Percival Everett is a Distinguished Professor of English at USC. His latest novel, James, won the 2024 Kirkus Prize and the National Book Award for fiction. His other titles include Dr. No, The Trees, Telephone, So Much Blue and I Am Not Sidney Poitier. American Fiction, the feature film based on his novel Erasure, was released in 2023 and was awarded an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He resides in Los Angeles.

Liz Moore is a writer of fiction and creative nonfiction. After a brief time as a musician in NYC, Moore shifted her focus to writing. Her first novel was The Words of Every Song, followed by Heft which landed on NPR’s Best of 2012 list. Moore’s fourth novel, Long Bright River was published in 2020 and has become both a New York Times and international best seller. The God of the Woods was published in 2024, debuted and has remained on the best seller list for over 29 weeks. Moore is Director of the Creative Writing MFA at Temple University.