Josh Parkinson is a writer from Texas who received an MA in fiction from Johns Hopkins University. Over the last dozen years, he has written feature originals or rewrites for Warner Bros., Sony, Universal, Paramount, and MRC, as well as having held TV staff-writing positions on the HBO comedy Eastbound and Down and the AMC horror series The Terror. He has also during that time sold both hour-long drama and half-hour comedy pilots to NBC, CBS, AMC, USA, Showtime, Peacock, and, most recently, Netflix. He lives in Iowa City with his family and teaches a TV writing course through the University of Iowa’s Magid Center for Writing.

Juliet Patterson is the author of Sinkhole: A Legacy of Suicide (Milkweed Editions, 2022), finalist for the 2023 Minnesota Book Awards and named one of the best memoirs of 2022 by Library Journal. She has also published two full-length poetry collections, Threnody (Nightboat Books 2016), a finalist for the 2017 Audre Lorde Poetry Award, and The Truant Lover (Nightboat Books, 2006), winner of the Nightboat Poetry Prize and a finalist for the 2006 Lambda Literary Award. A recipient of the Arts & Letters Susan Atefat Prize in nonfiction and a Lynda Hull Memorial Poetry Prize, she has also been awarded fellowships from the Jerome Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and the Minneapolis-based Creative Community Leadership Institute (formerly the Institute for Community and Creative Development). She teaches creative writing and literature at St. Olaf College and is also a faculty member and director of the college’s Environmental Conversations program.

William Pei Shih’s stories have been published or are forthcoming in The Best American Short Stories (2020 and 2025), The Georgia Review, Ursa Short Fiction, VQR, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Joyland Magazine, The Southern Review, The Michigan Quarterly Review, The Boston Review, The Los Angeles Review, The Southern Humanities Review, Crazyhorse, F(r)iction, Catapult, The Asian American Literary Review, The Des Moines Register, The Masters Review, Reed Magazine, Carve Magazine, Hyphen, and elsewhere. Longreads included his story “Happy Family” on its list of Ten Outstanding Stories to Read in 2023. His stories have been recognized by the John Steinbeck Award in Fiction, the Flannery O’Connor Award in Short Fiction, the Raymond Carver Short Story Award, the UK Bridport Prize, The London Magazine Short Story Award, the Granum Foundation Fellowship Prize, among others. His stories have been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize. He has been awarded scholarships to the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference, Kundiman, the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, and the Ragdale Residency, and he has served on the admissions board for the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference for several years. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he was a recipient of the Dean’s Graduate Fellowship. He is the fiction editor at Guernica Magazine. He currently lives in New York City, and teaches at NYU. For more information, please visit williampeishih.com.

Caleb “The Negro Artist” Rainey is an author, performer, and event producer. His debut book, Look, Black Boy, was awarded first prize in the North Street Book Prize, and his second book, Heart Notes, was published in 2019. He released two spoken word albums and produced his first short film, Willing to Grow, as a part of the Brucemore Artisan Studio program. In 2024, Caleb was the recipient of the Iowa Author Award for Poetry. Within the same year, Nik Heftman and The Seven Times production company created a documentary about Caleb titled The Negro Artist. Caleb is the winner of several slams across the United States, and competed in the 2023 UNESCO Slam-O-Vision global poetry slam where he ranked 7th worldwide. Videos of his performances can be found on his YouTube channel, Write About Now, and Button Poetry. When he is not writing and performing, he is actively curating a community of spoken word poets in Iowa City through his high school program, IC Speaks, and producing events like the Mic Check Poetry Fest.

Danielle Roderick is a writer, researcher and book consultant. Her television credits include the WGA-nominated drama THE TERROR on AMC, and THE RIGHT STUFF on Disney Plus. In addition to her historical research work for various directors, writers and production companies, she holds an MA in writing from Johns Hopkins University and an MFA in writing from The University of Alabama. She has taught classes on plot development for Zibby Media, and often works with writers as they focus on structure between drafts. She is a mystery nut and even nerded out to create a tour of England based on Agatha Christie. Her non-fiction work has appeared in The LA Times, The Hairpin, Splitsider, Vulture, The Awl, Mashable, Ms. and Travel & Leisure.

