Sanderia Faye serves on the faculty at Southern Methodist University, and is a professional speaker, activist, and sommelier. Her novel, Mourner’s Bench, is the winner of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in debut fiction, The Philosophical Society of Texas Award of Merit for fiction, and The 2017 Arkansas Library Association, Arkansiana Award. She is the host of LitNight Reading Series.

Faye’s work has appeared in the Southwest Review, Rain Taxi, Nat Brut, the Collagist, and other literary journals. She received “Best Of” honors at the 2011 Eckerd College Writers’ Conference, Co–Directors Dennis Lehane and Sterling Watson, where her winning story was published in SABAL Literary Journal. She published in the anthology Arsnick: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Arkansas, and moderated the grassroots panel for the Arkansas Civil Rights Symposium during the Freedom Riders 50th Anniversary. She coordinated the first AWP African Diaspora Caucus, and has moderated and served on several panels.

She received grants and scholarship offers from Hurston/Wright Writers Conference, Eckerd College Writers’ in Paradise Conference, Callaloo Writers Workshop, and Vermont, Writers Studio. She attended The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow and Martha’s Vineyard Writers Residency. Sanderia started her corporate career as an internal auditor for the Hertz Corporation and moved to Dallas with the WalMart Corporation where she ended her career as a sales & marketing and corporate giving executive.

She holds an MFA from Arizona State University, an MA from the University of Texas at Dallas, a BS in accounting from the University of Arkansas. She is currently a PhD candidate in English at the University of North Texas where she was nominated for the University of North Texas Wingspan Presidential Award For Excellence. Faye is the cofounder of Kimbilio Center for Fiction, sponsored by Southern Methodist University and founder of LitNight Reading Series.

Will Evans is a publisher, bookstore owner, writer, translator, and literary arts advocate. He is the executive director of Deep Vellum Publishing, which he founded in 2013. He owns Deep Vellum Books, a bookstore in Dallas’s historic Deep Ellum neighborhood, which he opened in 2016. Evans graduated from Emory University with degrees in history and Russian literature, and received a Master’s degree in Russian culture from Duke University. In 2016, he cofounded the multimedia entertainment studio Cinestate, where he produced several films and audio projects, and his translation of Russian writer Oleg Kashin’s novel, Fardwor, Russia! A Fantastical Tale of Life Under Putin, was published by Restless Books.