Zelda Lockhart - Week 1

Zelda Lockhart is author of award-winning novels Fifth Born and Cold Running Creek. Her third novel, Fifth Born II: The Hundredth Turtle, will be released in June 2010. Excerpts appear in the 2010 Chautauqua journal. Lockhart lives in North Carolina and is the 2010 Piedmont Laureate for her state. She lectures and leads workshops around the country.

Kirk Nesset - Week 2

Kirk Nesset is author of two books of fiction, Mr. Agreeable and Paradise Road, as well as The Stories of Raymond Carver (nonfiction), Saint X (poems, forthcoming), and Alphabet of the World: Selected Works by Eugenio Montejo (translations, forthcoming). He was awarded the Drue Heinz Literature Prize in 2007 and has received a Pushcart Prize and grants from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. His work has appeared in The Paris Review, Kenyon Review, Southern Review, American Poetry Review, Gettysburg Review, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner and elsewhere. He teaches at Allegheny College.

Richard Terrill - Week 3

Richard Terrill is the author of two collections of poems, Almost Dark and Coming Late to Rachmaninoff, winner of the Minnesota Book Award; as well as two books of creative nonfiction, Fakebook: Improvisations on a Journey Back to Jazz and Saturday Night in Baoding: A China Memoir, winner of the Associated Writing Programs Award for Nonfiction. He teaches in the MFA program at Minnesota State University, Mankato, where he is a Distinguished Faculty Scholar.

Emily Barton - Week 3

Emily Barton (advanced fiction workshop) is the author of two novels, The Testament of Yves Gundron, and Brookland, both named New York Times Notable Books. Her fiction, criticism, and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including Story magazine, American Short Fiction, Conjunctions, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times Book Review, the Washington Post Book World, the New York Observer, Poetry magazine, Nextbook, and Bookforum. She has received a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Michael Steinberg - Week 4

Michael Steinberg has written and/or edited five books. In 2004, Still Pitching won the ForeWord Magazine/Independent Press Memoir of the Year. The Fourth Genre: Contemporary Writers of/on Creative Nonfiction (with Bob Root), is in its fifth edition. Several essays have also been cited as “Notables” in Best American Essays. Steinberg is founding editor of the literary journal, Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction, and he's currently writer-in-residence in the Solstice/Pine Manor College MFA program.

Nancy Reisman - Week 5

Nancy Reisman is the author of the novel The First Desire and the story collection House Fires. Her work has appeared in many anthologies and journals, including Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Award Stories, Jewish in America, Yale Review, Tin House, Glimmer Train, and SubTropics. She has taught creative writing at the University of Michigan and the University of Florida, and now teaches fiction writing at Vanderbilt University.

Dan Roche - Week 6

Dan Roche is the author of two memoirs, Great Expectation: A Father's Diary and Love's Labors, as well as essays in The North American Review, The Journal, and Under the Sun, among others. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa and now teaches journalism and creative nonfiction at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, NY.

Sharyn McCrumb - Week 7

Sharyn McCrumb is an award-winning Southern writer, best known for her Appalachian “Ballad” novels and for St. Dale. Forthcoming novels are The Devil Amongst the Lawyers and Faster Pastor, the latter co-authored by NASCAR driver Adam Edwards. In 2008 Sharyn McCrumb was named a “Virginia Woman of History” for Achievement in Literature.

Ann Hood - Week 8

Ann Hood is the author of eight novels, including The Knitting Circle and Somewhere Off The Coast Of Maine, and two memoirs, most recently Comfort: A Journey Through Grief. Her short stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Paris Review, Bon Appetit, Traveler, O, and many other publications. She has won a Best Spiritual Writing Award, the Paul Bowles Prize for Short Fiction and two Pushcart Prizes. Her most recent novel is The Red Thread, to be published in May, 2010.

Bruce Chadwick - Week 9

Bruce Chadwick, an historian, is the author of 28 books. He has written extensively about the Civil War and the American Revolution. His last two works were Lincoln for President, a political biography, and I Am Murdered, an early nineteenth century mystery thriller. Chadwick teaches writing at New Jersey City University and is a part time American Studies lecturer at Rutgers University. He has been a frequent guest scholar on the History Channel, the National Geographic Channel and national television programs such as Fox and Friends. He appeared in the documentary film Moving Midway, about the American South.