Jennifer Egan is the author of several novels and a short story collection.  Her 2017 novel, Manhattan Beach, a New York Times bestseller, was awarded the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and was chosen as New York City’s One Book One New York read.  Her previous novel, A Visit From the Goon Squad, won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and was recently named one of the best books of the decade by Time Magazine and Entertainment Weekly.  Her new novel, The Candy House, a companion to A Visit From the Goon Squad, was named one of the New York Times’s 10 Best Books of 2022 and one of President Obama’s favorite reads of the year. She recently completed a term as President of PEN America and is currently Artist-in-Residence in the English Department at the University of Pennsylvania.  Also a journalist, her year-long reporting on street homelessness and supportive housing in New York City was published in The New Yorker in September, 2023. Photo: Pieter M. van Hattem

Tania James is the author of four works of fiction, all published by Knopf: The Tusk That Did the Damage, which was a finalist for the International Dylan Thomas Prize and the Financial Times Oppenheimer Award; Aerogrammes and Other Stories, named a Best Book of 2012 by Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, and The San Francisco Chronicle; and the novel Atlas of Unknowns, which was a New York Times Editor’s Choice and a finalist for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. Her short stories have appeared in Freeman’s: The Future of New Writing; Granta; The New Yorker; O, The Oprah Magazine; and One Story, among other places, and featured on Symphony Space Selected Shorts. She has received fellowships from the Macdowell Colony, Ragdale, the Sustainable Arts Foundation, and the Fulbright Program. An associate professor of English in the MFA program at George Mason University, her new novel, Loot, was published by Knopf Doubleday in June 2023 and longlisted for the National Book Award for fiction. Photo: Elliott O’Donovan.

Saïd Sayrafiezadeh is the author of, most recently, the story collection, American Estrangement, a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize. His memoir, When Skateboards Will Be Free, was selected as one of the 10 best books of the year by Dwight Garner of The New York Times, and his story collection, Brief Encounters With the Enemy, was a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Fiction Prize. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, The Best American Short Stories, Granta, and McSweeney’s, among other publications. He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award for nonfiction and a Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers’ fiction fellowship. He leads the Creative Nonfiction track in Hunter’s MFA program, and teaches undergraduate writing at NYU, where he received an outstanding teaching award. Photo: Beowulf Sheehan

Hannah Tinti is the co-founder and executive editor of One Story magazine. She is the author of the bestselling novel The Good Thief, which won The Center for Fiction’s first novel prize, and the story collection Animal Crackers, a runner-up for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Her most recent novel, The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley, is a national bestseller and is in development for television. She co-founded the Sirenland Writers Conference in Italy and has taught writing at New York University’s Graduate Creative Writing Program, Columbia University’s MFA program, CUNY, and at the Museum of Natural History in New York City.  For more information please visit hannahtinti.com.