Soraya Nadia McDonald is the senior cultural critic for Andscape (formerly The Undefeated). She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

Rebecca Makkai is the author of many novels including The Great Believers which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Rafia Zakaria is the author of Against White Feminism. Her writing has appeared in The Guardian, CNN, and New York Times.

Elizabeth McCracken is the author of eight books, including, The Hero of This Book. She directs the MFA program at The University of Texas at Austin.

Keri Blakinger is the author of the memoir Corrections in Ink. She is a journalist at The Los Angeles Times.

Melissa Lozada–Oliva is the author of the novel Dreaming of You. Her writing has appeared in NPR, Vogue, The Guardian, and Vulture.

Tod Goldberg is the New York Times bestselling author of over a dozen books, including The Low Desert.

Qian Julie Wang is the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir Beautiful Country. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Cut.

Diksha Basu is the author of three novels. She teaches in the MFA program at Columbia University.

Joe Hagan is the co-host of Vanity Fair’s podcast Inside the Hive. He is the author of Sticky Fingers: the Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine.

Stephanie Land is the author New York Times Bestselling memoir MAID. It was adapted into the series MAID at Netflix.

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is the New York Times bestselling author of Friday Black and Chain Gang All Stars.

Charles Yu is the author of four books, including Interior Chinatown, which won the National Book Award.

Merve Emre is a contributing writer at The New Yorker. She is the author of The Ferrante Letters.

Tressie McMillan Cottom is a columnist for the New York Times and the author of Thick and Other Essays.

Molly Jong-Fast is a special correspondent at Vanity Fair and she hosts the podcast Fast Politics.