Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is the New York Times-bestselling author of Friday Black. Originally from Spring Valley, New York, he graduated from SUNY Albany and went on to receive his MFA from Syracuse University. His work has appeared or is forthcoming from numerous publications, including The New York Times Book Review, Esquire, Literary Hub, The Paris Review, Guernica, and Longreads. He was selected by Colson Whitehead as one of the National Book Foundation's "5 Under 35" honorees, is the winner of the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Award for Best First Book and the Aspen Words Literary Prize.

Kali Fajardo-Anstine is a National Book Award Finalist and the author of Sabrina & Corina, winner of an American Book Award, finalist for the PEN/Bingham Prize and The Story Prize, and longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize. Sabrina & Corina was also awarded the 2020 Reading the West Award in Fiction from the Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association and has been shortlisted for the 2020 Saroyan International Prize. Fajardo-Anstine is the 2019 recipient of the Denver Mayor's Award for Global Impact in the Arts. Her writing has appeared in ELLE, O, the Oprah Magazine, The American Scholar, Boston Review, Bellevue Literary Review, The Idaho Review, Southwestern American Literature, and elsewhere. Kali has been awarded fellowships from Yaddo, MacDowell Colony, Tin House, and Hedgebrook. She has an MFA from the University of Wyoming and is from Denver, Colorado. Her work has been translated into multiple languages.

Beth Piatote is a writer and scholar, and the author of The Beadworkers. She is Nez Perce from Chief Joseph's Band and is an enrolled member of the Colville Confederated Tribes. She holds a PhD from Stanford University and is currently an associate professor at UC Berkeley. She lives in the Bay Area with her two children.