Michael Adams is a short story writer and novelist, his latest stories appearing in Autrement and Texas Short Stories I. His novels include Blind Man's Bluff and Anniversaries in the Blood.

Oscar Casares is the author of the collection Brownsville (2003) and a novel, Amigoland (2009). A graduate of the Writers Workshop of the University of Iowa and former Dobie Paisano fellow, his short fiction has appeared in The Iowa Review, Colorado Review, Northwest Review, and Threepenny Review.

Laura Furman is an award-winning novelist, short story writer, and essayist whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, Mirabella, Ploughshares, The Yale Review, The Threepenny Review, Cosmopolitan, and elsewhere. She has written three collections of stories (The Glass House,Watch Time Fly, Drinking with the Cook) two novels (The Shadow Line, Tuxedo Park), and a memoir (Ordinary Paradise). She currently edits The O. Henry Award Prize Stories anthology.

Stephen Harrigan's books include the novels Aransas, Jacob's Well, The Gates of the Alamo, a New York Times bestseller, and Challenger Park. He has also published collections of essays (A Natural State, Comanche Midnight) and been a frequent contributor to such magazines as Texas Monthly, Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, Outside, Conde Nast Traveler, Life and Slate. See also SCREENWRITING FACULTY for his film work.

Elizabeth Harris's collection, The Ant Generator and Other Stories, was awarded the 1991 John Simmons Award for Short Fiction. She has published stories in Southern Review, Chicago Review, Shenandoah, North American Review, Epoch, Kansas Quarterly, and Wind, and her work has been anthologized in New Short Stories from the South: The Year's Best.

Rolando Hinojosa-Smith is the author of over a dozen novels, including the eight-novel "Klail City Death Trip" series: they include Klail City,which received the Casa de las Americas Prize in 1976; Estampos del Valle, recognized with the Quinto Sol Award; Mi Querido Rafa, honored with the 1981 Best Writing in Humanities Award by the Southwest Conference in Latin American Studies; and The Useless Servants.

Peter LaSalle's books include a novel, Strange Sunlight and three short story collections, most recently Tell Borges if You See Him: Tales of Contemporary Somnabulism. His fiction has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, such as Paris Review, Tin House, Agni, Best American Short Stories, Best of the West, Sports' Best Short Stories, Best American Fantasy, Best American Mystery Stories, and Prize Stories: The O' Henry Awards. He has received the Flannery O'Connor Award, an NEA Fellowship, and the Award for Distinguished Prose from the Antioch Review.

James Magnuson is the author of ten novels-among them Without Barbarians, Ghost Dancing, Windfall and The Hounds of Winter—and a dozen plays, which have had production at Playwright's Horizons, Hudson Guild, and St. Peter's Gate. He received the Hodder Fellowship of Princeton University for his plays, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and an award from the Texas Institute of Letters for his fiction.

Elizabeth McCracken is the author of a story collection, Here's Your Hat What's Your Hurry; two novels, The Giant's House, a finalist for the National Book Award in 1996, and Niagara Falls All Over Again; and a memoir, An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination. A 1990 graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, she has been recipient of grants from the Michener/Copernicus Foundation, The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the NEA and was named one of the twenty Best Young American Novelists by Granta. She holds the James A. Michener Chair in Creative Writing of the Michener Center for Writers.