Photo by ©Carolyn de Berry
Jennine Capó Crucet
Jennine Capó Crucet (she/her/ella) is a writer and educator. A recipient of a PEN/O. Henry Prize and a former Contributing Opinion Writer for The New York Times, she’s the author of four books: the novel Make Your Home Among Strangers, which won the International Latino Book Award and has been adopted as an all-campus/community read at over forty U.S. universities; the multiple award-winning story collection How to Leave Hialeah; and the essay collection My Time Among the Whites: Notes from an Unfinished Education, long-listed for the PEN/Open Book Award. Her most recent book, the critically-acclaimed novel Say Hello to My Little Friend, was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize for Fiction and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Her fiction and nonfiction have been widely anthologized, and her work has appeared on PBS NewsHour, NPR, and other national and international publications. She’s worked as a professor of creative writing and has taught workshops at conferences across the country. She’s also worked as a screenwriter, a college access counselor to first-generation college students, and as a sketch comedienne (though not all at the same time). Born and raised in Miami, she lives in North Carolina with her family.
Photo by Beowulf Sheehan
Sarah Manguso
Sarah Manguso is the author of nine books, most recently the novel Liars. Her writing has been translated into fifteen languages.
Her previous novel, Very Cold People, was longlisted for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, the Wingate Literary Prize, and the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award.
Her nonfiction books include 300 Arguments, an aphoristic essay; Ongoingness, a meditation on motherhood and time; The Guardians, an investigation of friendship and suicide; and The Two Kinds of Decay, a memoir of her experience with a chronic autoimmune disease.
Sarah is also the author of a story collection, Hard to Admit and Harder to Escape, and of the poetry collections Siste Viator and The Captain Lands in Paradise, poems from which have won a Pushcart Prize and appeared in four editions of the Best American Poetry series.
Sarah's work has been recognized by an American Academy of Arts and Letters Literature Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Hodder Fellowship, and the Rome Prize.
Sarah grew up in Massachusetts and now lives in Los Angeles, where she teaches creative writing at Antioch University.
Photo by Nina Subin
Julia Phillips
Julia Phillips is the author of the bestselling novels Bear and Disappearing Earth, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and one of The New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of the Year. A 2024 Guggenheim fellow, she lives with her family in Brooklyn.
Julia's work has been translated into twenty-six languages. She has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, and The Paris Review and teaches at the Randolph College MFA program. She is also on the board of the Crime Victims Treatment Center, a nonprofit that helps people heal from violence.
Photo by Becky Kraemer
Morgan Talty
Morgan Talty is a citizen of the Penobscot Indian Nation. He is the author most recently of the novel Fire Exit (Tin House) which has been named a Finalist 2024 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the 2024 Maya Angelou Book Award and Longlisted for the 2025 Aspen Words Literary Prize and the 2024 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. His debut short story collection, Night of the Living Rez, won the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Sue Kaufman Prize, the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, the New England Book Award, the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 Honor, and was a finalist for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award, and The Story Prize. His writing has appeared in The Georgia Review, Granta, Shenandoah, TriQuarterly, Narrative, Lit Hub, and elsewhere. Talty is an assistant professor of English in Creative Writing and Native American and Contemporary Literature at the University of Maine, Orono. He lives in Levant, Maine.
Morgan Talty in conversation with Miwa Messer, on Poured Over, Barnes & Noble
Photo by Bobby Abrahamson
Willy Vlautin
Born and raised in Reno, Nevada, Willy Vlautin is the author of seven novels and is the founder of the bands Richmond Fontaine and The Delines. Vlautin started writing stories and songs at the age of eleven after receiving his first guitar. Inspired by songwriters and novelists like Paul Kelly, Willie Nelson, Tom Waits, William Kennedy, Lucia Berlin, and John Steinbeck, Vlautin works diligently to tell working class stories in his novels and songs.
Vlautin has been the recipient of three Oregon Book Awards, The Nevada Silver Pen Award, and was inducted into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame and the Oregon Music Hall of Fame. He was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. Three of his novels, The Motel Life, Lean on Pete, and The Night Always Comes have been adapted as films. His novels have been translated into fourteen languages. Vlautin teaches at Pacific University’s MFA in Writing program and lives near Portland, Oregon with his wife, dog, cats, and horses.
