Michaux Dempster holds an MA in writing & rhetoric from Virginia Commonwealth University. She is currently a second-year MFA student in fiction at VCU and is the first recipient of VCU's David Baldacci Fiction Fellowship. She also holds degrees from Auburn University and Louisiana State University.  

First-time novelist Ingrid Hill, author of Ursula, Under (Algonquin Books, 2004), has published short stories in a range of magazines and is the author of one collection, Dixie Church Interstate Blues (Viking, 1989). She earned her PhD in creative writing at the University of Iowa and has twice received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. She lives in Iowa City.