Kirk is the author of Righting Wrongs: 20 Human Rights Heroes around the World, from Chicago Review Press (June 2022). She is also the author of The Bond Trilogy: The Bond, The Hive Queen, and The Mother's Wheel, a young adult fantasy. She has published multiple non-fiction books, including More Terrible Than Death: Massacres, Drugs and America’s War in Colombia (PublicAffairs) and The Monkey’s Paw: New Chronicles from Peru (University of Massachusetts Press). Her poetry collection, Peculiar Motion, was called "incandescent" by poet Jennifer Gresham. She is the coeditor of The Peru Reader: History, Culture, Politics (Duke University) and helps edit Duke University Press’s World Readers series. Her essay on Belfast is included in the 2012 Best Travel Writing edition edited by William T. Vollman. Kirk authored, co-authored, and edited over twelve reports for Human Rights Watch, all available online. In the 1980s, Kirk reported for U.S. media from Peru, where she covered the war between the government and the Shining Path. During that time, she also prepared reports for the U.S. Committee on Refugees, including the first report ever on the plight of Peru’s internally displaced people. Kirk is a former Radcliffe Bunting Fellow and is a past winner of the Media Alliance Meritorious Achievement Award for Freelance Writing. She teaches human rights at Duke University.

Katie Rose Pryal, J.D., Ph.D., is a neurodivergent author, keynote speaker, professor, and expert in mental health and neurodiversity.

She is the author of many books on neurodiversity and mental health, including LIFE OF THE MIND INTERRUPTED: Essays on Mental Health and Disability in Higher Education (Blue Crow Books, 2017), the IPPY-Gold-winning EVEN IF YOU'RE BROKEN: Bodies, Boundaries, and Mental Health (Blue Crow Books, Revised and Expanded Edition, 2023), and A LIGHT IN THE TOWER: A New Reckoning with Mental Health in Higher Education (University of Kansas Press, 2024).

She’s also the author of the Hollywood Lights Series of romantic women's fiction, which includes ENTANGLEMENT (2015) and the IPPY-Gold-winning TAKE YOUR CHARMING SOMEWHERE ELSE (2021). Like all of Pryal’s writing, the series centers neurodiversity, in addition to angsty romance, star-crossed lovers, sexy woodworkers, movie stars, and happily-ever-afters.

She lives in North Carolina with her two children, two horses, a houseful of adopted pets, and one outstanding spouse.

Emily Colin's debut novel, The Memory Thief, was a New York Times bestseller and Target Emerging Authors Pick. She is also the author of The Dream Keeper's Daughter, which Publishers Weekly called “a splendid mix of time travel, romantic yearning, and moving on after grief.” One of her short stories appeared in the USA Today bestselling romance anthology, Dissent.

For young adult audiences, Emily is the author of the award-winning romantic dystopian fantasy series, The Seven Sins. She is also the co-editor of two YA fiction anthologies.

Emily's life experience includes organizing a Coney Island tattoo and piercing show, hauling fish at a dolphin research center, and roaming New York City as a teenage violinist. Originally from Brooklyn, she writes, teaches, edits, and indulges her mocha addiction by the sea in North Carolina. Visit her online at emilycolin.com.