Naomi Krupitsky is a writer and editor. Her debut novel, The Family, was an Instant New York Times bestseller, a TODAY Show Read With Jenna Book Club Pick, a Book of the Month Pick, and a Barnes and Noble Discovery Pick when it was published in 2021. She has edited work for clients ranging from high school students applying for college to faculty at Harvard University. She lives in San Francisco with her partner and son, where she is at work on a second novel. 

Richard Thomas is the award-winning author of nine books: four novels—Incarnate (Podium), Disintegration and Breaker (Penguin Random House Alibi), and Transubstantiate (Otherworld Publications); four short story collections—Spontaneous Human Combustion (Turner Publishing—Bram Stoker finalist), Tribulations (Cemetery Dance), Staring Into the Abyss (Kraken Press), and Herniated Roots (Snubnose Press); as well as one novella of The Soul Standard (Dzanc Books).

His over 175 stories in print include The Best Horror of the Year (Volume Eleven), Cemetery Dance (twice), Behold!: Oddities, Curiosities and Undefinable Wonders (Bram Stoker Award winner), The Hideous Book of Hidden Horrors (Shirley Jackson Award winner), Lightspeed, PANK, storySouth, Gargoyle, Weird Fiction Review, Midwestern Gothic, Shallow Creek, The Seven Deadliest, Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories, Qualia Nous (#1&2), Chiral Mad (#2-4), PRISMS, Pantheon,and Shivers VI. He has won contests at ChiZine and One Buck Horror, has received five Pushcart Prize nominations, and has been long-listed for Best Horror of the Year seven times.

He has been a finalist for the Bram Stoker (twice), Shirley Jackson, Thriller, and Audie awards. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief at Gamut magazine and previously held the same title at Dark House Press. His agent is Paula Munier at Talcott Notch.

Richard received his MFA in 2012 from Murray State University, and has taught at the University of Iowa, Story Studio Chicago, LitReactor.com, and Writer’s Digest University, as well as his own classes at StoryvilleOnline.com (including such offerings as Short Story Mechanics, Contemporary Dark Fiction, an Advanced Creative Writing Workshop, and Novel in a Year.) While he primarily writes speculative fiction (fantasy, science fiction and horror) he also writes, edits, teaches, and publishes other genres and sub-genres, such as neo-noir, thrillers, new-weird, Southern gothic, magical realism, and literary fiction.

He lives and works in Chicago.

David O’Neill is a writing coach, editor, and author specializing in nonfiction, art writing, and cultural criticism. He was an editor at Bookforum magazine for fourteen years, working with Jesse Barron, Melissa Febos, Molly Fischer, Sheila Heti, Chris Kraus, Lauren Oyler, Charlotte Shane, Jeff Sharlet, Jennifer Wilson, Audrey Wollen, and many other well-known authors. He was an associate editor of Jason Moran’s Loop magazine and has over a decade of experience as a freelance editor of essays, art books, novels, book proposals, and pitches.

His writing has appeared in or is forthcoming from Affidavit, Artforum, 4Columns, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the New Yorker’s Page Turner, the Paris Review Daily, and the Times Literary Supplement. In 2018, he co-edited the book Weight of the Earth: The Tape Journals of David Wojnarowicz, published by Semiotext(e). He’s taught writing at the School of Visual Arts, the New School for Social Research, and Catapult. A resident of New York City, he lives to help writers reach their full potential.

Ariel Courage is the author of the novel Bad Nature. She is a graduate of the Brooklyn College MFA program, where she was editor-in-chief of the Brooklyn Review, and is currently an assistant fiction editor at Agni. Her short work has appeared in Guernica, New Limestone Review, and The End. She was also a 2019 Kimmel Harding Nelson resident. 

In May 2024, Erin left her position as Professor of English Literature at Syracuse University and moved to Richmond, Virginia. A practiced teacher and mentor, she has decades of experience working with writers at every level, from first-year students mastering the elements of fiction and the rigors of the critical essay, to Ph.D. candidates engaged in the sustained elaboration of a dissertation thesis. Recently, she has been working as a writing coach and editor for academics in the Humanities and Social Sciences. She collaborates with these professors and researchers on books, articles, presentations, reports, applications, and proposals. With students, Erin focuses on advancement through the foundational skills of reading, writing, and textual analysis. Accompanying them every step of the way, Erin serves as a guide as students generate ideas, draft outlines, and revise and refine their writing. With all her clients, Erin identifies practices that help transform their experiences, ideas, achievements, and aspirations into compelling texts resonant with the originating voice of their author.

In Richmond, Erin tutors at the READ Adult Literacy Center and is a docent at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture. From her undergraduate studies in Classics at The Johns Hopkins University, her Ph.D. in English Literature from Princeton University, and on through her lengthy academic career, Erin’s professional, volunteer, and leisure activities have centered on language, literature, culture, and history. A long-time student of Spanish, Erin has traveled extensively in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Spain. She brings to all her coaching and editing work an active awareness of cultures and histories as well as a dedicated engagement with language and literature.

Erin has published books and essays on English and Latin American literature and served as an editor and referee for academic presses and journals. Her academic writing focuses on fashion and gender, the popular periodical and the public sphere, the West Indies, masculinity and criminality, satire, and the novel.

Steven Duong received his MFA in Fiction from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. The recipient of fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, Kundiman, and the University of Iowa, he currently teaches undergraduate creative writing at Emory University, where he is the 2023-2025 Creative Writing Fellow in Poetry. His poems appear in The American Poetry Review, The Atlantic, and Guernica, among other publications.

His fiction can be found in Catapult and The Drift, as well as The Best American Short Stories 2024, edited by Lauren Groff. Before pursuing graduate studies and becoming a university writing instructor, he worked in editing and communications for a literary arts nonprofit. His debut poetry collection, At The End of the World There is a Pond, was published in January 2025 by W. W. Norton.

