Joyce Carol Oates is the author of a number of works of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. She is the editor of New Jersey Noir, Prison Noir, and Cutting Edge: New Stories of Mystery and Crime by Women Writers; and a recipient of the National Book Award, PEN America's Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Humanities Medal, and a World Fantasy Award for Short Fiction. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey.
Lou Manfredo was born and raised in Brooklyn. He is a former New York City public school teacher and legal investigator. The father of one daughter, Nicole, he currently lives in New Jersey with his wife, Joanne, and their long-haired dachshund. Mr. Manfredo recently completed his first novel.
Jonathan Safran Foer is the author of the award-winning and best-selling novels Everything Is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, as well as two works of nonfiction: Eating Animals and The New American Haggadah. His books have been published in over thirty languages, and he was included in Granta’s “Best of Young American Novelists” issue as well as the New Yorker’s “20 under 40” list of the best young writers in the US.
Edmund White (b. Ohio, USA, 1940) is the author of many critically acclaimed books, the most recent being "The Flaneur". He was made an officer in the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and won a literary prize from the Festival of Deauville. He now teaches at Princeton University. His acclaimed autobiography, "My Lives", was published by Bloomsbury in 2006, while his play, " Terre Haute", was published by Methuen Drama in 2007.
Michael Carroll’s debut story collection, Little Reef, won the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from American Academy of Arts and Letters and was shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction and the Publishing Triangle Award. His work has appeared in Ontario Review, Boulevard, The Yale Review, Southwest Review, Open City, and The New Penguin Book of Gay Short Stories. Originally from Jacksonville, Florida, he is married to writer Edmund White and lives in New York City.