Jamaica-born Marlon James is the author of the acclaimed novel The Book of Night Women, winner of the 2010 Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and John Crow’s Devil, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His latest novel delves into the attempted assassination of Bob Marley in the late 1970s.

LaShonda Katrice Barnett is the author a short story collection titled Callaloo and is the editor of I Got Thunder: Black Women Songwriters on Their Craft. Her debut novel, Jam! On the Vine, tells the story of a courageous woman who founds a black newspaper in the Jim Crow-era Midwest. 

Bridgett M. Davis is the author of Shifting through Neutral, a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. Her work has appeared in many publications, including the Washington Post, Essence, and O, The Oprah Magazine. Into the Go-Slow follows a young woman from Detroit to Nigeria as she mourns the death of her sister.