NONFICTION
Jen Soriano (she~they) is a Filipinx-American writer, scholar, and performer who has long worked at the intersection of grassroots organizing, narrative strategy, and art-driven social change. They are the author of the chapbook Making the Tongue Dry, and the lyric essay collection Nervous, which won the 2024 Memoir Prize, the Housatonic Book Award, and the American Book Fest prize for books about mental health and psychology. They are also co-editor of the anthology Closer to Liberation: Pina/xy Activism in Theory and Practice and author of Multiplicity From the Margins which explores the potential of intersectional form to disrupt oppressive narratives and expand narrow worldviews.
Jen is a grateful recipient of fellowships from Artist Trust, Hugo House, the Jack Jones Literary Arts Retreat, and Vermont Studio Center. They received a BA in History and Science from Harvard and an MFA in fiction and nonfiction from the Rainier Writing Workshop. Jen is also a co-founder of the cultural democracy institutions, MediaJustice and ReFrame, and is a leader and worker in the field of narrative justice. Originally from a landlocked part of the Chicago area, Jen has spent the past decade living with her family in Seattle, near the Duwamish River and the Salish Sea.
POETRY
Ruben Quesada is an award-winning poet and editor. He edited the anthology Latinx Poetics: Essays on the Art of Poetry, winner of the Gold Medal from the Independent Publisher Book Awards. His writing appears in The New York Times Magazine, The Believer, Seneca Review, Ploughshares, Harvard Review, and American Poetry Review. He was poetry editor for AGNI, Poet Lore, and Pleiades. Quesada has received fellowships from the CantoMundo, Jentel, and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. His new collection, Brutal Companion, won the Barrow Street Press Editors Prize.
FICTION
Emmy-award winner Ben Tanzer‘s acclaimed work includes the short story collection UPSTATE, the science fiction novel Orphans and the essay collections Lost in Space and Be Cool. His recent novel The Missing was released in March 2024 by 7.13 Books and was a Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year finalist in the category of Traditional Fiction and his forthcoming book After Hours: Scorsese, Grief and the Grammar of Cinema, which Kirkus Reviews calls “A heartfelt if overstuffed tribute to the author’s father and the ameliorative power of art,” will be released from Ig Publishing in May 2025. Ben lives in Chicago with his family.