Laura Dave is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Last Thing He Told Me, Eight Hundred Grapes and six other novels. Her books have been published in thirty-nine languages and have been chosen by Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club, Indie Next, Book of the Month Club, The Richard and Judy Book Club, Best of Amazon, and Best of Apple Books. The Last Thing He Told Me was chosen as the Goodreads Mystery & Thriller of the Year for 2021. Her new novel, The First Time I Saw Him is a sequel to The Last Thing He Told Me, both of which are series on Apple TV.

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Emeline Atwood graduated from the Michener Center for Writers in 2023. She writes fiction and poetry and is a recipient of the Thomas T. Hoopes Prize, the Louis Begley Prize, the Roger Conant Hatch Prize for Lyric Poetry, and the Le Baron Russell Briggs Fiction Prize. She lives in Austin, Texas. Her novel is A Real Animal.

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Emily Rapp Black is the author of Poster Child: A Memoir; The Still Point of the Turning World, which was a New York Times bestseller, Editor’s Pick, and a finalist for the PEN-USA Award; Sanctuary, a New York Times Editor’s Pick; and Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg. Emily Rapp Black has received awards and fellowships from the Rona Jaffe Foundation; the Jentel Arts Foundation; the Corporation of Yaddo; the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, where she was a winter writing fellow among other awards. She is currently Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California-Riverside, where she also teaches in the School of Medicine. Her new nonfiction book is called I Would Die If I Were You: Notes on Art and Truthtelling.

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Ben Fountain’s work has received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction, the Barnes & Noble Discover Award for Fiction, the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, the PEN-Cerulli Award for Excellence in Sports Writing, and a Whiting Writers Award, and has been a finalist for the National Book Award and runner-up for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. His works include Brief Encounters with Che Guevara, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, Beautiful Country Burn Again, Devil Makes Three, and Rasputin Swims the Potomac.

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Zinzi Clemmons was raised in Philadelphia by a South African mother and an American father. Her debut novel, What We Lose was named “Debut Novel of the Year” by Vogue, and received praise from the Atlantic, the Guardian, the New York Times, The New Yorker, and others. What We Lose was a finalist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize, the California Book Award, a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Leonard Prize. She is a 2017 National Book Award 5 Under 35 Honoree. She wrote the foreword to a new edition of Jean Toomer’s Cane, published by Penguin Classics in 2019. Her new collection of essays is called Freedom.

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Ruth Ozeki is a novelist, filmmaker, and Zen Buddhist priest. Her new short story collection is called The Typing Lady and Other Fictions. Her novels — My Year of Meats , All Over Creation, A Tale for the Time Being, and The Book of Form and Emptiness — have been translated and published in over thirty countries. Her third novel, A Tale for the Time Being, won the LA Times Book Prize, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. The Book of Form and Emptiness was the winner of the 2022 Women’s Prize for Fiction as well as the 22nd Annual Massachusetts Book Award, the BC Yukon Book Prize, and the Julia Ward Howe Prize for Fiction. She is Professor Emerita of English Language & Literature at Smith College, where she was the Grace Jarcho Ross 1933 Professor of Humanities.

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Emma Straub is the New York Times-bestselling author of seven books for adults: the novels American Fantasy, This Time Tomorrow, All Adults Here, The Vacationers, Modern Lovers, Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures, and the short story collection Other People We Married. She is also the author of three picture books: Gaga Mistake Day, which she co-wrote with her mother, Mama Hug, and Very Good Hats. She is a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow and her work has been published in more than 20 languages. Emma and her husband own Books Are Magic, an independent bookstore in Brooklyn, New York.

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Lily King is the award-winning author of six novels. Her most recent novel is Heart the Lover. She has also published a collection of short stories, Five Tuesdays in Winter. Her 2020 novel, Writers & Lovers, won the New England Society Book Awards and was a New York Times Notable Book and chosen as a top-ten best book of 2020 by The Washington Post, NPR, People Magazine, and The Los Angeles Times. Her 2014 novel Euphoria won the Kirkus Award, the New England Book Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Award. This episode was recorded live at Aspen Words Winter Words program in 2026.

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Ross Gay is the author of four books of poetry: Against Which; Bringing the Shovel Down; Be Holding, winner of the PEN American Literary Jean Stein Award; and Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. His first collection of essays, The Book of Delights, was released in 2019 and was a New York Times bestseller. His new collection of essays is called Inciting Joy.

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Ramona Ausubel is a graduate of the MFA program at the University of California, Irvine. She is the author of the novel No One Is Here Except All of Us and the short story collection A Guide to Being Born. Her work has been published in The New Yorker, One Story, The Paris Review Daily, Best American Fantasy, and elsewhere, and has received special mentions in The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. She has been longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, and was a finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Award and the Pushcart Prize. Her new book is Unstuck: A Writer's Guide.

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