Kendra Fortmeyer is the author of the Young Adult novel Hole in the Middle. She received a 2017 Pushcart Prize for her story “Things I Know to Be True,” which was originally published in One Story and reprinted in The Best American Nonrequired Reading. She’s a recipient of grants from the Elizabeth George Foundation, Michener Center for Writers, Arvon Foundation and others, and a graduate of the 2016 Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers workshop with an MFA from the New Writers Project at the University of Texas at Austin. Her short fiction has appeared in The Toast, Lightspeed, Apex, and elsewhere.
Jane Kaczmarek is best known for her role as Lois on Malcolm in the Middle, for which she received 7 consecutive Emmy nominations as well as nominations for the Golden Globe and SAG Awards. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin and Yale School of Drama, Kaczmarek made her television debut on The Paper Chase and Hill Street Blues. On stage, she has appeared on Broadway and off, and for 6 seasons at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Her recent theater credits include Long Day's Journey Into Night with Alfred Molina and Our Town with Deaf West Theatre. Kaczmarek’s favorite job is raising her three kids and reading/hosting Selected Shorts across America.
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 TheNew 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.
Calvin Leon Smith can currently be seen on Broadway in Fat Ham, which he also starred in at the Public Theater. He recently appeared in the role of Jasper on Amazon’s The Underground Railroad, as well as on HBO's The Deuce and High Maintenance. His theater credits include work at The Public Theater, Long Wharf Theatre, Clarence Brown Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, La Jolla Playhouse, and Shakespeare on the Sound. Smith is a graduate of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, the British American Drama Academy, and a 2018 graduate of The Juilliard School, where he received his MFA.
Meg Wolitzer is the New York Times bestselling author of The Female Persuasion, The Interestings, The Ten-Year Nap, and The Wife, which was adapted to film in 2018, starring Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce. She was the guest editor of The Best American Short Stories 2017, and has also published books for young readers, mostly recently a picture book, Millions of Maxes. Wolitzer is a faculty member in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton, where she co-founded and co-directs BookEnds, a one-year, non-credit intensive in the novel.
CREDITS
"The Book," by Ben Loory, from Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day (Penguin Books, 2011). Copyright © 2011 by Ben Loory. Used with permission of Funke Literary, LLC.
“Things I Know to Be True,” by Kendra Fortmeyer, from One Story (Issue 209, August 13, 2015). Copyright (c) 2015 by Kendra Fortmeyer. Used by permission of the author.
