Leila Wilson is the author of The Hundred Grasses. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, A Public Space, American Letters & Commentary, Denver Quarterly, Canary, and elsewhere. She teaches creative writing and literature at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Jon Pineda is the author of Apology, which won the Milkweed National Fiction Prize in 2013. His other work includes the memoir Sleep in Me and three collections of poems. In 2016, he received the Library of Virginia Literary Award.

A widely published journalist and freelance writer, Miriam Karmel is the author of Being Esther. Her work has been published in AARP The Magazine, Minnesota Women’s Press, Bellevue Literary Review, and Minnesota Monthly. She lives in Sandisfield, Massachusetts and Minneapolis.

Michael Bazzett is the author of You Must Remember This, which received the 2014 Lindquist & Vennum Prize for Poetry, The Interrogation, and most recently The Echo Chamber. He is also the translator of The Popol Vuh, the first English verse translation of the Mayan creation epic, which was named a New York Times Best Book of 2018. His poems have appeared in numerous publications, including Ploughshares, The Sun, and Best New Poets. He is a 2017 National Endowment for the Arts Fellow and lives in Minneapolis.

Jim Heynen is the author of, most recently, Ordinary Sins and The Fall of Alice K. Born on a farm in Northwest Iowa, Heynen was formerly the Books Editor of the Minneapolis Star Tribune and now lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Alison Hawthorne Deming is the author of numerous works of nonfiction and poetry, most recently Zoologies: On Animals and the Human Spirit and the collections of poems Stairway to Heaven and Death Valley: Painted Light. She is currently the Agnese Nelms Haury Chair of Environment and Social Justice and Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Arizona.

Sara Eliza Johnson is the author of Vapor and Bone Map, which was a winner of the 2013 National Poetry Series.

Lee Ann Roripaigh is the author of numerous collections of poems, including Dandarians and tsunami vs. the fukushima 50. She serves as Editor-in-Chief of South Dakota Review and directs the creative writing program at the University of South Dakota. She is currently the South Dakota Poet Laureate.

Larry Watson is the author of numerous novels, including Montana 1948, American Boy, As Good As Gone, and Let Him Go, which was adapted into a film by Focus Features and released in 2020. Born in Rugby, North Dakota, he grew up in Bismarck and is now Visiting Professor at Marquette University. He lives in Milwaukee.

William Souder is an award-winning journalist and is the author of three books, including Under a Wild Sky: John James Audubon and the Making of The Birds of America, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He lives in Grant, Minnesota.