Born & raised in New Orleans, Bernardo Wade tries at poems, catches elbows on the court, wanders around the Bay—occasionally on Stanford’s campus as a Wallace Stegner Fellow. Previously the Editor of Indiana Review, he now serves as Assistant Editor and Poetry Editor for Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora. & though he’s published in a bunch of literary journals no one in his family has ever heard of, they remain proud of him, especially when they are featured in the poems.

Homer Venters is the former Chief Medical Officer of the NYC Jail System, and currently works as a Court- appointed monitor and inspector of health services in jails and prisons.

Kristina O’Neill is head of Sotheby’s Media and editor in chief of Sotheby’s Magazine. Previously, she served as editor in chief of WSJ.

Eli Cranor is a nationally bestselling, Edgar Award–winning author who played quarterback at every level: peewee to professional. These days, he serves as Writer in Residence at Arkansas Tech, where he also lends his expertise to the university’s football team.

Karen Celestan is the author of "Freedom’s Dance: Social, Aid and Pleasure Clubs in New Orleans" with cultural photographer Eric Waters (LSU Press, 2018) and "unfinished blues: Memories of a New Orleans Music Man" with Harold Battiste, Jr., the former musical director for So

Laura Brown is the Australian-born journalist and was the former editor of InStyle magazine.

Emeril Lagasse is the chef/proprietor of 7 restaurants in New Orleans, Las Vegas, as well as three restaurants at sea with Carnival Cruise Lines.

Dr.

Wally Lamb is the award-winning author of seven New York Times bestselling novels: She’s Come Undone, I Know This Much is True, The Hour I First Believed, Wishin’ & Hopin’, We Are Water, I’ll Take You There, and, most recently, The River is Waiting

C. Morgan Babst is a native of New Orleans. Her essays and short fiction have appeared in The Washington Post, Saveur, The Oxford American, Guernica, the Harvard Review, and the New Orleans Review, among others, and she is a regular contributor to Garden and Gun.