Elliot Ackerman served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan and is the recipient of the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart. A former White House Fellow, his essays and fiction have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New Republic, and Ecotone, among others.  His novels include Green on Blue and Dark at the Crossing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kate Manne is an assistant professor of the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell University. She was a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows from 2011 to 2013 and has a PhD in Philosophy from MIT. Her book is called Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joan Silber's first book, the novel Household Words won the PEN/Hemingway Award. Her other works of fiction are In the City, In My Other Life, Lucky Us, Ideas of Heaven, finalist for the National Book Award and the Story Prize, The Size of the World, finalist for the Los Angeles Times Prize in Fiction, and Fools, longlisted for the National Book Award and finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. Her latest novel is called Improvement.. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alice McDermott is the author of eight novels, including National Book Award winner Charming Billy and The Ninth Hour. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

George Saunders is the author of four short story collections, including Tenth of December and the novel Lincoln in the Bardo, which won the 2017 Man Booker Prize. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

James Han Mattson is the author of The Lost Prayers of Ricky Graves. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jennifer Egan is the author of several novels and a short story collection. Her book, A Visit From the Goon Squad, won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Los Angeles Times book prize. Also a journalist, she has written frequently in the New York Times Magazine. Her newest novel is Manhattan Beach. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

James Longenbach is a poet and critic whose most recent collection of poems, Earthling is a meditation on the ways in which human beings inhabit their knowledge of impending mortality, ranging bemusement to panic.  His most recent critical work, Lyric Knowledge: How Poems Get Made is an account of how English-language poems, ranging from the 8th to the 21st century, are constructed from the most basic elements of their medium (diction, syntax, rhythm, figuration, and so on).  He has also written widely about modern and postmodern poetry, sometimes emphasizing the historicity of poetic language (Wallace Stevens: The Plain Sense of Things) but also exploring the ways in which poems resist their historical location (The Resistance to Poetry). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Matthew Weiner was the writer, creator, executive producer, and director of Mad Men. He also worked as a writer and executive producer on The Sopranos, along with several comedy series, and made his feature film debut in 2014. Weiner's novel is called Heather, The Totality. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Carmen Maria Machado's debut short story collection, Her Body and Other Parties, was a finalist for the National Book Award and the winner of the Bard Fiction Prize. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bruce Machart's works include the novel The Wake of Forgiveness and the short story collection Men in the Making. His novel was named a Barnes and Noble "Discover Great New Writers" selection and a New York Times Book Review "Editors' Choice." Chosen as a Top Ten title for 2010 by Barnes and Noble, Amazon.com, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, and The Wall Street Journal, the novel was a finalist for the American Booksellers Association's Indie's Choice award and the PEN/USA Literary Prize. Machart lives in Hamilton, Massachusetts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David Litt is an American political speechwriter and author of the memoir Thanks, Obama: My Hopey Changey White House Years. He is currently the head writer/producer for Funny or Die’s office in Washington, D.C. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lu Spinney was born in Cape Town and spent her childhood on a farm in the Midlands of KwaZulu-Natal, later moving with her family to the Indian Ocean coast north of Durban. After university, she left South Africa to live in Nice and Paris, before settling in London.  Beyond the High Blue Air is her first book. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Eleanor Henderson was born in Greece, grew up in Florida, and attended Middlebury College and the University of Virginia, where she earned her MFA. Her debut novel Ten Thousand Saints was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2011 by The New York Times and a finalist for the Award for First Fiction from The Los Angeles Times. An associate professor at Ithaca College, she lives in Ithaca, New York, with her husband and two sons. Her second novel is called The Twelve-Mile Straight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jon McGregoris a British novelist and short story writer. In 2002, his first novel was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize as its youngest contender. His second and fourth novels were longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2006 and 2017 respectively. In 2012, his third novel was awarded the International Dublin Literary Award. His most recent novel is Reservoir 13. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brendan Mathews is the author of The World of Tomorrow. He was a Fulbright Scholar to Ireland, where he taught in the graduate creative writing program at University College Cork. His fiction has twice appeared in The Best American Short Stories and in Glimmer Train, Virginia Quarterly Review, Salon, Cincinnati Review, and other publications in the US and UK. He lives with his wife and their four children in Lenox, Massachusetts, and teaches at Bard College at Simon’s Rock. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Josh Weil is the author of the novel The Great Glass Sea and the novella collection The New Valley, both New York Times Editor’s Choices. A Fulbright Fellow and National Book Foundation 5-under-35 honoree, he has been awarded the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the Sue Kaufman Prize from The American Academy of Arts and Letters, the GrubStreet National Book Prize, the Library of Virginia’s Award in Fiction, the New Writers Award from the GLCA, and a Pushcart Prize. His new short story collection is called The Age of Perpetual Light.