Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is the author of the bestselling short story collection Friday Black and the novel Chain-Gang All-Stars

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is the author of the bestselling short story collection Friday Black and the novel Chain-Gang All-Stars. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous publications, including Guernica, Compose: A Journal of Simply Good Writing, Printer’s Row, Gravel, and Breakwater Review, where he was selected by ZZ Packer as the winner of the 2nd Annual Breakwater Review Fiction Contest. He is from Spring Valley, New York. He graduated from SUNY Albany and went on to receive his MFA from Syracuse University.

(Photo credit: Alex M. Philip)

 

Aaliyah Bilal

Aaliyah Bilal was born and raised in Prince George’s County, Maryland. She has degrees from Oberlin College and the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies. She’s published stories and essays with The Michigan Quarterly Review and The Rumpus.

Aaliyah Bilal was born and raised in Prince George’s County, Maryland. She has degrees from Oberlin College and the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies. She’s published stories and essays with The Michigan Quarterly Review and The RumpusTemple Folk is her debut short story collection.

(Photo credit: Tasha Pinelo)

Eliot Duncan 

Eliot Duncan is a US-born writer and artist. He is the co-founder of the international queer collective Slanted House and a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He lives in London.

Eliot Duncan is a US-born writer and artist. He is the co-founder of the international queer collective Slanted House and a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He lives in London.

(Photo credit: Lucien Phoenix)

Paul Harding

Paul Harding is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Tinkers, and Enon. He is director of the MFA in Creative Writing and Literature at Stony Brook University, and lives on Long Island, New York.

Paul Harding is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Tinkers, and Enon. He is director of the MFA in Creative Writing and Literature at Stony Brook University, and lives on Long Island, New York.

(Photo credit: Sam Harding)

Tania James

Tania James is the author of the novels The Tusk That Did the Damage and Atlas of Unknowns and the short story collection Aerogrammes. Her fiction has appeared in Boston Review, Granta, Guernica, One Story, A Public Space, and The Kenyon Review.

Tania James is the author of the novels The Tusk That Did the Damage and Atlas of Unknowns and the short story collection Aerogrammes. Her fiction has appeared in Boston Review, Granta, Guernica, One Story, A Public Space, and The Kenyon Review. She lives in Washington, DC.

(Photo credit: Elliott O’Donovan)

Jayne Anne Phillips

Jayne Anne Phillips is the author of Black Tickets, Machine Dreams, Fast Lanes, Shelter, MotherKind, Lark and Termite, Quiet Dell, and Night Watch. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Bunting Fellowship, and two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships.

Jayne Anne Phillips is the author of Black Tickets, Machine Dreams, Fast Lanes, Shelter, MotherKind, Lark and Termite, Quiet Dell, and Night Watch. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Bunting Fellowship, and two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships. Winner of an Arts and Letters Award and the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a National Book Award Finalist, and two-time finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, she lives in New York and Boston.

(Photo credit: Elena Seibert)

Mona Susan Power

Mona Susan Power is an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. She is the author of three previously published works of fiction, The Grass Dancer, Sacred Wilderness, and Roofwalker.

Mona Susan Power is an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. She is the author of three previously published works of fiction, The Grass Dancer, Sacred Wilderness, and Roofwalker. Her short stories have been published by The Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, The Best American Short Stories, and more. Power is a graduate of Harvard University and the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She lives and teaches in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

(Photo credit: Ted Hall)

Hanna Pylväinen

Hanna Pylväinen is the author of the novel We Sinners, which received a Whiting Award and a Balcones Fiction Prize.

Hanna Pylväinen is the author of the novel We Sinners, which received a Whiting Award and a Balcones Fiction Prize. Her work has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, the New York Times, the New York Times MagazineChicago Tribune, and the Wall Street Journal; she is the recipient of fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Princeton University’s Lewis Center for the Arts, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the American-Scandinavian Foundation, and the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, as well as residencies from MacDowell, Yaddo, and the Lásságámmi Foundation. Currently, she is on the faculty at the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers. She lives in Philadelphia.

(Photo credit: Beowulf Sheehan)

Justin Torres

Justin Torres is the author of We the Animals, which won the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, was translated into 15 languages, and was adapted into a feature film.

Justin Torres is the author of We the Animals, which won the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, was translated into 15 languages, and was adapted into a feature film. He was named a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree, a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University, and a Cullman Center Fellow at the New York Public Library. His short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Granta, Tin House, and The Washington Post. He lives in Los Angeles, and teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles.

(Photo credit: JJ Geiger)