Tracy K. Smith earned her BA from Harvard University and an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University. From 1997 to 1999 she held a Stegner fellowship at Stanford University. She is the author of three books of poetry: "The Body's Question" (2003), which won the Cave Canem prize for the best first book by an African-American poet; "Duende" (2007), winner of the James Laughlin Award and the Essense Literary Award; and "Life on Mars" (2011), which won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. She teaches creative writing at Princeton University and lives in Brooklyn.

Amy Bennett has participated in numerous exhibitions around the world including at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Arts and Design, and Academy of Arts & Letters, as well as at Muba Eugene Leroy, France; Galleri Magnus Karlsson, Stockholm; Richard Heller Gallery, Los Angeles; and Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo. She was also a resident at The Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation’s Space Program and was awarded The America Academy of Arts & Letters Rosenthal Family Foundation Award in Painting and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship.