Sam Sussman is the author of the debut novel Boy From the North Country (Penguin Press). The novel was reviewed by Kirkus as “the most beautiful and moving mother-son story in recent memory,” became an instant USA Today Bestseller, and was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in Fiction. Sam previously won the BAFTA New Writing Award and wrote the Harper’s memoir, “The Silent Type: On (Possibly) Being Bob Dylan’s Son.”

Kionna Walker LeMalle is a novelist, poet, speaker, and sought-after writing teacher. She has taught writers at every level from elementary through graduate school. Her work has been featured in table//FEAST, The Southern Quarterly, The First Line, The Bayou Review, and Devotion in the Open Air, an anthology published by Inked in Gray. Her novel, Behind the Waterline, won the Lee Smith Novel Prize and was published by Blair Publisher in 2025.

Kerry Neville is the author of the memoir Momma May Be Mad and two collections of stories, Necessary Lies, which received the G. S. Sharat Chandra Prize and was named a ForeWord Magazine Short Story Book of the Year, and Remember to Forget Me. Her work has appeared in publications such as The Gettysburg Review, Epoch, TriQuarterly, Brevity, The Washington Post, The Irish Times, and elsewhere. Her essays and short stories have been named Notables in Best American Essays and Best American Short Stories. She is a faculty member in the creative writing program at Georgia College and State University and is Interim Chair of the Department of Communication.