Safia El Aaddam is a writer and activist, with a particular focus on mental health, migration and socially excluded minorities. She is one of the most important voices on antiracism in Spain today, with a huge social media following, especially on Instagram and TikTok. Daughter of Inmigrants is her first novel.

Amina Akhtar is a former fashion writer and editor. Her satirical first novel, FashionVictim, drew rave reviews and acclaim, and was covered in TheWall Street Journal, Forbes, Martha StewartLiving, Fashionista, Entertainment Weekly, BookRiot, Crime Reads and more. Amina’s worked at Vogue, Elle.com, Style.com, NYTimes.com, and NYMag.com, where she was the founding editor of The Cut blog. She’s written for numerous publications, including Yahoo Style, Fashionista, xoJane, Refinery29, Billboard, and more. She currently lives not too far from the Sedona vortexes. This is her second novel.

Elisa Albert is the author of After Birth (2015), The Book of Dahlia (2008), How This Night is Different (2006), and the editor of the anthology Freud’s Blind Spot (2010). Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Tin House, The New York Times, Post Road, The Guardian, Gulf Coast, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Believer, The Rumpus, Time Magazine, on NPR, and in many anthologies. Albert grew up in Los Angeles and received an MFA from Columbia University. Her next novel, Human Blues, is forthcoming from Avid Reader Press in 2022.

Beloved author of Little Women, Louisa May Alcott wrote her first novel, The Inheritance, when she was seventeen. The discovery and publication of the lost manuscript was a literary cause célèbre and became the basis for a CBS Sunday Night Movie. Aevitas Creative Management represents Louisa May Alcott’s literary estate.

Raised in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Dur e Aziz Amna's writing is inspired by her cross-cultural experiences in South Asia and the U.S.  She is the author of the debut novel American Fever, named one of the Must Read Books of 2022 by Harper’s Bazaar and a Most Anticipated Books of 2022 by Bustle. In its starred advance review, Kirkus called it “a funny and affecting novel, a wonderful new spin on the coming-of-age story," from the fresh perspective of a Pakistani Muslim in rural America. Bestselling author Fatima Farheen Mirza, author of the New York Times bestseller A Place for Us, hailed Amna’s “brilliant new voice.” American Fever was named a Best Book by The Christian Science Monitor, USA Today,  Bustle, Vogue India, and The Millions, which called it "as propulsive as it lyrical, hilarious as it is sobering -- above all an irresistible read."  Her new novel, A Splintering, set in Pakistan, will be published in 2025.

‍

Amna was selected as a Forbes 30 under 30 in 2022, and she was awarded the 2019 FinancialTimes / Bodley Head Essay Prize, the London Magazine Short Story prize, the 2021 Salam Award for Imaginative Fiction, and 2023 Award for Literature from the APALA (Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance). Her work has appeared in many publications, including The New York Times, Al Jazeera, and Dawn, the largest and oldest English language newspaper in Pakistan and the country’s newspaper of record. A graduate of Yale University, Dur e Aziz Amna received her MFA in creative writing from the Helen Zell Writers' Program at the University of Michigan. She now lives in Newark, NJ.

‍

‍

Isa Arsén is a bleeding heart based in Austin, TX, where she lives with her spouse and a comically small dog. She has work featured in several independent anthologies (Not One of Us Magazine, Agapanthus Collective, Stone of Madness Press) and developed her 2019 short story Pygmalion Lied as an interactive visual novelette. Outside of writing, Isa records and mixes music and audio for various platforms.

Odafe Atogun was born in Nigeria, in the town of Lokoja, where the Rivers Niger and Benue meet, but hails from Edo State. He studied Journalism at the Times Journalism Institute, Lagos and is now a full-time writer. He is married and lives in Abuja. World rights to Atogun’s first novel, Taduno’s Song, were acquired by Canongate and sold in the United States, Germany, Italy and Turkey. It was chosen for the BBC Radio 2 Book Club.

Ayesha Harruna Attah is a Ghanaian-born writer living in Senegal. She was educated at Mount Holyoke College, Columbia University, and New York University. She is the author of the Commonwealth Writers Prize-nominated Harmattan Rain, Saturdays Shadows, The Hundred Wells of Salaga, currently translated into four languages, The Deep Blue Between, a book for young adults, and Zainab Takes New York. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, Elle Italia, Asymptote and the 2010 Caine Prize Writers’ Anthology. Ayesha Harruna Attah is the 2022 protegé of Bernardine Evaristo in the Rolex Arts Initiative.

