Jewell is the Piper Endowed Chair and founding artistic director of the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative writing and is the award-winning author of many books including the New York Times bestseller Ghost Boys.

Sieglaff has been teaching all her life, but professionally for 20+ years. She has taught everything from basic composition courses, to creative writing, to a plethora of literature courses.

Wetherholt is a PhD candidate in Religious Studies at Arizona State University. Her research focuses on religion in U.S. popular culture, with a dissertation centered on religious deconversion narratives in graphic memoirs.