Justin Torres is the author of Blackouts (October 2023), which won the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction. His debut novel, We the Animals, won the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, was translated into fifteen languages, and was adapted into a feature film. He was named a National Book Foundation “5 Under 35,” a Wallace…

Annell López is a Dominican immigrant. She is the winner of the Louise Meriwether First Book Prize and the author of the short story collection I’ll Give You A Reason, forthcoming in 2024 from the Feminist Press. A Peter Taylor Fellow at the Kenyon Review Writers Workshops, her work has also received support from Tin…

John Pope, a New Orleans-based reporter since 1973, was a member of The Times-Picayune team that won two Pulitzer Prizes, a George Polk Award and a National Headliner Award for coverage of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Texas, where he worked on the student newspaper…

Teresa Tumminello Brader is a New Orleanian, spurred on to writing by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Her first book, Letting in Air and Light, is a work of hybrid memoir/ fiction from Belle Point Press. A collection of short stories is forthcoming in Spring-Summer 2025 from the same press. Her stories, essays, poetry, and…

Gina Ferrara’s poetry collections include Ethereal Avalanche (Trembling Pillow Press, 2009), Amber Porch Light (Word Tech 2013), Fitting the Sixth Finger:  Poems Inspired by the Paintings of Marc Chagall (Kelsay Books 2017) and Weight of the Ripened (Dos Madres Press, 2020), a finalist for the Eyelands’ Poetry Prize. Amiss, also published by Dos Madres Press,…

Rose Norman is a retired college professor who taught English at the University of Alabama in Huntsville for 27 years. She directed the Business and Technical Writing Program, co-founded and was first Director of Women’s Studies, and for her last four years chaired the English Department. Her work as general editor of the Southern Lesbian…

Nisi Sturgis is an actress, educator, director, adapter, collaborator, a grateful partner, and delighted and exhausted parent. As an AEA and SAG member, she’s appeared On and Off Broadway, and spent five years as June Thompson on HBO’s Boardwalk Empire. Regionally she has worked at theatres including the Chautauqua Theatre Company, Denver Center, Old Globe,…