Federico Axat was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1975. His novels include Benjamín, The Meadow of the Butterflies, Kill the Next One and Amnesia. They have been translated into 35 languages and sold over 250,000 copies worldwide, making him one of the most important thriller writers in Spanish. Axat’s novels stand out for their high dose of suspense, plot twists and unexpected endings. 

Kylie Lee Baker is a best-selling YA fantasy author and an adult horror author. Her debut novel, THE KEEPER OF NIGHT was an Indie Next and Book of the Month pick, find her at kylieleebaker.com.

A poet, novelist, and an assistant professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Ball won the Plimpton Prize in 2008 for his novella, The Early Deaths of Lubeck, Brennan, Harp and Carr. The Way Through the Doors was chosen as one of The New Yorker’s top 20 fiction and poetry books of 2009. His most recent novel, A Cure for Suicide was longlisted for the National Book Award in the Fiction category.

Artist and writer Mira Bartók is the author of The Memory Palace (Free Press), winner of the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography. Her writing has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and noted in The Best American Essays 1999 and other anthologies. She has been the recipient of numerous awards and grants for her art and for her writing.

Lucía Baskaran (Zarautz, Basque Country, 1988) is a writer and a translator. She is the author of the novels Partir (Leaving) and Cuerpos malditos (Cursed Bodies). She also writes pieces for different outlets, such as El Salto Diario and Playground Magazine.

Ann Bauer is a novelist and nonfiction writer. Her books include A Wild Ride Up The Cupboards (Scribner), The Forever Marriage (Overlook Press), and Forgiveness 4 You (Overlook Press).

Marc Bendavid is a writer, actor, and gardener. Originally from Toronto, he now divides his time between that city and Los Angeles. His debut novel JACARANDAS is forthcoming from Scribner CANADA in Fall of 2025.

‍

Joshua Bennett is a poet, spoken word performer, and Assistant Professor of English at Dartmouth. His first collection of poetry, The Sobbing School (Penguin Books, 2016), was the winner of the 2015 National Poetry Series; his second collection, Owed (Penguin), and book of essays of literary criticism, Being Property Once Myself (Harvard University Press), were published in 2020.

A licensed attorney, Christine Melanie Benson has published her fiction and satire online and in print. Since 2011, Chrissy has worked as a regular freelance legal writer for Baltimore’s The Daily Record.

Janet Benton work has appeared in The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Glimmer Train and other publications. She has co-written and edited historical documentaries for television including the award-winning FEVER: 1793. She holds an MFA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and for decades has taught writing and helped individuals and organizations craft their stories.

Jedediah Berry was raised in the Hudson Valley region of New York State. His first novel, The Manual of Detection, won the IAFA Crawford Award and the Dashiell Hammett Prize, and was adapted for broadcast by BBC Radio. The book was named a New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award finalist and a Locus Award finalist.

Zac Bissonnette has written for The Boston Globe Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. He’s appeared on CNN, The Today Show, and MSNBC, among others. His book How to Be Richer, Smarter, and Better-Looking Than Your Parents was a New York Times bestseller.

Maame Blue is a Ghanaian-Londoner and author of the novel Bad Love, which won the 2021 Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the Betty Trask Prize. She is a recipient of the 2022 Society of Authors Travelling Scholarship, an Arts Council England Develop Your Creative Practice grant, and is a POCC Artist-in-Residence. In her twenties she trained as a psychotherapist and has over a decade of experience working for community and arts organizations in project management. Her short stories have appeared in multiple anthologies; ‘Prodigal’ for Not Quite Right For Us, ‘Howl’ for New Australian Fiction 2020, and ‘The Way Home’ for 2022 children’s anthology Joyful, Joyful. She previously produced and co-hosted the podcast Headscarves and Carry-ons about Black women living abroad, and her writing has also appeared in numerous publications, including Refinery29, The Independent, and Writers Mosaic. She regularly runs workshops on crafting short stories, writing about desire and creating realistic narratives that feature complicated relationships.

James Boice is the author of four novels, including the critically-acclaimed MVP as well as NoVA and The Good and the Ghastly (all Scribner). His fourth novel, The Shooting, was published by Unnamed Press.

