Mike Doyle has appeared on screen in New Amsterdam, City on a Hill, The Romanoffs, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, The Accidental Wolf, Narcos: Mexico, Jersey Boys, The Invitation, and Green Lantern, among others. His stage credits include The New Century at Lincoln Center and Betrayed with the Culture Project. Doyle wrote and directed the feature films Almost Love starring Kate Walsh, Patricia Clarkson, and Scott Evans, and Passing Through starring Kevin Daniels and Amy Ryan.
Jane Kaczmarek is best known for her role as Lois on Malcolm in the Middle, for which she received 7 consecutive Emmy nominations as well as nominations for the Golden Globe and SAG awards. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin and Yale School of Drama, Kaczmarek made her television debut on The Paper Chase and Hill Street Blues. On stage, she has appeared on Broadway and off, and for 6 seasons at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Her recent theater credits include Long Day's Journey Into Night with Alfred Molina and in a co-production of Our Town with Deaf West Theatre and the 2023 Tony Award–winning Pasadena Playhouse. Kaczmarek can currently be seen in The Changeling on AppleTV+, starring LaKeith Stanfield, and the short film Now I Lay Me Down, which was screened at the Santa Barbara Film Festival in February. Her favorite job is raising her three kids and reading/hosting Selected Shorts across America.
Jamil Jan Kochai is the author of The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories, a finalist for the 2022 National Book Award and winner of the 2023 Aspen Words Literary Prize and the 2023 Clark Fiction Prize. His debut novel, 99 Nights in Logar, was a finalist for the Pen/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel and the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. His short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Ploughshares, Zoetrope, The O. Henry Prize Stories, and The Best American Short Stories. His essays have been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. Kochai was a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University, a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, and a Truman Capote Fellow at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He teaches creative writing at California State University, Sacramento.
Leo Solomon has a Master of Fine Arts in Acting from the Actors Studio Drama School in New York, and a Bachelors of Science in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Minnesota. Leo is of Afghan descent, plays classical piano, contributes and volunteers with various humanitarian organizations, and also speaks Farsi, Hindi, Spanish, and French. Leo's credits include recurring as a guest star on Veep and Homeland, and guest starring on Blue Bloods, NCIS, and Lie to Me, among others. He has also been the lead in numerous films, one of which landed him "Best Breakthrough Performance" at the Monaco Film Festival. Solomon most recently appeared in the films Mater Mortis and Day of the Fight. Upcoming projects include Dickie K, Mâdar, Cookie, and Space Cadet.
Jesmyn Ward is the author of the novels Let Us Descend; Where the Line Bleeds; Salvage the Bones, which won the 2011 National Book Award; and Sing, Unburied, Sing, which won the 2017 National Book Award. She is also the editor of the anthology The Fire This Time and the author of the memoir Men We Reaped, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. From 2008 to 2010, Ward had a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University. In 2016, the American Academy of Arts and Letters selected Ward for the Strauss Living Award, and in 2017, she received the MacArthur Fellows “Genius Grant” from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. In 2022, she was awarded the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. Ward is currently a professor of creative writing at Tulane University. Her 2020 book, Navigate Your Stars, is based on her 2018 Tulane University commencement speech about the value of hard work and the importance of respect for oneself and others.
Kevin Wilson is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels Nothing to See Here, which was a Read with Jenna ook club selection; The Family Fang, which was adapted into an acclaimed film starring Nicole Kidman and Jason Bateman; and Perfect Little World; as well as the story collections Tunneling to the Center of the Earth, winner of the Shirley Jackson Award; and Baby, You’re Gonna Be Mine. His fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, Southern Review, One Story, A Public Space, and Best American Short Stories.
Meg Wolitzer is the New York Times bestselling author of The Female Persuasion, The Interestings, The Ten-Year Nap, and The Wife, which was adapted to film in 2018, starring Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce. She was the guest editor of The Best American Short Stories 2017, and has also published books for young readers, mostly recently a picture book, Millions of Maxes. Wolitzer is a faculty member in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton, where she co-founded and co-directs BookEnds, a one-year, non-credit intensive in the novel.
CREDITS
“Playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain” by Jamil Jan Kochai. First published in The New Yorker, January 6, 2020. Copyright © 2020 by Jamil Jan Kochai. Used by permission of The Wylie Agency, LLC.
“Biology” by Kevin Wilson. First published in The Southern Review, 56.1. Copyright © 2020 by Kevin Wilson. Used by permission of the author.
