Peter Cooley has published twelve books, the most recent Accounting For The Dark (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2024). For 43 years he served as Director of Creative Writing at Tulane University and is now Professor Emeritus. He was Poet Laureate of Louisiana from 2015-17.

Eric Cook is the Executive Chef and Owner of award-winning New Orleans restaurants Gris-Gris and Saint John. A six-year U.S. Marine Corps combat veteran, Cook entered the culinary world and worked in many of the city’s most well-renowned kitchens before building a culinary empire of his own. Cook has appeared on Top Chef New Orleans,…

Christine Carbo is the author of the Glacier Mystery novels, an ensemble series set in and around Glacier National Park. Her books include The Wild Inside, Mortal Fall, The Weight of Night, and A Sharp Solitude. She is a recipient of the Women’s National Book Association Pinckley Prize, the Silver Falchion Award, the High Plains…

Alafair Burke is the Edgar-nominated, New York Times best-selling author of fifteen novels of suspense, including her latest novel, The Note, as well as The Ex, The Wife, The Better Sister, and Find Me, and coauthor of the best-selling Under Suspicion series. A former prosecutor, she is now a professor of criminal law. She recently…

Miles Harvey is the author of an award-winning debut collection of short fiction, The Registry of Forgotten Objects: Stories (Mad Creek Books, 2024). His nonfiction includes The King of Confidence (Little, Brown & Co., 2020), Painter in a Savage Land (Random House, 2008) and The Island of Lost Maps (a national and international bestseller for Random…

Dr. Bess Rowen is an Assistant Professor of Theatre at Villanova University, and affiliated faculty in Gender & Women’s Studies and Irish Studies. She is the author of The Lines Between the Lines: How Stage Directions Affect Embodiment (University of Michigan Press, 2021) and the editor of the Methuen Critical Edition of A Streetcar Named…

Tom Mitchell is emeritus professor of Theatre at the University of Illinois and Festival Scholar for the Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis. He has edited Early Stories by Tennessee Williams, available from the University of Iowa Press, and The Caterpillar Dogs: Early Stories by Tennessee Williams, from New Directions. Mitchell edited the stories, “Fin du…

David Kaplan is the author of Tennessee Williams in Provincetown (2006) and Tenn Years (2015), a collection  of essays about Williams in production. He is the editor of Tenn at One Hundred (2011), the centennial collection of essays about Williams’ reputation. He has staged Suddenly Last Summer in Russia (1993), The Eccentricities of a Nightingale in…

Benjamin Gillespie, Ph.D. (he/him) is Doctoral Lecturer in Communication, Gender Studies, and Theatre at Baruch College, City University of New York. His research centers on the intersection of gender, sexuality, and aging in contemporary theatre and drama. Benjamin is Co-Editor of the Journal of American Drama and Theatre and Contributing Editor of PAJ: A Journal…

Margot Douaihy lives in Northampton, MA, and is an assistant professor of creative writing with Emerson College. She is the author of the award-winning, nationally bestselling Sister Holiday series, in addition to the poetry collections Bandit/Queen: The Runaway Story of Belle Starr, Scranton Lace, and Girls Like You. Her debut mystery, Scorched Grace, won The Pinckley…