Jill Spivey Caddell is an experienced researcher, teacher, and writer. Currently based in the Crozet/Charlottesville area of Virginia, she has held faculty positions at the University of Kent, American University, George Mason University, and Glenelg Country School and was a tutor at the University of Cambridge’s Institute for Continuing Education. She is also a co-project director of Commemorative Cultures: The American Civil War Monuments Database, based at St. Andrews University.

In 2015, Jill received her Ph.D. in English at Cornell University, where her dissertation received the Guilford Prize for Highest Achievement in English Prose. Her scholarly work has appeared in New England Quarterly; the collection Literary Cultures of the American Civil War (University of Georgia Press, August 2016); J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists; and Visions of Glory: The Civil War in Word and Image (University of Georgia Press, November 2019). Jill is also is a regular contributor of essays, interviews, and reviews to Apollo: The International Art Magazine and has written reviews and criticism for JSTOR Daily, Longreads, CNN Opinion, The Conversation, and The Rambling.

Yen Pham is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop MFA, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow. Prior to Iowa, she graduated from Harvard with a BA in English and from Oxford, where she studied on a Rhodes Scholarship. In addition to fiction, Yen has written as a journalist for publications including The New York Times, n+1, Bookforum, Literary Hub, The White Review, and the London Review of Books website. Writing across literature, culture, and politics, she has interviewed and profiled writers such as Sally Rooney, Ottessa Moshfegh, Ocean Vuong, and Elif Batuman, and won prizes for her longform journalism.

She has taught at the University of Iowa and the University of Melbourne, as well as in creative writing programs for high schoolers.

Donna Vatnick is a researcher, writer, and educator based in Providence, Rhode Island. She was the selected teaching fellow at Washington University in St. Louis after graduating with her MFA in nonfiction. Before calling herself a creative writer, Donna worked in molecular biology labs and coordinated clinical trials in Boston. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Review, The Millions, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s Insight, and more.

Donna has years of experience editing dissertations, theses, and academic papers in the social and medical sciences. She has taught creative writing at the university level, designed curriculums and led workshops. Recently, she won the Newman Exploration Travel Grant to research her upcoming book about the human liver.

Karen Maine is an award-winning and acclaimed screenwriter and film and television director. Directing credits include NOBODY WANTS THIS (Netflix), STARSTRUCK (HBOMax), and the 20th Century feature film ROSALINE. Her debut feature film YES, GOD, YES, which she wrote and directed, premiered at SXSW and was named one of The New Yorker’s Best Movies of 2020. Karen co-wrote OBVIOUS CHILD, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2014 and was distributed by A24.

A former book editor, Karen also has over a decade of editorial experience in literary publishing -- overseeing both fiction and nonfiction titles. She has worked at Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, HarperCollins, The Paris Review, SLICE magazine, and Daunt Books Publishing in London.

Books Karen has worked on have been praised by the New York Times, New Yorker, New York Times Book Review, Wall Street Journal, New Republic, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Guardian, Chicago Tribune, Vanity Fair, NPR, Buzzfeed, Forbes, Discover, Nature, Scientific American, Newsweek, Bust, Bustle, Bookforum, Kirkus (*), Publishers Weekly (*), Library Journal (*), and New York Review of Books. Her titles have been selected as New York Times Critics’ Top Books of the Year, as well as awarded the BBC National Short Story Award.

Jennifer Krasinski is a writer and cultural critic who frequently contributes to 4Columns, Artforum, Bookforum, the New Yorker (Goings On), and other publications. Her essays have been published in numerous books and catalogs including Reza Abdoh, Jill Johnston: The Disintegration of a Critic, and Hilton Als's Andy Warhol: The Series. She was an art columnist for the Village Voice from 2014 to 2018, and served as both senior editor at Artforum and later as the magazine’s digital editorial director, launching their video series “Artists On Writers,” and “Under the Cover.” She was on faculty in the MA Art Writing department at the School of Visual Arts (2013–2021), and has taught at Art Center College of Design, New York University, Yale University, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of an Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant (2012), a Rauschenberg residency (forthcoming), and is a 2023–24 MacDowell fellow. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Michael Miller is the editor in chief of Bookforum magazine. He began his writing career at the Village Voice, where he was a freelance reporter, a copy editor, and an editor at the Voice Literary Supplement. He has also worked at Spin and Time Out New York, where he was the lead book critic from 2005 to 2010. Michael has served on the board of the National Book Critics Circle, has taught in NYU's Criticism and Cultural Reporting department, and has edited a number of books, both fiction and nonfiction. He enjoys working with writers of all levels.

Yasmin Adele Majeed is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and has taught creative writing to undergraduates at the University of Iowa. Her fiction appears in American Short Fiction, the Asian American Literary Review, and Best Debut Short Stories 2022, and other writing can be found in Electric Literature and the New York Review of Books Daily. She is the recipient of fellowships from Kundiman, the Periplus Collective, and Kweli, and the winner of the 2023 American Short(er) Fiction Prize. Prior to graduate school, she worked for five years as an editor for The Margins, a literary magazine published by the Asian American Writers' Workshop, where she edited fiction, creative non-fiction, and reported pieces.

Robert Laidler is an assistant professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, a graduate of the University of Michigan’s Helen Zell Writing Program, and the author of a poetic libretto, The Fallen Petals of Nameless Flowers, which premiered at Chamber Music Detroit in 2022. Most recently he was a finalist for the 2023 National Poetry Series and the Adrift Chapbook Contest. His poems can be found in Missouri Review, Ilanot, Driftwood, Oxford, and elsewhere.