Ruben Quesada has taught writing, literature, and literary translation at Vermont College of Fine Arts and at Columbia College Chicago. He is the author of Next Extinct Mammal and Exiled from the Throne of Night: Selected Translations of Luis Cernuda....  read

Tracy Harford-Porter was born in Brooklyn, NY and now resides in the Chicago suburbs. She has worked for Essence Communications as a photo editor, the Harlem Children's Zone as the managing editor of Harlem Overheard, StoryCorps as a facilitator coordinator,...  read

Nestor Gomez was born in Guatemala and has lived in Chicago for the last 30 years. Almost 3 years ago, he told his first story as a way to get over the stuttering that had plagued his childhood, and since...  read

Kelly Swails is a writer, editor, and recovering clinical microbiologist. Her work has appeared in anthologies, comics, medical laboratory publications, and Shondaland. She also has two young adult novels out now, with a third appearing later this year. When she...  read

Billy Lombardo is the author of three books of fiction: The Man with Two Arms, How to Hold a Woman, The Logic of a Rose: Chicago Stories, and one book of something else: Meanwhile, Roxy Mourns. He is a Nelson...  read

Ruben Quesada has taught writing, literature, and literary translation at Vermont College of Fine Arts and at Columbia College Chicago. He is the author of Next Extinct Mammal and Exiled from the Throne of Night: Selected Translations of Luis Cernuda....  read

David Daskal is a writer, parent and jack of all careers. Now a recruiter, he has in past reincarnations been a public defender in Brooklyn, a waiter at Michael Jordan's original restaurant, the personal screener of Mayor Richard M. Daley's...  read

Tony Romano is the author of the novel, Where My Body Ends and the World Begins (Allium Press), When the World Was Young (HarperCollins) and the story collection, If You Eat, You Never Die (HarperCollins). He is also the coauthor...  read

Sahar Mustafah is author of Code of the West, an award-winning short story collection. Her stories have earned a Distinguished Story citation from Best American Short Stories 2016 and two Pushcart Prize nominations, among other honors. She has served with Voices of Protest,...  read

Lindsay Porter teaches acting and creative writing in hospitals, elementary schools, high schools and colleges, and at the Lake County Jail. She has written plays that have been produced by Running with Scissors, Chicago Dramatists, Trap Door and Collaboraction Theatre...  read