Jim Shepard has written eight novels, including The Book of Aron, which won the Sophie Brody Medal for Jewish Literature, the PEN/New England Award for Fiction, The Ribalow Prize for Fiction, and the Clark Fiction Prize, as well as six story collections, including Like You’d Understand, Anyway, a finalist for the National Book Award and Story Prize winner, and The Queen of Bad Influences, published in the fall of 2026.  He’s had nine of his stories chosen for the Best American Short Stories, two for the PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, and three for Pushcart Prizes.  He’s been a recipient of the Rea Award for the Short Story, the ALEX Award for Fiction, the Library of Congress/Massachusetts Book Award for Fiction, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.  For seven years he was a columnist on film for the magazine The Believer, and his film essays have been collected in The Tunnel at the End of the Light.  He’s also written screenplays for two films made from his fiction, And Then I Go (2017) and The World to Come (2020).   He lives in Williamstown with his wife, Karen Shepard and a pitty and a beagle, and from 1983 to 2024 taught film and creative writing at Williams College.

• Website

Dani Shapiro is the author of twelve books, equally divided between fiction and memoir. She is the host and creator of the hit podcast Family Secrets. Her most recent novel, Signal Fires, was named a best book of 2022 by Time Magazine, Washington Post, Amazon, and others, and is a national bestseller. Her most recent memoir, Inheritance, was an instant New York Times Bestseller, and named a best book of 2019 by Elle, Vanity Fair, Wired, and Real Simple. Dani’s book on the process and craft of writing, Still Writing, was reissued on the occasion of its tenth anniversary in 2023. Her new book, Kaleidoscope: On Seeing and Being Seen will be published by Little, Brown in May, 2027.

• Website
• Instagram

Jenny Offill is the author of three novels, most recently Weather, which has been translated into 20 languages and was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize and The Internationaler Literaturpreis. Her previous novels include Dept. of Speculation and Last Things. She teaches at Bard College and lives in upstate New York.

• Website

Victoria Redel is a first-generation American author of four books of poetry and six books of fiction, most recently the poetry collection, Paradise and the novel I Am You, published in October 2025 by Zando Project/SJPLIT. Her novel I Am You (Zando/SJPLIT) was published in 2025 and was a Publishing Triangle LTGBTQ fiction award finalist, a London Times pick of the month, and a People Magazine best new book pick. Her debut novel, Loverboy (2001) was adapted for a feature film directed by Kevin Bacon. Victoria’s work has been widely anthologized, awarded, and translated into more than 12 languages. She’s received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts and The Fine Arts Work Center. Victoria has taught at Columbia University, the New School, Vermont College of Fine Arts and was the McGee Distinguished Professor at Davidson College. She is a tenured faculty in the graduate and undergraduate creative writing programs at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in New York City and Utah.

• Website
• Instagram

Hannah Tinti is the author of the bestselling novel The Good Thief, which won The Center for Fiction’s first novel prize, and the story collection Animal Crackers, a runner-up for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Her latest novel, The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley, is a national bestseller and is in development with Netflix. She teaches creative writing at New York University’s MFA program and co-founded the Sirenland Writers Conference. Tinti is also the co-founder and executive editor of One Story magazine, which won the AWP Small Press Publisher Award, CLMP’s Firecracker Award, and the PEN/Magid Award for Excellence in Editing.

• Website
• Twitter
• Instagram

Karen Shepard is a Chinese-American born and raised in New York City.  She is the author of four novels, An Empire of Women, The Bad Boy’s Wife, Don’t I Know You?,  The Celestials, and the collection of stories, Kiss Me Someone.  Her short fiction has been published in the Atlantic Monthly, Tin House, and Ploughshares, among others.  Her nonfiction has appeared in The Paris Review, More, Self, USA Today, and the Boston Globe, among others.  She teaches writing and literature at Williams College in Williamstown, MA, where she lives with her husband, novelist Jim Shepard.

• Website

Michael Maren is a former  journalist and current filmmaker. He has worked for The Village Voice, and New York Magazine and contributed to The New York Times, Newsweek, The Nation, and The New Republic among other publications. He is the author of The Road to Hell, which The New Yorker has labeled “the seminal critique of foreign aid.” As a filmmaker he has written scripts for HBO, Sony Pictures and Killer Films. He wrote and directed A Short History of Decay and his most recent film, A Little White Lie, stars Michael Shannon, Kate Hudson, Don Johnson, Zach Braff, and Da’Vine Joy Randolph. It was released in March 2023.

• Website
• Instagram