Marc Bojanowski is the author of the novels The Dog Fighter (William Morrow), longlisted for the NYPL Young Lions Award, and Journeyman (Granta; Soft Skull/Counterpoint), a New York Times Editors’ Choice. His writing has appeared in The Literary Review, McSweeney’s, and Granta. He lives in northern California with his wife and their two children.

Lisa Borders is the author of the novel The Fifty-First State (Engine Books) and a writing professor at Grub Street, where she developed the popular Novel in Progress and Novel Incubator programs.

Amy Borg is a thirty-two-year-old Maltese-American who currently works as a bookseller. She studied literature at NYU and holds an MA in Creative Writing and Publishing from Kingston University, London.

Gary Braver is the bestselling and award-winning author of nine critically acclaimed mysteries and medical thrillers including Elixir, Gray Matter, Choose Me (with Tess Gerritsen) and Flashback, which is the only thriller to have won a prestigious Massachusetts Book Award. He has taught literature and fiction writing at Northeastern University, as well as at workshops and conferences around the world.

Cambria Brockman grew up in Houston, London, and Scotland, and graduated from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine with a degree in English Literature and Art History. Her award-winning wedding and portrait photography company, Cambria Grace, is followed by 60k Instagram users including Martha Stewart and Grace Bonney of Design Sponge. Brockman lives in Boston with her husband, son, and dog. Tell Me Everything is her first novel.

Elizabeth Brooks grew up in Chester, England. She graduated from Cambridge University with a first class degree in Classics, and lives on the Isle of Man with her husband and two children.

Lily Brooks-Dalton is the author of the memoir Motorcycles I’ve Loved (Riverhead) and the debut novel Good Morning, Midnight (Random House).

Douglas Brunt is the author of the novels Ghosts of Manhattan and The Means (Touchstone). He has just completed his third novel, Rye City.

Libby Buck is a writer and former teacher based in Chapel Hill, NC.

Michael Byers is the author of the story collection The Coast of Good Intentions, which won the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. His novels Long for This World and Percival’s Planet were both New York Times Notable Books, and his novella, The Broken Man, was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award.  Byers’ short stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories and Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards; his nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. A former Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.

Jim Carrey is an actor, comedian, and visual artist, and has starred in some of the most beloved films of the past two decades (Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Dumb & Dumber, The Truman Show, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, among others). He is the executive producer and star of the Showtime series Kidding and the author, with Dana Vachon, of the semi-autobiographical novel Memoirs & Misinformation (Knopf, 2020).

Christopher Castellani is the author of four novels: All This Talk of Love, The Saint of Lost Things, A Kiss from Maddalena, and most recently Leading Men. Based on the life of Tennessee Williams, Leading Men was a New York Times Editors’ Choice selection, a “Best New Book” in People magazine, and a Los Angeles Times Bestseller. A rave review in The New York Times called Leading Men “blazing,” and an “alert, serious, sweeping novel.” Entertainment Weekly hailed it as “Dazzling... with an evocative precision that historical fiction often merely aspires to.” Castellani is also the author of The Art of Perspective: Who Tells the Story, in the series published by Graywolf Press.  

Christopher is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts.  He has taught at Brandeis University and is currently on the faculty of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.

‍

Wendy Chen is the author of the collection Unearthings and the recipient of the Academy of American Poets Most Promising Young Poet Prize. Her poetry, translations, and prose have appeared in Crazyhorse, A Public Space, Mid-American Review and elsewhere. She received her MFA in poetry from Syracuse and she lives in Denver. Her first novel THEIR DIVINE FIRES is forthcoming from Algonquin.

Fliss Chester lives in a little village in West Sussex and writes golden-age cosy crime. Her current series is published by Bookouture and features The Honourable Cressida Fawcett, a girl about town with an eye for design and an eye for a crime. Death Among the Diamonds (September 2022) starts the series and sees our amateur sleuth solve her first case. The series continues with Death by a Cornish Cove (February 2023) and Death in the Highlands (June 2023). Fliss has just been commissioned to write three more books in the series, with publication dates in 2023 and 2024, following on from the success of the first three. Previous books by Fliss include the Fen Churche Mysteries series, also published by Bookouture, starting with A Dangerous Goodbye in August 2020, and quickly followed by Night Train to Paris (November 2020) and The Moonlit Murders (April 2021). Night Train to Paris reached number one in the Amazon Australia charts shortly after release.