Sarah Saffian (MFA, Columbia) is the author of Ithaka, her memoir of being an adoptee who was found by her birth family. Formerly a journalism professor at NYU and the New School and a memoir teacher at Sarah Lawrence, Sarah has written for publications including The New York Times, Smithsonian, and Yoga Journal, and has been a writer-in-residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts and the Millay Colony. As a psychotherapist (LCSW-R, NYU), Sarah counsels individuals and groups, and blends her areas of interest and expertise in Therapeutic Writing, using memoir prompts to encourage deeper reflection, processing, and discovery. This is Sarah’s fourteenth summer at the Festival. Please come visit: saffian.com.

Clarisse Baleja Saïdi is a writer and editor. A graduate of the Helen Zell Writers Program at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, she is the recipient of fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Hedgebrook, MacDowell, Yaddo, and more, in addition to support from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council, and the Whiting Foundation. Baleja has taught creative writing at the University of Michigan and at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. Her work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, Poetry, The Fiddlehead, Transition Magazine, and more. Visit her at www.clarissebalejasaidi.com.

Zach Savich is the author of ten books of poetry, nonfiction, and works for performance. His work has received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as the Iowa Poetry Prize, the Colorado Prize for Poetry, the Cleveland State University Poetry Center’s Open Book Award, and other honors. He has worked as an editor, manuscript consultant, and writing coach on many projects. Savich is a professor and chair at the Cleveland Institute of Art and faculty in the PhD in Creativity at Rowan University. He holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

Suzanne Scanlon is the author of Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen (2024); Her 37th Year, An Index (2015); and Promising Young Women (2012). Scanlon’s fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Granta, BOMB, Fence, The Iowa Review, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Ox-Bow Artists’ Residency, and the Ragdale Foundation.

Leslie Schwartz has written two award-winning novels, Jumping the Green and Angels Crest, and a memoir, The Lost Chapters: Finding Recovery and Renewal One Book at a Time. She won the James Jones Award for best first novel for Jumping the Green and was named Kalliope Magazine’s Woman Writer of the Year. She has also been the recipient of many awards, including three artist-in-residence grants from the L.A. Department of Cultural Affairs, the West Hollywood/Algonquin Award for Public Service in the Arts, and a California Council for the Humanities Fellowship. Her two novels have been published in 13 languages. Angels Crest was also adapted for the screen and premiered in theaters in 2013. Her essays and articles have most recently appeared in Salon, LitHub, The Rumpus, Brevity, The Washington Post, Great Weather for Media, Pithead Chapel and Narratively Speaking. She has taught writing at various universities and creative institutions, and currently offers private mentoring and editing services. Schwartz holds an MFA in Writing and is at work on her fourth book, a novel. For the past three years, she has also been working on a project that includes digital media, an art installation, and writings on silence and creativity. She lives in Iceland, and in a remote cabin in Mt. Hood, Oregon. Visit her online at www.leslieschwartz.com.

Katie Jean Shinkle’s books include Tannery Bay (FC2/University of Alabama Press, coauthored with Steven Dunn). Other work can be found in or is forthcoming from Another Last Call: Poems on Addiction and Deliverance (Sarabande Books), The Nation, American Poetry Review, Gulf Coast, and elsewhere. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing and Literary Arts from the University of Denver, and she serves as co-poetry editor of DIAGRAM.

Robert Anthony Siegel is the author of a memoir, Criminals, and two novels, All Will Be Revealed and All the Money in the World. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian Magazine, The Paris Review, The Drift, The Oxford American, and Ploughshares, and has been anthologized in Best American Essays 2023, O. Henry Stories 2014, and Pushcart Prize XXXVI. He has been a Fulbright Scholar in Taiwan, a Mombukagakusho Fellow in Japan, a Writing Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and a Paul Engle Fellow at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and a BA from Harvard. His website is www.robertanthonysiegel.com.

