Maeve Higgins is a writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Irish Examiner. Originally from Cobh, Ireland, she is an NPR favorite and hosts a live comedy show each week in Brooklyn. In 2020, her starring role in the comedy horror movie Extra Ordinary garnered acclaim around the world. Her latest collection of essays, Tell Everyone on This Train I Love Them, was published by Penguin in 2022. Follow Maeve on Instagram: @maeveinamerica

John Hodgman is a bestselling writer, humorist, and actor who first honed his comedic voice in the pages of McSweeney’s and as the host of some of their earliest events. His books include Vacationland, Medallion Status, and The Areas of My Expertise, and other work has appeared in The New Yorker, One Story, The Paris Review, and The New York Times Magazine, where he writes the weekly “Judge John Hodgman” column for The Ethicist. He is also the host of the Judge John Hodgman podcast. He is the co-creator and co-star of the animated comedy Dicktown on Hulu, and most recently starred as Tom, The Weird Dad on Up Here, also on Hulu, and “Guy Wearing Dockers at the Concert Who Is Not a Narc” on Poker Face for Peacock.

Jordan Klepper is perhaps best known for his work as a correspondent on The Daily Show and his Emmy-nominated comedy specials focusing on the political world. His recent special covering democracy in Hungary garnered him a Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in TV Political Journalism. He is an alumnus of the improv troupes The Second City and Upright Citizens Brigade. He and his wife, Laura Grey, are co-creators of short films including TMI, a featured short at the Slamdance Film Festival, and Peepers, which premiered at South By Southwest, among others. On Comedy Central he hosted The Opposition with Jordan Klepper, as well as the doc-series Klepper, the award winning podcast "Jordan Klepper Fingers The Conspiracy" and continues to do segments on The Daily Show with “Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse.”

Carmen Lynch has appeared on a string of late-night TV shows including The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and Conan. She has also appeared on Inside Amy Schumer, That Damn Michael Che, Life & Beth and the documentary Hysterical. Carmen also tours doing stand-up in Spanish, has a podcast on SiriusXM called The Human CentiPOD in English and another podcast in Spanish titled Podria Ser Peor. She is taping her new comedy special on June 26 at The Comedy Cellar as well as one in Spanish later this year. For dates to her tapings and other road gigs check out carmenlynch.com/tour/ and instagram @carmencomedian.

Stephin Merritt releases albums under the band names the Magnetic Fields, the 6ths, the Gothic Archies, and Future Bible Heroes. With The Magnetic Fields, he has written, produced, and recorded twelve albums to date. The Magnetic Fields' 1999 album, 69 Love Songs, was a 3-disc masterwork which garnered Merritt widespread acclaim, including "best of" year-end lists in Spin, Rolling Stone, TheNew York Times, and more. He has composed original music and lyrics for three music theater pieces directed by Chen Shi-Zheng, and in 2008, mounted an Off-Broadway stage musical of Neil Gaiman's Coraline, for which he won an Obie Award. Merritt composed the score for the Academy Award–nominated film Pieces of April and for the independent film Eban and Charley. His song "The Book of Love" was performed by Peter Gabriel and appears in the film Shall We Dance. He has composed incidental music for the HarperCollins' audio books of A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket and Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, and subsequently released an album Songs from A Series of Unfortunate Events. For the last two years, the Magnetic Fields have been on tour to support their 2020 release, Quickies, on Nonesuch records.

BD Wong received the Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Theatre World, and Clarence Derwent awards for his Broadway debut in M. Butterfly. He is currently playing Nora's dad Wally on Comedy Central's Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens. 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, and Mr. Robot. Wong appears in the upcoming film Heart of Stone, and he recently directed the World Premiere of both Yes I Can Say That, starring Judy Gold, and Mr. Holland's Opus, The New Musical, the latter of which he co-wrote with Wayne Barker.

Nathan Englander is the author of The Ministry of Special Cases, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and Dinner at the Center of the Earth. He also translated The New American Haggadah. His latest novel, kaddish.com, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in March 2019, and was longlisted for the Wingate Prize, 2020 and the Simpson/Joyce Carol Oates Literary Prize honoring a mid-career writer.

Megan McDowell has translated many of the most important Latin American writers working today, including Samanta Schweblin, Alejandro Zambra, Mariana Enríquez, and Lina Meruane. Her translations have won the National Book Award for Translated Literature, the English PEN award, the Premio Valle-Inclán, and two O. Henry Prizes, and have been nominated for the International Booker Prize (four times) and the Kirkus Prize. Her short story translations have been featured in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The New York Times Magazine, Tin House, McSweeney’s, Harper’s, and Granta, among others. In 2020 she won an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She is from Richmond, Kentucky, and lives in Santiago, Chile.

Peter Orner is the author of several works of fiction, including The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo, Love and Shame and Love, Esther Stories, Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge, and most recently, Maggie Brown & Others, as well as the memoir Am I Alone Here?, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He is a two-time Pushcart Prize winner and a recipient of the Guggenheim fellowship. His collection Still No Word from You: Notes in the Margin was released in 2022, and was a 2023 finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Speilvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. He is chair of the English and Creative Writing Department at Dartmouth College.

Samanta Schweblin is the 2022 National Book Award for Translated Literature winner for her latest story collection, Seven Empty Houses. Her debut novel, Fever Dream, was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, and her novel Little Eyes and story collection A Mouthful of Birds, have been longlisted for the same prize. Chosen by Granta as one of the twenty-two best writers in Spanish under the age of thirty-five, she received in 2022 the famed El Premio Iberoamericano de las Letras Jose Donoso to her artistic trajectory, establishing her as one of the luminaries of contemporary literature. Her books have been translated into over forty languages, and her work has appeared in English in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, and Electric Literature. Originally from Buenos Aires, Schweblin lives in Berlin.

Ernie Wang’s short fiction and essays have been published in McSweeney’s Quarterly, Gulf Coast, The Southern Review, Mississippi Review, PEN America, Best Debut Short Stories, The Threepenny Review, among others. Wang was the recipient of PEN’s Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers, and “Stay Brave, My Hercules” was published in the 2018 PEN America Best Debut Short Stories. He is a PhD student at the University of Houston.