Lee Gutkind has been exploring the world of medicine through writing for over 20 years. He is the author of 'Many Sleepless Nights: The World of Organ Transplantation', and the editor of four anthologies about health and medicine: 'Silence Kills: Speaking Out and Saving Lives' ; 'Rage and Reconciliation: Inspiring a Health Care Revolution' ; 'Healing' ; and 'Becoming a Doctor'. He is the founder and editor of the magazine 'Creative Nonfiction', the first and largest literary journal to exclusively publish nonfiction, and has also published the essay collection 'Forever Fat' and two books on writing, 'The Art of Creative Nonfiction' and 'Keep It Real', among other titles. Gutkind currently teaches creative writing at Arizona State University's Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes. Dorothy Allison grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, the first child of a fifteen-year-old unwed mother who worked as a waitress. Now living in Northern California with her partner Alix and her teenage son, Wolf Michael, she describes herself as a feminist, a working-class storyteller, a Southern expatriate, a sometime poet and a happily born-again Californian. A novelist, short-story writer, and poet, Allison received mainstream recognition with her novel 'Bastard Out of Carolina', a finalist for the 1992 National Book Award. The novel won the Ferro Grumley prize, an ALA Award for Lesbian and Gay Writing, became a bestseller, and an award-winning movie.

It has been translated into more than a dozen languages. Awarded the 2007 Robert Penn Warren Award for Fiction, Allison is a member of the board of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. A novel, 'She Who', is forthcoming.