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For Nonfiction, Jeannie Vanasco is the author of A Silent Treatment, which was named a best book of 2025 by NPR, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. Her other memoirs include Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl—a New York Times Editors’ Choice and a best book of 2019 by TIME, Esquire, Kirkus, among others—and The Glass Eye, which Poets & Writers called one of the five best literary nonfiction debuts of 2017. Born and raised in Sandusky, Ohio, she lives in Baltimore and is an associate professor of English at Towson University. Her fourth book is under contract with Tin House, publisher of her other memoirs.

For Poetry, Diane Seuss is the author of six collections of poetry, most recently Modern Poetry (Graywolf Press 2024), which was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Griffin Poetry Prize. frank: sonnets (Graywolf Press 2021) was the winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Pulitzer Prize. Seuss is a member of the Academy of American Poets Board of Chancellors. She was raised by a single mother in rural Michigan, which she continues to call home. Her seventh collection, Althea: Poems, is forthcoming from Graywolf Press in 2027.

For Fiction, Alex Espinoza (he/him/his/they) is a queer writer born in Tijuana, Mexico––on Kumeyaay original lands–– to Purepécha parents from the state of Michoacán and raised in Southern California, on Gabrieliño-Tongva land. His debut novel, Still Water Saints, was published to wide critical acclaim. His second novel, The Five Acts of Diego León, was the winner of a 2014 American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. Other awards include fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the National Endowment for the Arts, and MacDowell. He is the author of the nonfiction book Cruising: An Intimate History of a Radical Pastime and has written essays, reviews, and stories for The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Virginia Quarterly Review, the Los Angeles Times, LitHub, and NPR. His short story “Detainment” was selected for inclusion in the 2022 Best American Mystery and Suspense Stories. His newest novel, The Sons of El Rey, was published in June, 2024 from Simon and Schuster. It was longlisted for the 2025 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and was selected as one of the best books of 2024 by The New Yorker. Alex lives in Los Angeles on Gabrieliño-Tongva land with his husband Kyle and teaches at the University of California, Riverside––within Tongva, Cahuilla, Luiseño & Serrano original lands––where he serves as the Tomás Rivera Endowed Chair and Professor of Creative Writing.