Lillian Stone is a reporter, humor writer, and the author of Everybody's Favorite, a funny and disgusting essay collection published in 2023. She’s a frequent contributor to outlets including Slate, BBC Worklife, and GQ. On the humor side, she's a...  read

Daniel Kraus is a New York Times bestselling writer of novels, TV, and film. His latest novel, Whalefall, received a front-cover rave review in the New York Times Book Review, won the Alex Award, and is a LA Times Book...  read

Jennifer Schaefer is a fiction writer whose work has appeared in: North American Review, Chicago Tribune, Barstow & Grand, Curbside Splendor, The Matador Review, Zouch Magazine, Akashic Books' flash fiction series, and Tortoise Books' anthology. She also received an Honorable...  read

Sarah Kokernot’s writing has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The New York Times, Michigan Quarterly Review, Crazyhorse, Front Porch, West Branch, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and other publications. She is currently finishing her first novel. Originally from Kentucky,...  read

Robert Vetter is a writer and performer, most recently performing with Little Miss Anthropes, a drag standup pageant, at The Lincoln Lodge. His work has been published by or is forthcoming in McSweeney’s, The AutoEthnographer, The New Absurdist, The Museum...  read

Gina DeLuca is an essayist, satirist and cartoonist who has been performing in Chicago for the last 13 years. She recently graduated with her MFA in nonfiction writing from Washington University in St. Louis, and is an Assistant Editor for...  read

James Gordon is an award winning actor, author, and poet, as well as a champion Storyteller. James can be seen on episodes of Chicago Fire, Chicago Med, The G, Background Extras, Quick 2 Judge, and the theatrical productions Ides of...  read

Molia Dumbleton’s work has appeared in The Sun Magazine, Ecotone, The Kenyon Review, New England Review, and elsewhere; been awarded honors including Ireland's Seán Ó Faoláin International Story Prize, the Columbia Journal Winter Fiction Prize, and a Peter Taylor Fellowship...  read

Michael Zapata is a founding editor of MAKE Literary Magazine and the author of the novel The Lost Book of Adana Moreau, winner of the 2020 Chicago Review of Books Award for Fiction, finalist for the 2020 Heartland Booksellers Award...  read

Dmitry Samarov was born in Moscow, USSR in 1970. He immigrated to the US with his family in 1978. He got in trouble in 1st grade for doodling on his Lenin Red Star pin and hasn't stopped doodling since. After...  read