Rita Zoey Chin is the author of the critically acclaimed debut memoir Let the Tornado Come, hailed by The Huffington Post as a “euphoric ode to the human spirit.” She holds an MFA from the University of Maryland and is the recipient of a Katherine Anne Porter Prize and an Academy of American Poets award. Her work has appeared in Guernica, Tin House, Marie Claire, and elsewhere. Her first novel, The Strange Inheritance of Leah Fern, is forthcoming from Melville House.

Amanda Churchill’s work has been featured in Hobart Pulp, Witness, River Styx, among others. She holds a Master of Arts in Creative Writing from the University of North Texas and is a Writers’ League of Texas 2021 Fellow. Her first novel, THE TURTLE HOUSE, is forthcoming from HarperCollins.

Angel Luis Colón is the Derringer- and Anthony Award-nominated writer of five books, including the novel Hell Chose Me. In his down time, he’s edited an award-winning anthology or two, hosted a podcast, helped edit the flash fiction site Shotgun Honey, and has taken up bread baking during the pandemic because carbs never hurt anyone, right?Keep up with him on Twitter via @GoshDarnMyLife

Edward Conlon is a former NYPD Detective and currently Deputy Commissioner for Strategic Communications for the NYPD. He is the author of a non-fiction best-seller Blue Blood and the acclaimed novel Red on Red.

Marisa (Mac) Crane is the author of the debut novel, I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself, and the forthcoming novel, A Sharp Endless Need. Their fiction and nonfiction have appeared or are forthcoming in The Sun, Prairie Schooner, Joyland, The Offing, The Adroit Journal, Passages North, Lit Hub, and elsewhere. An American Short Fiction Fellow and Sewanee Writers' Conference Fiction Fellow, they currently live in San Diego with their wife and child

N.J. Crosskey is an author, mother and caffeine junkie from Worthing, West Sussex. She began writing seriously in 2014, and since then her fiction has been published in several literary magazines, e-zines, and even on YouTube. Now she writes novels that examine the world we live in, and the worlds we could be heading to. She believes that the greatest truths can be found in fiction, and has a penchant for all things flawed, broken and beautifully raw.

Jonathan Crowl’s  fiction and essays have appeared in Guernica, Joyland, Day One, and other publications. His journalism has received honors from the Society of Professional Journalists. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he is earning an MFA from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, and he is at work on a novel, Coping.  

Sinead Crowley is the bestselling author of three psychological thrillers set in Ireland. She is also Arts and Media correspondent with RTE News in Dublin.

Nan Cuba is the author of Body and Bread (Engine Books), winner of the PEN Southwest Award in Fiction and the Texas Institute of Letters Steven Turner Award for Best Work of First Fiction. Cuba co-edited Art at Our Doorstep: San Antonio Writers and Artists (Trinity University Press), and published other work in such places as Antioch Review, Harvard Review, Columbia, and Chicago Tribune’s Printer’s Row. She is the founder and executive director emeritus of Gemini Ink, a nonprofit literary center, and teaches in the MA/MFA Program in Literature, Creative Writing, and Social Justice at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, where she is writer-in-residence.

Rijula Das's debut novel Small Deaths comes out in September 2022. It was previously published as A Death in Shonagachhi by Picador India in July 2021, where it received the Tata Lit Live First Book Award 2021, and was longlisted for many prominent awards, including the JCB prize 2021. 

Russian rights have been bought by Ripol; and French rights have been bought by Éditions du Seuil, for publication in 2023. Adaptation rights have been optioned by Drishyam Films, and a limited series is currently in development. 

​

Rijula received her PhD in Creative Writing/prose-fiction in 2017 from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, where she taught writing for two years. Her critical research focuses on the connections between public space and sexual violence. A Death in Shonagachhi was born of this research.

​

Rijula is a recipient of 2019 Michael King Writer's Centre Residency in Auckland and the 2016 Dastaan Award for her short story Notes From A Passing. Her short story, The Grave of The Heart Eater, was longlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2019. 

She currently lives  in Wellington, New Zealand.

RS Deeren writes about odd jobs that helped him, and others like him, pay the bills. Salon magazine says his work offers a "uniquely 21st century perspective on class." Originally from the rural working-class Thumb Region of Michigan, his fiction has been published in Joyland Magazine, The Great Lakes Review, and anthologized in John Freeman's Tales of Two Americas: Stories of Inequality in a Divided Nation.

‍

A Polish-American novelist and critically acclaimed film and TV actress, Dominczyk is known for her roles in Higher Ground, The Good Wife, and Boardwalk Empire.

