Leslie Jamison

Leslie Jamison is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Recovering and The Empathy Exams; the collection of essays Make It Scream, Make It Burn; and the novel The Gin Closet; a finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award; and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She writes for numerous publications, including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times, Harper’s, and the New York Review of Books. She teaches at Columbia University and lives in Brooklyn.

Sarah Manguso

Sarah Manguso is the author of nine books, most recently the novel Very Cold People, which was longlisted for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, as well as a story collection, two poetry collections, and four acclaimed works of nonfiction: 300 Arguments, Ongoingness, The Guardians, and The Two Kinds of Decay, which was shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize. Her novel Liars is forthcoming in July 2024. Her work has been recognized by an American Academy of Arts and Letters Literature Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Hodder Fellowship, and the Rome Prize, and her writing has been translated into 12 languages. She teaches Creative Writing at Antioch University.

Meghan Daum is the author of four books, most recently the collection of original essays The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion. She is also the editor of Selfish, Shallow & Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not To Have Kids, which was published in March of this year. Her other books include the essay collection My Misspent Youth, the novel The Quality of Life Report, and Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived In That House, a memoir. Since 2005, Daum has been an opinion columnist at The Los Angeles Times, covering cultural and political topics. Meghan has written for numerous magazines, including The New Yorker, Harper’s, andVogue.

Leslie Jamison has published work in Harper’s, A Public Space, Oxford American, and The Believer. Her debut novel, The Gin Closet, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times First Fiction Prize. She lives in Brooklyn and is completing a doctorate at Yale University.

Molly Pulda is a Provost’s Postdoctoral Scholar in the Humanities at USC. She is working on a manuscript about secrecy in contemporary literature and culture.