Ayşe Papatya Bucak is the author of the collection The Trojan War Museum which was awarded the Spotlight Award by the Story Prize. Her stories have been reprinted in the O. Henry and Pushcart Prize anthologies, and she has received support from Yaddo, MacDowell, and other institutions. She lives in South Florida, where she teaches at Florida Atlantic University. Her novel The Anatolian Monster is forthcoming from W.W. Norton.

Jai Chakrabarti is the author of the novel A Play for the End of the World, which won the National Jewish Book Award for debut fiction, was the Association of Jewish Libraries Honor Book, was short-listed for the Tagore Prize, and was long-listed for the PEN/Faulkner Award. He is also the author of the story collection A Small Sacrifice for an Enormous Happiness, one of The New Yorker’s Best Books of 2023. His short fiction has been anthologized in The O. Henry Prize Stories, The Best American Short Stories, and awarded a Pushcart Prize.

Susanna Daniel is the author of three novels. Stiltsville was awarded the PEN/Bingham prize, Sea Creatures was a Target Book Club pick, and Girlfriending is a work of autofiction based on her award-winning short story, “The Goddess of Illicit Choices.”

Susanna co-founded the Madison Writers’ Studio with author Michelle Wildgen in 2013, and she’s coached hundreds of writers of fiction and creative nonfiction. She’s a graduate of Columbia University and the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and has earned residencies at the UW Institute for Creative Writing, the MacDowell Colony, and the UCross Foundation.

Lillian Li is the author of the novels Bad Asians and Number One Chinese Restaurant, which was an NPR Best Book of 2018, and longlisted for the Women’s Prize. Her work has been published in the New York Times, Granta, and Travel & Leisure. Originally from the D.C. metro area, she lives in Ann Arbor.

Susan Perabo’s most recent books are The Fall of Lisa Bellow (2017) and Why They Run the Way They Do (2016), both from Simon & Schuster. Her fiction has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories, Pushcart Prize Stories, New Stories from the South, and her work has appeared in places likeOne Story, Glimmer Train, Story, The New York Times, andThe Sun. She is a professor at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA.

Pitchaya Sudbanthad is the author of the novel Bangkok Wakes to Rain, selected as a notable book of the year by The New York Times and The Washington Post, as well as finalist for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. He has received fellowships in fiction writing from the New York Foundation for the Arts and MacDowell, and currently splits time between Bangkok and Brooklyn.

Lena Valencia is the author of the short story collection Mystery Lights (Tin House Books / Dead Ink Books), which was longlisted for the Story Prize, named a Best Short Story Collection of 2024 by Electric Literature, and a Best Horror Book of 2024 by Esquire. Her fiction has appeared in BOMB, The Baffler, Electric Literature, Ninth Letter, Epiphany, the anthology Tiny Nightmares, and elsewhere. Her writing has been supported by the Elizabeth George Foundation and the Convent Arts Fellowship, and she holds an MFA in fiction from The New School. For more information please visit lenavalencia.com.