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Laura van den Berg was raised in Florida and earned her M.F.A. at Emerson College. Her books include Find Me, The Isle of Youth, and What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nathan Englander is the author of the novels Dinner at the Center of the Earth and The Ministry of Special Cases, and the story collections For the Relief of Unbearable Urges and What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank—finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His short fiction has been widely anthologized, most recently in 100 Years of the Best American Short Stories. Englander's play, The Twenty-Seventh Man, premiered at The Public Theater in 2012. He translated the New American Haggadah and co-translated Etgar Keret's Suddenly a Knock on the Door. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lily Tuck is the author of seven novels: Interviewing Matisse, or the Woman Who Died Standing Up; The Woman Who Walked on Water; The Double Life of Liliane, Sisters, Siam, or the Woman Who Shot a Man, which was nominated for the 2000 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction; and The News from Paraguay, winner of theNational Book Award. She is also the author of the biography Woman of Rome: A Life of Elsa Morante. Her short stories have appeared in The New Yorker and are collected in Limbo and Other Places I Have Lived. Lily Tuck divides her time between Maine and New York City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Paolo Giordano is an Italian novelist.  His books include The Solitude of Prime Numbers, Like Family, and The Human Body. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Paul Yoon was born in New York City. His first book, Once the Shore, was selected as a New York Times Notable Book and a Best Debut of the Year by National Public Radio. His novel, Snow Hunters, won the 2014 Young Lions Fiction Award.  His new novel is The Mountain. A recipient of a 5 under 35 Award from the National Book Foundation and a fellowship from the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, he is currently a Briggs-Copeland Lecturer at Harvard University along with his wife, the fiction writer Laura van den Berg. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Andrew Sean Greer is the author of six works of fiction, including the bestseller The Confessions of Max Tivoli, The Story of a Marriage and his latest novel, Less.  He splits his time between his home in San Francisco and the Santa Maddalena Foundation writer's residency in Tuscany, where he is the Executive Director. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dorit Rabinyan was born in Israel to an Iranian-Jewish family. Her first two novels Persian Brides and Strand of A Thousand Pearls were both international best sellers. In 2014 Rabinyan published her third novel, All The Rivers, an immediate best seller in Israel. In January 2016 All the Rivers became the center of a political scandal in Israel when the Ministry of Education banned the book from high school’s curriculum Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Claire Dederer is the author of Love and Trouble: A Midlife Reckoning. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maile Meloy is the author of the novels Liars and Saints and A Family Daughter and the story collections Half in Love and Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It, which was named one of the Ten Best Books of the Year by the New York Times Book Review and one of the best books of the year by the Los Angeles Times and Amazon.com. She has also written a trilogy for young readers, beginning with The Apothecary, which was a New York Times bestseller and won the 2012 E.B. White Award. Meloy’s short stories have been published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Granta, and Best American Short Stories 2015. Her new novel for adults is Do Not Become Alarmed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Leila Aboulela is a Sudanese-born writer whose work, written in English, has received critical acclaim and a high profile for its distinctive exploration of identity, migration and Islamic spirituality. Highlighting the challenges facing Muslims in Europe and “telling the stories of flawed complex characters who struggle to make choices using Muslim logic”, Aboulela’s work explores significant political issues. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nina McConigley is the author of Cowboys and East Indians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich is the author of THE FACT OF A BODY: A Murder and a Memoir, named an Indie Next Pick; one of the most anticipated books of 2017 by Buzzfeed, BookRiot, and the Huffington Post; a must-read for May by Goodreads, Audible.com, Entertainment Weekly, Real Simple and People; and one of the 10 best books of the year so far by Entertainment Weekly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dani Shapiro is the bestselling author of the memoirs Still Writing, Devotion, and Slow Motion, and five novels including Black & White and Family History. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Tin House, One Story, Elle, The New York Times Book Review, the op-ed pages of The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and has been broadcast on “This American Life”.  Her newest memoir is called Hourglass.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Megan Abbott is the Edgar-winning author of the novels Die a Little, Bury Me Deep, The End of Everything, Dare Me and The Fever. Her most recent book is You Will Know Me, which was chosen one of Best Books of 2016 by NPR, the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, Time Out NY, the Washington Post, Google, Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chavisa Woods is the author of Things to Do When You're Goth in the Country and Other Stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jesse Goolsby is the author of the novel I’d Walk with My Friends If I Could Find Them, winner of the Florida Book Award for Fiction and long-listed for the Flaherty-Duncan First Novel Prize. His fiction and essays have appeared widely, including The Literary Review, EPOCH, The Kenyon Review, Narrative Magazine, Salon, and Pleiades. