Yetide Badaki is a Nigerian-born actress known for the Starz fantasy drama American Gods, as well as appearances on Lost, Touch, Criminal Minds, Masters of Sex, and This Is Us. As a theater actress in Chicago, Badaki won acclaim for her performances at the Victory Gardens Theater and Steppenwolf. Her film credits include RISE, Cardinal X, A Chance of Rain, What We Found, and Run Fast.

Mike Doyle has appeared on screen in New Amsterdam, City on a Hill, The Romanoffs, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, The Accidental Wolf, Narcos: Mexico, Jersey Boys, The Invitation, and Green Lantern, among others. His stage credits include The New Century at Lincoln Center and Betrayed with the Culture Project. Doyle wrote and directed the feature film Almost Love starring Kate Walsh, Patricia Clarkson, and Scott Evans. He is currently working on his next film, Passing Through.

Maryann Plunkett is a Tony, Obie, and Drama Desk Award-winning actress. Her extensive theater career includes Richard Nelson’s critically acclaimed cycle The Rhinebeck Panorama, which includes the Apple Family tetralogy, the Gabriels trilogy, and the Michaels duo. On Broadway, she has been featured in Agnes of God, Sunday in the Park with George, Me and My Girl, for which she received a Tony Award, The Crucible, St. Joan, and A Man for All Seasons. Her film and television credits include Dr. Death, Manifest, Chicago Med, Bull, House of Cards, The Knick, Om City, Fairhaven, The Family Fang, MAD, Youth in Oregon, Blue Valentine, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Little Women, and the soon to be released Showing Up.

Amy Tan is the author of The Valley of Amazement, The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God's Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, The Bonesetter's Daughter, The Opposite of Fate, Saving Fish from Drowning, Where the Past Begins: A Writer’s Memoir, and the children's books The Moon Lady and Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat. Tan was a co-producer and co-screenwriter of the film version of The Joy Luck Club and the librettist for the opera The Bonesetter's Daughter. Her next book, The Backyard Bird Chronicles, will be published in Fall 2023.

BD Wong received the Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Theatre World, and Clarence Derwent awards for his Broadway debut in M. Butterfly. Additional Broadway credits include You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown and Pacific Overtures. On screen, he has appeared in Father of the Bride, Mulan, Seven Years In Tibet, Bird Box, the Jurassic Park franchise, All-American Girl, Oz, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Awake, Madam Secretary, Gotham, American Horror Story: Apocalypse, Mr. Robot, and Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens. Wong appears in the upcoming film Heart of Stone and is currently preparing to direct the World Premiere of Mr. Holland's Opus, The New Musical, at the Ogunquit Playhouse in Maine, which he co-wrote with composer Wayne Barker.

Cristina Henríquez is the author of The Book of Unknown Americans, a New York Times Notable Book that was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and was a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Henríquez is also the author of The World in Half and Come Together, Fall Apart: A Novella and Stories. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The Oxford American, The American Scholar, and elsewhere. Henríquez was a 2020 Fiction judge for the National Book Awards. She earned her undergraduate degree from Northwestern University and is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her novel, The Great Cut, about the building of the Panama Canal, is forthcoming from Ecco in 2024.

Ben Loory is the author of the collections Tales of Falling and Flying and Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day, both from Penguin Books. His fables and tales have appeared in The New Yorker, BOMB Magazine, Fairy Tale Review, and A Public Space; been anthologized in The New Voices of Fantasy and Year’s Best Weird Fiction; and been heard on This American Life. He is also the author of a picture book for children, The Baseball Player and the Walrus. Loory lives and teaches short story writing in Los Angeles.

Heather Monley is an author whose work has been featured in The O. Henry Prize Stories, ZYZZYVA, Alaska Quarterly Review, Crazyhorse, New Orleans Review, Hobart, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and The Normal School, among others. She received a scholarship from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, a fellowship from The Lighthouse Works, and a residency from PLAYA. Her story “Town of Birds” won the Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest.

Mikkel Rosengaard is an author whose first novel, The Invention of Ana, has been published in five languages. He is a MacDowell Fellow and the recipient of the Danish Arts Foundation’s Unge Kunstneriske Elite award. His work has appeared in Bookforum, McSweeney’s, BOMB Magazine, PBS’s Art21, and many other publications. Rosengaard grew up in Elsinore, Denmark, and lives in New York City.