Rachel studied Philosophy and Politics in University College Dublin, before working in communications. Her short stories have been published in the Irish Independent, Irish Times and RTE.ie, and in 2017 she won the Hennessy "New Irish Writer of the Year" Award. Her first novel, The Temple House Vanishing, has been nominated for 'Best Newcomer' at the 2020 Irish Book Awards. She lives with her family in Dublin, Ireland.

Avni Doshi was born in New Jersey and lives in Dubai. She has a BA in art history from Barnard College in New York and a Masters in history of art from University College London. She was awarded the Tibor Jones South Asia Prize in 2013 and a Charles Pick Fellowship in 2014. Her writing has appeared in British Vogue, Granta and The Sunday Times. Her first novel, Burnt Sugar, was originally released in India under the title Girl in White Cotton, where it won the 2021 Sushila Devi Award and was longlisted for the 2019 Tata First Novel Prize. Upon publication in the UK, Burnt Sugar was shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize. Named a 2020 Book of the Year by the Guardian, Economist, Spectator and NPR, it is being published in 26 languages. In 2021, it was longlisted for the Women’s Prize and selected as one of The New York Times Book Review’s 100 Notable Books of the year. Avni is currently working on her second book.

Elisabeth Elo, author of North of Boston, grew up in Boston. She worked as an editor, an advertising copywriter, a high-tech project manager, and a halfway house counselor before getting a PhD in American Literature at Brandeis University; since then, she’s taught writing and literature in the Boston area.

Tracey’s latest psychological thriller, The Perfect Holiday, is published by Boldwood Books and has been optioned for TV by Atlantic Nomad. Before writing fiction, she worked in theatre and community arts. As well as acting, she ran drama workshops in healthcare settings, focusing on adults with mental health issues. Her short stories have been widely published in anthologies and literary magazines, and her feature writing has appeared in Stella magazine, Woman’s Own and The Sydney Morning Herald. Her first psychological thriller, She Chose Me, was published by Legend Press in 2018.

She has a PhD in Creative Writing from The University of Edinburgh and works as a literary consultant and writing tutor. She is also the Creative Director of The Bridge Awards, a philanthropic organisation that provides micro-funding for art and community projects.

You can find out more about Tracey on her website.

Valiant Entertainment is a leading character-based entertainment company that owns the largest independent superhero universe in comics. With more than 81 million issues sold and a library of over 2,000 characters including X-O Manowar, Bloodshot, Harbinger, Shadowman, Archer & Armstrong and more, Valiant is one of the most successful publishers in the history of the comic book medium.

Guillermo Erades was born in Málaga, Spain, and has lived in Leeds, Amsterdam, Luxembourg, Moscow, Berlin, Brussels, Baghdad and Taipei, where he is currently based. He is the author of 'Back to Moscow', a novel published by Scribner (UK) and Farrar, Straus & Giroux (US).

Christine Estima is a novelist, freelance writer, Spoken Word artist, and playwright based in Toronto. An Arab woman of mixed ethnicity, her essays and short stories have appeared in countless publications. She was short-listed for the 2018 Allan Slaight Prize for Journalism, long-listed for the 2015 CBC Canada Writes Creative NonFiction prize, and was a finalist in 2011 Writers’ Union of Canada short-prose competition.

Melissa Falcon Field is the author of the debut novel What Burns Away (Sourcebooks). She earned her MFA in Fiction Writing from Texas State University and has been a Katherine Anne Porter Writer-in-Residence.

Tom Fletcher CMG is a Visiting Professor of International Relations at New York University, and an Advisor to the Global Business Coalition for Education and Emirates Diplomatic Academy. He was British Ambassador to Lebanon (2011-15), and the Downing Street foreign policy adviser to three Prime Ministers (2007-11).

He is an Honorary Fellow of Oxford University, blogs as the Naked Diplomat, and chairs the International Advisory Council of the Creative Industries Federation, promoting Britain's most dynamic and magnetic sector overseas. Tom recently led a review of British diplomacy for the UK Foreign Office, and on the future of the United Nations for the new UN Secretary General. He is also leading a report based at NYU on what skills the next generation need to thrive in the 21st century.

‘Naked Diplomacy: Power and Statecraft in the Digital Age’ was published June 2016 by Harper Collins.

Tom is married to psychologist Dr Louise Fletcher, and they have two sons.