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.

Zachary Mason, author of the novel The Lost Books of the Odyssey, is a computer scientist specializing in artificial intelligence. He is at work on two books for FSG: Metamorphica and Void Star. He was a finalist for the 2008 New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award. He lives in California.

Madeline Miller grew up in Philadelphia, has a BA and MA from Brown University in Latin and Ancient Greek, and has been teaching both for the past several years. She has also studied at the Yale School of Drama, specializing in adapting classical tales to a modern audience. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Song of Achilles is her first novel.

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.