Andrew Lawler

Andrew Lawler is a journalist and author who has written about history, science, religion, and politics from dozens of countries.

He is author of four books:

• A Perfect Frenzy: A Royal Governor, His Black Allies, and the Crisis That Spurred the American Revolution
• The prize-winning Under Jerusalem: The Buried History of the World’s Most Contested City
• The national bestseller The Secret Token: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke
• The acclaimed Why Did The Chicken Cross The World: The Epic Saga Of The Bird That Powers Civilization.

Andrew’s byline has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Geographic, Smithsonian, and many other publications. He is a contributing writer for Science and contributing editor for Archaeology, as well as a National Geographic Explorer and a Pulitzer Center grantee. His work has won a number of journalism awards, and appeared several times in The Best of Science and Nature Writing.

Heather Bell Adams

Originally from Hendersonville and a lifelong North Carolinian, Heather Bell Adams is the author of Maranatha Road (West Virginia University Press), The Good Luck Stone (Haywire Books), and Starring Marilyn Monroe as Herself (forthcoming Regal House). Her short stories appear in New Letters, North Carolina Literary Review, The Thomas Wolfe Review, failbetter, Orange Blossom Review, Reckon Review, and elsewhere. She was North Carolina’s 2022 Piedmont Laureate and South Carolina’s 2023 Pat Conroy Writer-in-Residence.

Jamie Mason

Jamie Mason was born in Oklahoma City and grew up all over the Washington, DC area. She’s most often reading and writing, but in the life left over, she enjoys films, Formula 1 racing, football, traveling, and, conversely, staying at home. Jamie lives with her husband and two daughters in the mountains of western North Carolina. She writes more whydunnits than whodunnits because the why in stories is her favorite part, and she is the author of Three Graves Full, Monday's Lie, and The Hidden Things.

Jeff Jackson

Jeff Jackson is a novelist, playwright, visual artist, and songwriter. His second novel Destroy All Monsters was published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in Fall 2018. It received advanced praise from Don DeLillo, Janet Fitch, Dana Spiotta, Ben Marcus, and Dennis Cooper. His novella Novi Sad was published as a limited edition art book and selected for “Best of 2016” lists in Vice, Lit Reactor, and Entropy. His first novel Mira Corpora, published in 2013, was a Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and featured on numerous "Best of the Year" lists, including Slate, Salon, The New Statesman, and Flavorwire. His short fiction has appeared in Guernica, Vice, New York Tyrant, and The Collagist and been performed in New York and Los Angeles by New River Dramatists.

As a playwright, six of his plays have been produced by the Obie Award-winning Collapsable Giraffe company in New York City. Vine of the Dead: 11 Ritual Gestures debuted in 2016 at the Westbeth Arts Center. Dream of the Red Chamber: Performance for a Sleeping Audience, an adaptation of the epic Chinese novel, debuted in Times Square in 2014 to rave reviews. Botanica was selected by the New York Times as "one of 2012's most galvanizing theater moments."

He holds an M.F.A. from NYU and is the recipient of fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Hambidge Center. 

Philip Lewis

Phillip Lewis is a writer from Charlotte, North Carolina. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1993 and earned a law degree from the Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law in 2001, where he served as Editor in Chief of the law review. His novel THE BARROWFIELDS was published to international acclaim in 2017. 

Thomas Calder

Thomas Calder is the author of THE WIND UNDER THE DOOR. He earned his MFA in creative writing from the University of Houston. His fiction, essays, and book reviews have appeared in Juked, West Branch, Miracle Monocle, and elsewhere. He is a regular contributor to storySouth. He also serves as managing editor of Mountain Xpress. He lives with his wife and daughter in Asheville.

Tommy Tomlinson

Tommy Tomlinson is the author of two books: The Elephant in the Room, a memoir about being overweight in America, and Dogland, about the Westminster Dog Show and the bond between dogs and their people. He also has a newsletter called The Writing Shed. He's a Pulitzer Prize finalist and has written for publications including Esquire, ESPN the Magazine, Sports Illustrated, Southern Living, and many others. He spent twenty-three years as a reporter and local columnist for the Charlotte Observer. Tommy and his wife, Alix Felsing, live in Charlotte with their cat, Jack Reacher.