Ada Limón, winner of the Chicago Literary Award for Poetry, was afinalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award for her collection "Bright Dead Things" (2015). She is also the author of "This Big Fake World" (2006), "Lucky Wreck" (2006), and "Sharks on the Rivers" (2010).

Holly Sears is a painter living and working in Brooklyn, New York. She is known for her highly realized paintings of unnatural combinations of flora and fauna where she meticulously studies and examines her subjects and rearranges them into pointed, almost believable settings. In 2012 she was the recipient of the Basil H. Alkazzi Award For Excellence in Painting and in 2010 she was awarded a commission from MTA Arts & Design for the Metro-North Railroad Tarrytown station. Her work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions at the Hudson River Museum (Yonkers, New York), Kenise Barnes Fine Art (Larchmont, New York), Metaphor Contemporary Art (Brooklyn, New York), Joyce Goldstein Gallery (Chatham, New York), Ruth Siegel Gallery (NYC), Anderson Gallery (Richmond, Virginia), and various group exhibitions including shows at the Virginia Museum of Art, New Jersey State Museum, Bergen Museum of Art and Science, Wave Hill Glendora Gallery, Art in Embassies Program. She received a BFA and MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia.