Black Hawk Down), and Don Johnson (Miami Vice). His novella Bubba Hotep was adapted to film by Don Coscarelli, starring Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis. His story "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road" was adapted to film for Showtime's "Masters of Horror." He is currently co-producing a TV series, "Hap and Leonard" for the Sundance Channel and films including The Bottoms, based on his Edgar Award-winning novel, with Bill Paxton and Brad Wyman, and The Drive-In, with Greg Nicotero.

Lansdale is the founder of the martial arts system Shen Chuan: Martial Science and its affiliate, Shen Chuan Family System. He is a member of both the United States and International Martial Arts Halls of Fame. He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas with his wife, dog, and two cats.

Milton T. Burton (1947-2011) authored four crime novels published by Minotaur/Thomas Dunne. Like Wier, Burton was a lifelong Texan who breathed the Texas lingo. Burton had been variously a cattleman, a political consultant, and a college history teacher. A cantankerous but generous man, he liked writing and he liked talking to his friends, especially George Wier. He died in December 2011.

Early life and career

A fifth-generation Texan and native Houstonian, Sarah Cortez graduated from St. Agnes Academy in high school, and then attended Rice University majoring in Psychology and Religion. Her first graduate degree was in Classical Studies at the University of Texas in Austin.

She began her career by teaching high school in Houston, TX, then completing an M.S. in Accountancy from the University of Houston-Central, Houston, TX. An overwhelming interest in civic organizations and neighborhood safety brought her a series of volunteer positions with Neartown Association, ultimately resulting in citywide appointments to commissions and boards.

This civic participation spawned another burning interest: law enforcement. She enrolled in the police academy at the University of Houston-Downtown’s Criminal Justice Center. Upon graduation, she began as a law enforcement officer in Harris County, TX. She remained an active-duty patrol police officer until 1999, when she began working as a reserve officer, so she could devote more attention to her writing and editing careers. She remains a reserve officer in Harris County.

Career as a Writer and Editor

In 1999, Sarah Cortez's poems won the PEN Texas Literary Award in Poetry. In 2000, her debut volume of poetry, "How to Undress a Cop" (Arte Público Press, 2000), was published which won praise from Publishers Weekly: “By turns erotic, tender, and gritty ... Powerfully direct.”

During this time, she began a relationship with the University of Houston, where she served as Visiting Scholar, 1999-2001. She is the only Visiting Scholar for the Center for Mexican Studies who has been awarded two consecutive one-year appointments. There she began her work with young people fearful of writing. This experience evolved into her first anthology, "Urban Speak: Poetry of the City" (Center for Mexican American Studies, University of Houston, 2002), which contains poems by her students.

Her work on anthologies of poems, memoir, and short stories honed her skills as a trusted and prize-winning editor, producer, and public speaker. Since "Urban Speak: Poetry of the City", she has conceptualized and edited eight original anthologies:

"Windows into My World: Latino Youth Write Their Lives" (Arte Público Press, 2007)

Winner of a 2008 Skipping Stones Honor Award

- Says Booklist: “This collection illuminates both the familiar coming-of-age experiences that transcend cultural differences and the moments that are unique to Latinos in the States.”

- Says the San Antonio Express-News: “It should be a must-read book in every high school senior-level English class due to its thought provoking subject matter".

"Hit List: The Best of Latino Mystery" (Arte Público Press, 2009)

- Says Mystery Scene: “Genre-busting stories, some of them tender, some of them brutal, all of them offering an intriguing Latino slant.”

"Indian Country Noir" (Akashic Noir Series, 2009)

"You Don’t Have a Clue: Latino Mystery Stories for Teens" (Piñata Books, 2011)

- Finalist, 2012 International Latino Book Award

- Says Booklist (starred review): “This excellent collection gives faces to Latino teens in a most original way.”

In 2012, her spiritual memoir, "Walking Home: Growing Up Hispanic in Houston" (Texas Review Press, 2012) was published. She drew on the stories overheard as a child from and about her parents, grandparents, and other family members a deep faith centered in the Catholic religion. Partnered in the book are poems and short prose sections recalling her childhood and adolescence. This book received Honorable Mentions in the Los Angeles Book Festival Awards and the Great Southwest Book Festival.

"Cold Blue Steel" (Texas Review Press, 2013) is a collection of poems reflecting on law enforcement thirteen years after "How to Undress a Cop". She “employs frank language in sharp lyrics charged with weary passion”, says Diego Báez in Booklist. According to reviewer Jeffrey C. Alfier in Rattle: “Cortez’s lines were formed in the cauldron of an American Realist tradition: hard truths told with sharp fidelity by a large city beat cop.” This book, according to reviewer Paul David Adkins (Louisiana Literature) says: “Ms. Cortez explores what it means to be female in the traditionally man’s world of law enforcement, governed by violence, cynicism, and despair.” One of the poems in this book won an honorable mention in Rattle’s annual contest in 2011, and the book placed finalist in the 2014 Writers League of Texas Poetry Awards and the PEN Southwest Book Award in Poetry.

'Our Lost Border: Essays on Life Amid the Narco-Violence ' (Arte Público Press, 2013)

- Winner of the 2014 International Latino Book Award in the Best Spanish or Bilingual Latino Focused Nonfiction Book category;

- Winner of the 2013 Southwest Book Award;

- Finalist for the 2013 Foreword Reviews Book of the Year Award – Adult Nonfiction Anthology.

'Goodbye, Mexico: Poems of Remembrance ' (Texas Review Press, 2015)

- Finalist for the 2014 International Latino Book Award

- Says reviewer Octavio Quintanilla in Southwestern American Literature: “Overall, Goodbye, Mexico is not only a chronicle of what the poets miss and love about Mexico, but it is also a collective voice that wants change, that wants healing for the country etched in our memory, the Mexico we knew, the Mexico we believe is still there.”

"Vanishing Points: Poems and Photographs of Texas Roadside Memorials" (Texas Review Press, 2016)

A 2016 Southwest Book of the Year

Winner Press Women of Texas 2016 Award for Editing

Says reviewer Alyson Ward in the Houston Chronicle, "Vanishing Points: Poems and Photographs of Texas Roadside Memorials" pairs Streck's photographs with poems by Cortez and three others. It's a sobering, gorgeous collection..."

"Against the Sky's Warm Belly: New and Selected Poems" (Texas Review Press, 2016) reprises her favorite poems from previous publications and adds new, insightful work.

"Tired, Hungry, Standing in One Spot for Twelve Hours: Essential Cop Essays" (Texas Review Press, 2018) is her memoir of 24 years in law enforcement, where she is still active. Says T.K. Thorne, retired police captain and award-winning author of "Angels at the Gate," “Cortez has caught the essence of what it means to be a police officer with its “endless boredoms and dirt . . . its tiny, stark terrors” and the “hidden rewards of intense camaraderie, sense of mission, and the fulfillments of justice and duty.” She has explained the unexplainable in a fascinating read without flinching and with the eye of a poet."

Her essays, poems, short essays, and book chapters have been published worldwide. They have been short-listed for honors, such as the Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards. Her poetry has been part of the Poetry In Motion program of the Poetry Society of American, and been delivered and displayed at the United Nations in New York City as part of the Eighth Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Today, she is in demand as an editor for all sub-genres of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. She teaches creative writing workshops throughout the U.S. and abroad. And, she continues to write both prose and poetry.

Jessica Powers became a birth stories junkie when she was six years old and, nosing around her mother's diary, came across a description of her own birth. Her mother was in labor for only 90 minutes before Powers arrived and, according to her dad, Jessica's been in a hurry ever since.

You can find out more about Jessica at her blog, www.jlpowers.net, or at the fertility-related zine she publishes, www.fertilesource.com.

Rasna Warah is a Kenyan writer and journalist. She writes a weekly column for the Daily Nation, Kenya's largest newspaper, and is the author of five books: Unsilenced (2016); War Crimes (2014); Mogadishu Then and Now(2012); Red Soil and Roasted Maize (2011); and Triple Heritage (1998). She has also edited an anthology called Missionaries, Mercenaries and Misfits (2008) that critiques the aid industry in East Africa. Ms. Warah has worked for the United Nations as an editor and writer for more than ten years and has been writing about urban and social issues for more than two decades. Her photo essays on Nairobi, Mumbai, Kabul, Havana and Mogadishu have been published in, among other publications, the East African, UN Chronicle, People and the Planet, Cityscapes and UN-Habitat's State of the World's Cities report series. For more information on her books, visit her website www.rasnawarahbooks.com

Stanley Gazemba is the author of the novel The Stone Hills of Maragoli, recipient of the Jomo Kenyatta Prize, which is published in the U.S. as Forbidden Fruit by The Mantle of New York City. His collection of short stories, Dog Meat Samosa, will be published by Regal House Press in 2019. His other novels include Khama (short-listed for the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize) and Callused Hands (Nsemia). His novel, Ghettoboy, was shortlisted for the Kwani? Manuscript Prize, but it is still unpublished.

He has also published eight children’s books entitled Shaka Zulu-Warrior King, Poko and the Jet, Poko at the Koras, The Herds boy and the Princess, Tobi and the Street boy, Ant’s Clay castle, A Scare in the Village (recipient of the Jomo Kenyatta Prize) and Grandmother’s Winning Smile (long-listed for the Macmillan Prize).

His fiction has appeared in ‘A’ is for Ancestors, a collection of short stories from the Caine Prize (Jacana); The Literary Review-Africa Calling ( Fairleigh Dickinson University); Man of the House and other new Short Stories from Kenya (CCC Press); Crossing Borders online magazine; Africa’39: New Writing From Africa South of the Sahara (Bloomsbury); World Literature Today (University of Oklahoma); among other publications.

He is a journalist by training, and has written for Msanii magazine, Sunday Nation, Saturday Nation, The New York Times and The East African. He was International Fellow at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in 2007. He lives in Nairobi and currently works as editor at Ketebul Music.

Jane Hamilton is the author of The Book of Ruth, winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award for first fiction, and A Map of the World, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and named one of the top ten books of the year by Entertainment Weekly, Publishers Weekly, the Miami Herald, and People. Both The Book of Ruth and A Map of the World have been selections of Oprah's Book Club. Her following work, The Short History of a Prince, was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 1998, her novel Disobedience was published in 2000, and her last novel When Madeline Was Young was a Washington Post Best Book of 2006. She lives in and writes in an orchard farmhouse in Wisconsin.

Called a hard-boiled poet by NPR’s Maureen Corrigan and the “noir poet laureate” in the Huffington Post, Reed Farrel Coleman is the author of twenty novels. He has just been signed to continue Robert B. Parker’s Jesse Stone series and to begin a new series of his own for Putnam. He is a three-time recipient of the Shamus Award for Best PI Novel of the year and a three-time Edgar Award nominee in three different categories. He has also won the Audie, Macavity, Barry, and Anthony awards. He is an adjunct English instructor at Hofstra University as well as a founding member of Mystery Writers of America University. Reed lives with his family on Long Island.

Nick Petrie is the bestselling author of the award-winning Peter Ash series. A husband and father, he has worked as a roofer, carpenter, remodeling contractor, and freelance building inspector. He lives in Milwaukee. For more on Nick Petrie, including essays about writing, see his website, www.nickpetrie.com

Jennifer Morales is a poet, fiction writer, and performance artist whose work focuses on questions of identity, complicity, gender, and harm. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University-Los Angeles in 2011, and is a board member of the Driftless Writing Center. Meet Me Halfway: Milwaukee Stories, her collection of interconnected short stories about life in hyper-segregated Milwaukee, was chosen by the Wisconsin Center for the Book as the 2016 Wisconsin Book of the Year.

Before moving to rural Wisconsin to focus on her writing, Morales lived for nearly 25 years in Milwaukee, where she helped raise a diverse bunch of kids and served as the first Latino/a representative on the Milwaukee Public Schools board. She also was a Sunday School teacher, an activist on LGBT, women's, workers', and environmental issues, a visiting writer in the schools, a grant writer, and a doula.

Larry Watson was born in 1947 in Rugby, North Dakota. He grew up in Bismarck, North Dakota, and was educated in its public schools. Larry married his high school sweetheart, Susan Gibbons, in 1967. He received his BA and MA from the University of North Dakota, his PhD from the creative writing program at the University of Utah, and an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Ripon College. Watson has received grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (1987, 2004) and the Wisconsin Arts Board.

Larry Watson is the author of the novels IN A DARK TIME; MONTANA 1948; WHITE CROSSES; LAURA; ORCHARD; SUNDOWN, YELLOW MOON; AMERICAN BOY; LET HIM GO; AS GOOD AS GONE; the fiction collection JUSTICE; the chapbook of poetry LEAVING DAKOTA; and the poetry collection, LATE ASSIGNMENTS. Watson's fiction has been published in ten foreign editions, and has received prizes and awards from Milkweed Press, Friends of American Writers, Mountain and Plains Booksellers Association, New York Public Library, Wisconsin Library Association, Critics' Choice, and The High Plains Book Award. MONTANA 1948 was nominated for the first IMPAC Dublin international literary prize. The movie rights to MONTANA 1948 and JUSTICE have been sold to Echo Lake Productions and WHITE CROSSES and ORCHARD have been optioned for film. The 2020 movie version of his book LET HIM GO stars Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Lesley Manville, Jeffrey Donovan, and Boo Boo Stewart.

He has published short stories and poems in Gettysburg Review, New England Review, North American Review, Mississippi Review, and other journals and quarterlies. His essays and book reviews have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, and other periodicals. His work has also been anthologized in Essays for Contemporary Culture, Imagining Home, Off the Beaten Path, Baseball and the Game of Life, The Most Wonderful Books, These United States, Writing America, West of 98, Tales of Two Americas, and Milwaukee Noir.

Watson taught writing and literature at the University of Wisconsin/​Stevens Point for 25 years before joining the faculty at Marquette University in 2003 as a Visiting Professor. He retired from Marquette in 2017. He has also taught and participated in writers conferences in Colorado, Montana, Arizona, New Mexico, North Dakota, Texas, Vermont, Wisconsin, St. Malo and Caen, France.

Larry's latest novel, THE LIVES OF EDIE PRITCHARD, was published by Algonquin Books in 2020 . He and Susan live in Kenosha, Wisconsin. They have two daughters, Elly and Amy, and two grandchildren, Theodore and Abigail.

ROBERT ANTONI is the author of the landmark novel Divina Trace, for which he received a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and an NEA grant. His other books include Blessed Is the Fruit, My Grandmother’s Erotic Folktales, and Carnival. He was a 2010 Guggenheim Fellow (for his work on As Flies to Whatless Boys), and recently received the NALIS Lifetime Literary Award from the Trinidad & Tobago National Library. He now lives in Manhattan and teaches in the graduate writing program at the New School University.

Elizabeth Nunez immigrated to the US from Trinidad after completing high school there. She is the author of eight novels. Boundaries (PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award and nominated for the 2012 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Fiction); Anna In-Between (long-listed for an IMPAC Dublin International Award and starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Library Journal ); Prospero's Daughter (2010 Trinidad and Tobago One Book, One Community selection; New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, 2006 Florida Center for the Literary Arts One Book, One Community selection, and 2006 Novel of the Year for Black Issues Book Review); Bruised Hibiscus (American Book Award); Discretion (short-listed for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award); Grace; Beyond the Limbo Silence (Independent Publishers Book Award); and When Rocks Dance. Most of Nunez’s novels have also been published as audio books, and two are in translation, in Spanish and German. Nunez has also written several monographs of literary criticism published in scholarly journals, and is co-editor of the anthology, Blue Latitudes: Caribbean Woman Writers at Home and Abroad.

Nunez was co-founder of the National Black Writers Conference, which she directed for eighteen years with grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Reed Foundation and the Nathan Cummings Foundation. She was executive producer for the 2004 Emmy nominated CUNY TV series, Black Writers in America. Her awards include 2013 National Council for Research on Women Outstanding Trailblazer Award; 2013 Caribbean American Distinguished Writer Award; 2012 Trinidad and Tobago Lifetime Literary Award; 2011 Barnes and Noble Poets and Writers, Writers for Writers Award. Nunez is a member of several boards, including the Center for Fiction, and CUNY TV. She is a judge for several national and international literary awards, including the Dublin IMPAC International Literary Award, and gives readings of her work across the country and abroad. Nunez received her PhD in English from New York University. She is a Distinguished Professor at Hunter College, the City University of New York, where she teaches creative writing, fiction.

MEGAN ABBOTT is the Edgar award-winning author of seven novels, including DARE ME, THE END OF EVERYTHING and her latest, THE FEVER, which won both the International Thriller Writers and Strand Critics Award for Best Novel and was chosen one of the Best Books of the Year by Amazon, National Public Radio, the Boston Globe and the Los Angeles Times. Her stories have appeared in anthologies including Detroit Noir, Queens Noir and the Best American Mystery Stories of 2014.

She is also the author of The Street Was Mine, a study of hardboiled fiction and film noir. Her next novel, You Will Know Me, comes out in July 2016. She has been nominated for awards including the Steel Dagger, the LA Times Book Prize and the Pushcart Prize. Currently, she is working on developing DARE ME and THE FEVER for television. Megan is a staff writer on HBO's forthcoming David Simon show, The Deuce.

Born in the Detroit area, she graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in English Literature and went on to receive her Ph.D. in English and American literature from New York University. She lives in Queens, New York City.