Kevin Smith is a writer living in Iowa City. He received his MFA in Fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and his PhD in French from Princeton University. An Iowa Arts Fellow, he is recipient of the Provost Postgraduate Visiting Fellowship in Fiction at the University of Iowa, the Steinbeck Fellowship at San José State University, and the Chateaubriand Fellowship. Writing prizes include the Power of Purpose Award and the Arch and Bruce Brown Award. He has held teaching positions at the University of Washington, The George Washington University, Université de Bordeaux III, and the University of Iowa. He has published stories, essays, and reviews in various places and is also a certified instructor of Tai Chi and Qigong.

Elizabeth Stuckey-French is the author of three novels, The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady, Mermaids on the Moon, and Where Wicked Starts, co-authored with Patricia Henley, as well as a collection of short stories, The First Paper Girl in Red Oak, Iowa. Along with Janet Burroway and Ned Stuckey-French, she is a co-author of Writing Fiction: A Guide to the Narrative Craft. Her short stories have appeared in The Normal School, Narrative Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Gettysburg Review, Southern Review, Five Points, and The O’Henry Prize Stories 2005. She was awarded a James Michener Fellowship and a Florida Book Award and has won grants from the Howard Foundation, the Indiana Arts Foundation, and the Florida Arts Foundation. She teaches fiction writing at Florida State University.

Deborah Taffa’s debut, Whiskey Tender: A Memoir, was a finalist for the 2024 National Book Award, and a longlisted title for a 2025 Carnegie Medal of Excellence. The memoir was named a Top Ten Book of 2024 by The Atlantic and Time Magazine, as well as a top book on longer lists at NPR, Elle, Esquire, Audible, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and Publisher's Weekly. Taffa is a 2024 NEA Fellow, a 2022 winner of the PEN/Jean Stein Grant, and has received fellowships from the Tin House, University of Iowa, MacDowell, the Ellen Meloy Fund, and the NY State Summer Writers Institute. She is an enrolled citizen of the Kwatsaan (Yuma) Nation and a descendant of Laguna Pueblo. She directs the MFACW program at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, NM.

 Alisa received a BFA in Drama and MA in Educational Theatre from New York University, and a PhD in Anthropology from Syracuse University; she also studied at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, and conducted dissertation research on a Fulbright-Nehru scholarship. Among her other writing, she authored scripts for India’s Sesame Street, Galli Galli Sim Sim, and is currently at work on an ethnography on tailors working in Jaipur, India. A co-founder of Home Ec. Workshop in Iowa City, she often teaches knitting and sewing to crafters of all ages. At the University of Iowa, she teaches an anthropology course on fashion and culture, and previously served as youth programs coordinator for the International Writing Program.

Danielle was the 2010-2011 Rona Jaffe fellow in Poetry at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she earned her MFA. Her work can be seen in places like Image Journal, diode, and elsewhere. She currently coordinates online learning for the Magid Center for Writing at the University of Iowa and is at work on a collection of essays.

Denise Williams wrote her first book in the 2nd grade. I Hate You and its sequel, I Still Hate You, featured a tough, funny heroine, a quirky hero, witty banter, and a dragon. Minus the dragons, these are still the books she likes to write. After penning those early works, she finished second grade and eventually earned a PhD in education. Denise's work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, the Today Show, Good Morning America, Oprah Magazine, Marie Claire, Women's World, and her mom's list of top topics of conversation with strangers. Her books have been listed as an Indie Next pick, Library Reads pick and Hall of Fame author, and received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Library Journal. After growing up a military brat around the world and across the country, Denise now lives in Iowa with her husband, son, and an ornery shih-tzus who thinks she owns the house. She can usually be found reading, writing, or thinking about love stories.

Dr. Justin B. Wymer is the author of the poetry collections DEED (Elixir, 2019) and Let the Forest Go (forthcoming from University Press of Kentucky). He holds a PhD in Literary Arts and Creative Writing from the University of Denver, an MFA in Poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and an AB in English from Harvard University. He’s received awards and fellowships from Harvard Office for the Arts, the Radcliffe Institute, the Academy of American Poets, and elsewhere. He’s an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. www.justinwymer.com