Mimi Herman is the author of The Kudzu Queen, A Field Guide to Human Emotions and Logophilia. Her novel, The Kudzu Queen, was selected by The North Carolina Center for the Book for in the 2023 Library of Congress “Great Reads from Great Places” program and longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her writing has appeared in LitHub, Michigan Quarterly Review, Shenandoah, Crab Orchard Review and many other journals.  Mimi is a member of the Board of Directors for the Association of Writers & Writing Programs, a Kennedy Center Teaching Artist, a Warren Wilson MFA alumna, and a Hermitage Artist Retreat Fellow. She co-directs Writeaways writing workshops with John Yewell in France, Italy, Ireland, New Mexico and online. For more information visit her at www.mimiherman.com and www.writeaways.com.

Jeffrey Dale Lofton hails from Warm Springs, Georgia, best known as the home of Roosevelt’s Little White House. He calls the nation’s capital home now and has for over three decades. He is a Senior Advisor at the Library of Congress where he is surrounded by books and people who love books—in short, paradise. Red Clay Suzie is his first novel, a fictionalized memoir written through his personal lens as an outsider—gay and living with a disability in a conservative family and community in the Deep South. Red Clay Suzie was Longlisted for The Center for Fiction 2023 First Novel Prize and was awarded the Seven Hills Literary Prize for Fiction.  You can learn more about Jeffrey at https://jeffreydlofton.com/.