Peter Orner is the author of two story collections, Esther Stories and Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge, two novels, The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo (set in Namibia) and Love and Shame and Love, and a book of essays, Am I Alone Here? His fiction and nonfiction has appeared in The Atlantic, New York Times, Granta, The Paris Review, and Best American Stories. His work has been awarded the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggen-heim Fellowship, and a Fulbright to Namibia. Orner has taught at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, The MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, the University of Montana, Northwestern, and Charles University in Prague. Orner is a longtime professor at San Francisco State University and recently accepted a faculty appointment at Dartmouth College.

Luis Alberto Urrea was born in Tijuana, Mexico and is a member of the Latino Literature Hall of Fame. He is the author of numerous books, including The Hummingbird’s Daughter and The Devil’s Highway, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His latest novel is Into the Beautiful North. Urrea is a professor at The University of Illinois–Chicago.