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Max Winter is a graduate of UC Irvine’s MFA program, and a recipient of two Rhode Island State Council on the Arts Fellowships in Fiction. He has been published in Day One and Diner Journal. He lives in Providence, Rhode Island, with his wife and son. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Peter Heller is the author of the novels The Dog Stars, The Painter, and Celine.  He is a longtime contributor to NPR, and a contributing editor at Outside Magazine, Men’s Journal, and National Geographic Adventure.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Viet Thanh Nguyen’s novel The Sympathizer is a New York Times best seller and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His other books are Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War (a finalist for the National Book Award in nonfiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award in General Nonfiction) and Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America. He is the Aerol Arnold Chair of English and Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. His current book is the bestselling short story collection, The Refugees.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sarah Gerard is the author of the essay collection Sunshine State, the novel Binary Star, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times first fiction prize, and two chapbooks, most recently BFF. Her short stories, essays, interviews, and criticism have appeared in The New York Times, Granta, Vice, BOMB Magazine, and other journals, as well as anthologies. She’s been supported by fellowships and residencies from Yaddo, Tin House, PlatteForum, and Ucross. She writes a monthly column for Hazlitt and teaches writing in New York City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shulem Deen is the author of the  award-winning memoir All Who Go Do Not Return, an account of growing up in and then leaving the Skverers, one of the most insular Hasidic sects in the U.S. He is a regular contributor to Forward, and in 2015 was listed in the Forward 50, an annual list of American Jews with outsized roles on political and social issues. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Karen Joy Fowler is the author of six novels and three short story collections. The Jane Austen Book Club spent thirteen weeks on the New York Times bestsellers list and was a New York Times Notable Book.  Her latest novel is called We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jim Shepard is an American novelist and short story writer, who teaches creative writing and film at Williams College.  His latest novel is The Book of Aron. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Douglas Preston is a novelist, journalist, and essayist.  Preston's most recent nonfiction book, The Lost City of the Monkey God, published in January 2017, tells the true story of the discovery of an ancient, Pre-Columbian city in an unexplored valley deep in the Mosquitia Mountains of Honduras. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Melissa Febos is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir, Whip Smart and the essay collection, Abandon Me. Her work has been widely anthologized and appears in publications including Tin House, Granta, The Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Glamour, Guernica, Post Road, Salon, The New York Times, Hunger Mountain, Portland Review, Dissent, The Chronicle of Higher Education Review, Bitch Magazine, Poets & Writers, The Rumpus, Drunken Boat, and Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dan Chaon’s most recent book is Ill Will,  a novel.   Other works include the short story collection Stay Awake (2012), a finalist for the Story Prize; the national bestseller Await Your Reply and Among the Missing, a finalist for the National Book Award. Chaon’s fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize Anthologies, and The O. Henry Prize Stories. He has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award in Fiction, the Shirley Jackson Award, and he was the recipient of an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Chaon lives in Ohio and teaches at Oberlin College. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Deborah Willis was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta. Her first book, Vanishing and Other Stories, was named one of the the Globe and Mail's Best Books of 2009, and was nominated for the Governor General's Award. Her latest book is The Dark and Other Love Stories. She was a bookseller at Munro's Books in Victoria, BC, a writer-in-residence at Joy Kogawa House in Vancouver, BC, and the 2012-2013 Calgary Distinguished Writers Program writer-in-residence at the University of Calgary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Katie Kitamura is a critic and novelist living in New York City. She is the author of Gone to the Forest and The Longshot, both of which were finalists for the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award. A recipient of a Lannan Residency Fellowship, Kitamura has written for The New York Times, The Guardian, Granta, BOMB, Triple Canopy, and is a regular contributor to Frieze.  Her most recent novel is A Separation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lily King is the author of Euphoria. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sarah Manguso is the author of seven books including 300 Arguments, a genre-defying work of nonfiction; Ongoingness, a meditation on motherhood and time; The Guardians, an investigation of friendship and suicide; The Two Kinds of Decay, a memoir of her experience with a chronic autoimmune disease, and Hard to Admit and Harder to Escape, a collection of very short stories. She is also the author of the poetry collections Siste Viatorand The Captain Lands in Paradise, poems from which have won a Pushcart Prize and appeared in several editions of the Best American Poetry series. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Anuk Arudpragasam is from Colombo, Sri Lanka, and graduated with a BA from Stanford University in 2010. His first novel is called The Story of a Brief Marriage.  He is also working on his PhD in Philosophy from Columbia University about the theorization and idealization of the individual in the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson, William James, and John Dewey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices