Karen Lynne Hall is an American television writer, producer, author, bookstore owner and a member of the George Foster Peabody Awards board of jurors, best known for her work on the television series Judging Amy and M*A*S*H.
Junot Díaz is a Dominican American writer, creative writing professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a former fiction editor at Boston Review. He also serves on the board of advisers for Freedom University, a volunteer organization in Georgia that provides post-secondary instruction to undocumented immigrants. Central to Díaz's work is the immigrant experience, particularly the Latino immigrant experience.
Melanie Rae Thon is an American fiction writer known for work that moves beyond and between genres, erasing the boundaries between them as it explores diversity, permeability, and interdependence from a multitude of human and more-than-human perspectives.
Gina Berriault was an American novelist and short story writer.
Katherine Vaz is a Portuguese-American writer. A Briggs-Copeland Fellow in Fiction at Harvard University (2003–2009), a 2006–2007 Fellow of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and the Fall, 2012 Harman Fellow at Baruch College in New York, she is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Above the Salt, a People Magazine Book of the Week and a Top Book of November, a Top Three Pick by Good Morning, America, and a Most Anticipated Book for Fall, 2023 by Zibby’s Books and Goodreads.
Sherrie Flick is an American fiction writer whose work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, North American Review, Quarterly West, Puerto del Sol, Weave Magazine, Quick Fiction, Lit Hub, and other literary magazines. Flick is also a regular contributor to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which publishes her column "In a Writer's Urban Garden." In 2021, her work was performed by actress Marin Ireland for Symphony Space.
Emily Raboteau is an American fiction writer, essayist, and professor of creative writing at the City College of New York.
Victoria Chang is an American poet, writer, editor, and critic. She has experimented with different styles of writing, including writing obituaries for parts of her life, including her parents and herself, in OBIT, letters in Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief, and a Japanese form known as waka in The Trees Witness Everything. In all of her poems and books, Chang has several common themes: living as an Asian-American woman, depression, and dealing with loss and grief. She has also written three books for children.
Debra Monroe is an American novelist, short story writer, memoirist, and essayist. She has written seven books, including two story collections, a collection of essays, two novels, and two memoirs, and is also editor of an anthology of nonfiction. Monroe has been twice nominated for the National Book Award, is a winner of the prestigious Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction, and was cited on several "10 Best Books" lists for her nationally-acclaimed memoir, On the Outskirts of Normal: Forging a Family Against the Grain.
Paola Jo (PJ) Corso is an American fiction writer, poet, photographer and literary activist. Corso is a New York Foundation for the Arts Poetry Fellow, Sherwood Anderson Fiction Award Winner,, and included on the Pennsylvania Center for the Book's Literary Map. She is the author of eight books of fiction and poetry, including 'Vertical Bridges: Poems and Photographs of City Steps,' (2020) with original photos by the author and archival photographs from the University of Pittsburgh Library; Catina's Haircut: A Novel in Stories (2010) on Library Journal’s notable list of first novels; Giovanna's 86 Circles And Other Stories (2005), a Binghamton University's John Gardner Fiction Book Award Finalist; a book of poems, Death by Renaissance (2004), and award-winning poetry collections, The Laundress Catches Her Breath, winner of the Tillie Olsen Award for Creative Writing; and Once I Was Told the Air Was Not for Breathing (2012), about Pittsburgh steelworkers and garment workers in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and winner of a Triangle Fire Memorial Association Award.
Grant Ginder is an American novelist, academic, and former political aide.
Tara Ison is an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist.
Swati Avasthi is an Indian-American writer of fiction and a professor. Her first young adult novel, Split, receiving several awards including Cybils Young Adult Fiction Award and a Parents’ Choice 2010 Silver Award. In 2009, her short story "Swallow" was nominated for the Pushcart Prize and was listed in 2009 Best American New Voices collection. Chasing Shadows is her second novel, published in 2013, and was listed as "Best of 2013" book by Kirkus, YALSA, and Bank Street.
Fiona Cheong is a Singaporean-born novelist and academic. Cheong is currently an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh since 1995. She has written two novels, The Scent of the Gods (1991), which was nominated for a National Book Award, and Shadow Theatre (2002).
Naima Coster is a Dominican-American writer known for her debut novel, Halsey Street, which was published in January 2018. Coster is the recipient of numerous awards including a Pushcart Prize nomination.
Elizabeth Acevedo is an American poet and author. In September 2022, the Poetry Foundation named her the year's Young People's Poet Laureate.
Soledad is the debut novel by Angie Cruz, published in 2001 by Simon & Schuster.
Rebecca Chace is an American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, and actor. She is the author of the novel Leaving Rock Harbor (2010), which was recognized as an Editors’ Choice by TheNew York Times, a June Indie Notable Book by the American Booksellers Association, and a finalist for the New England Book Award. Chace's novel Capture the Flag (1999), has been adapted for the screen with director Lisanne Skyler. The film was awarded the Showtime Tony Cox Screenplay Award at the 2010 Nantucket Film Festival. She has also published the memoir Chautauqua Summer (1993), and her first children's novel June Sparrow and the Million Dollar Penny (2017). Her plays include Colette and an adaptation of Kate Chopin's novel The Awakening .
Adriana E. Ramírez is an American writer and critic of Mexican and Colombian descent. Her writing addresses the history and culture of violence in Colombia, Mexico, and the United States. She graduated from Rice University in 2005, where she wrote for The Rice Thresher and was part of the poetry slam team. She received her MFA from the University of Pittsburgh, where she taught classes in creative writing and literature. She formerly taught nonfiction at Carlow University.
Dominicana is a 2019 novel by Angie Cruz. It is Cruz's third novel, and was shortlisted for the 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction.
