Julia Borcherts is the co-founder of the Reading Under the Influence reading series and a fiction writing instructor at Columbia College Chicago. She is a frequent contributor to Time Out Chicago, Red Eye and metromix.com and her award-winning short stories have appeared in and on Hillary Carlip's freshyarn.com, Criminal Class Review, The Parlor podcasts and many other publications. Her story, "The Year of the Hawk," was nominated for a 2010 Pushcart Prize.

Mary Beth Hoerner is a Chicago playwright and fiction writer. Her play Atomic Honeymoon was performed at the Cornservatory in Chicago, and she is a network playwright at Chicago Dramatists. Her short fiction has appeared in many publications, the most recent of which can be found in Hypertext Magazine, Spring 2011. She has freelanced extensively for the Chicago Tribune, and her short memoir “Night Games” appears in the anthology Cubbie Blues: 100 Years of Waiting till Next Year.

Scott Miles is from Downriver Detroit and lives in Chicago. His stories have appeared in LIT, The Summerset Review, Storyglossia, Beloit Fiction Journal, Cimarron Review, The MacGuffin and forthcoming in Crime Factory. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2007, is currently shopping his first crime novel and writing his second.

Michael Mullen is nearing graduation from the Fiction Writing program at Columbia College Chicago. His work has been published in Columbia's Story Week Reader. On any given day, chances are he's somewhere with his nose stuck in a book.

Quinn Stephens is a designer and an author currently putting the "fun" in "funpublished." When he's not seeking representation for his latest novel, he creates indie video games and geeky Internet cartoons.

Emily Witte grew up in the South and high-tailed it to Chicago for college. She graduates in May with a BA in Creative Writing. In her spare time she runs a few internet projects and takes pictures of beer.