Sep 20, 2025
Sally Wen Mao is the author of the poetry collection The Kingdom of Surfaces, a finalist for the 2023 Maya Angelou Book Prize. Her debut fiction collection, Ninetails,was released in May 2024. She is the author of two previous poetry collections, Oculus, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Mad Honey Symposium. Her work has appeared in The Best American Poetry 2013 and 2021, The Paris Review, Granta, Poetry, A Public Space, Harpers Bazaar, The Washington Post, and others. The recipient of two Pushcart Prizes and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, she was recently a Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library and a Shearing Fellow at the Black Mountain Institute. She has taught writing at NYU, Cornell, and Sarah Lawrence College, and will be an Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Baruch College in 2024.
Sep 17, 2025
Allegra Hyde is the author of the story collection The Last Catastrophe, an Editors’ Choice selection at The New York Times and a finalist for the Ohioana Book Award. Her debut novel Eleutheria was named a best book of the year by The New Yorker, shortlisted for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Prize, and featured on Late Night with Seth Meyers. Her first story collection, Of This New World, won the John Simmons Short Fiction Award. Hyde has also received four Pushcart Prizes and the O. Henry Prize. Her work has been selected for anthologies including The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Travel Writing, and Best of the Net. She has received fellowships and grants from the MacDowell Artist Residency, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, The Elizabeth George Foundation, the U.S. Fulbright Commission, and elsewhere. She currently lives in Massachusetts and teaches at Smith College.
Sep 12, 2025
Sam Sussman is the author of the debut novel Boy From the North Country, published by Penguin Press on September 16, 2025. Sam previously won the BAFTA New Writing Award and wrote the memoir, The Silent Type: On (Possibly) Being Bob Dylan’s Son. Kirkus Reviews calls Boy From the North Country “the most beautiful and moving mother-son story in recent memory.” Originally from the Hudson Valley, Sam has lived in Jerusalem, Berlin, and the U.K. He graduated with a B.A from Swarthmore and M.Phil from Oxford. Sam has taught writing and literature seminars in the U.K, India, and Chile and participated in the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature three times. He lives in the Yorkville neighborhood of Manhattan and his native Hudson Valley.
May 20, 2025
Tim Weed is the author of three books of fiction. His story collection, A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing, was named to the Eric Hoffer Book Award Grand Prize Shortlist, and his first novel, Will Poole’s Island, was one of Bank Street College of Education’s Best Books of the Year. He’s a two-time winner of the Writer’s Digest Annual Fiction Awards and has been shortlisted for the Tobias Wolff Award for Fiction, the Fish International Short Story Award, the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Award for a Novel-in-Progress, the New Rivers Many Voices Project, and many others. His essays and articles have appeared in Writers’ Digest, Literary Hub, The Millions, The Writer’s Chronicle, Talking Points Memo, and elsewhere. His new novel, The Afterlife Project, finalist for the Prism Prize in Climate Fiction, received a starred review from Library Journal and was a Middlebury Magazine editor’s pick. Tim lives in southern Vermont with his family and three disobedient cats.
May 19, 2025
Ocean Vuong is the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collections Night Sky with Exit Wounds and Time Is a Mother, as well as the New York Times bestselling novels On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, winner of the American Book Award, The Mark Twain Award, and The New England Book Award and a new novel, The Emperor of Gladness, a 2025 Oprah Book Club pick. A recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and the American Book Award, he used to work as a fast-food server, which inspired The Emperor of Gladness. Born in Saigon, Vietnam, he currently splits his time between Northampton, Massachusetts, and New York City.
