Sarah Messer has received fellowships and grants from the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, the NEA, and others. She is the author of a hybrid history/memoir, Red House (Viking), and a poetry book, Bandit Letters (New Issues). In 2008-2009 she was a fellow in poetry at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She teaches at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.

Amy Gerstler is a writer living in Los Angeles. Her most recent book of poems is Dearest Creature. She teaches at the Bennington Writing Seminars at Bennington College, in the MPW program at USC and at Art Center College of Design.