Ilan Stavans is the author of over twenty books, including the graphic novel Mr. Spic Goes to Washington. He was born in Mexico and moved to the United States in 1985. He received a master’s degree from the Jewish Theological Seminary and a doctorate in letters from Columbia University. He is best known for his investigations on language and culture. His love for lexicography is evident in Dictionary Days: A Defining Passion. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Jonathan Steele is a senior foreign correspondent and in-house columnist on international affairs for the Guardian. He is the author of Defeat: Why America and Britain Lost Iraq. Educated at Cambridge and Yale, he has reported for the Guardian since 1965. He is the winner of numerous awards including the London Press Club’s Scoop of the Year award, the James Cameron award, and the Martha Gelhorn award, and has twice been named International Reporter of the Year at the British Press Awards. A regular broadcaster on the BBC and CNN, Steele has written several books on international affairs. He lives in England.

Page Stegner is a novelist, essayist, historian, and former professor of American literature and director of creative writing at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His books include Outposts of Eden, Grand Canyon, and Adios Amigos. A frequent contributor to numerous publications, including Harper’s and the New York Review of Books, he lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Wallace Stegner taught at the University of Wisconsin, Harvard University, and Stanford University, where he founded the creative writing program. He died in 1993 at the age of 84. His previously unpublished letters have been collected in The Selected Letters of Wallace Stegner, edited by Page Stegner.

Rebecca Swan is an artist working with photography and mixed media, exploring themes of cancer, sexuality, gender identity, and spirituality. Her work has been exhibited in major public galleries and museums internationally for more than twenty years and is held in many collections. Assume Nothing has been made into a feature film, directed by Kirsty MacDonald. Swan lives in New Zealand.

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is the editor of Nobody Passes, Tricks and Treats, and Dangerous Families. Her writing has been widely published in places as diverse as Best American Erotica, Best American Gay Fiction, Women and Performance, and Slingshot. Sycamore’s books include That’s Revolting!: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation and Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity. An instigator of the anti-assimilationist group Gay Shame, she lives in San Francisco.

An actress and writer, Sarah Thyre has appeared on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and Strangers with Candy and performed her own work at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theaters, Sit n’ Spin at the Comedy Central Stage, and on Public Radio International. Her memoir is titled Dark at the Roots. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children.

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Miriam Toews is the award-winning author of several novels, including The Flying Troutmans, A Complicated Kindness, and A Boy of Good Breeding. She lives in Winnipeg, Canada.

Sylvain Trudel is the author of six novels, including Mercury Under My Tongue, and numerous books for children and young adults. He lives in Montreal.

Author of Servants of War, Rolf Uesseler, an anti-Mafia activist and author, was born in 1943 in Dortmund, Germany, and has lived in Rome as a freelance publicist and scientist since 1979. His work focuses on illegal activity in the world economy, organized crime, and shadow economy. He has written numerous essays on this topic in German and Italian journals.

Angela von der Lippe has a doctorate in German literature from Brown University, and is the editor and translator of You Alone Are Real to Me by Lou Andreas-Salomé, as well as the author of the novel The Truth About Lou: A Novel After Salomé.A senior editor at W.W. Norton, she lives in New York City.