Jotham Burrello is the director of the Yale Writers’ Workshop. His novel Spindle City was longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award and was a finalist for the Connecticut Book Award. His writing has appeared in numerous literary journals, and he is a proud winner of The New Yorker caption contest. He teaches writing at Central Connecticut State University, directs the CT Lit Fest, and is the former publisher of the award-winning Elephant Rock Books.
Christina Chiu won the James Alan McPherson Award for Beauty, also a Kirkus Best Book winner of 2020. Her first novel, Troublemaker and Other Saints, won the Asian American Literary Award. Chiu has published in Tin House, The New Guard, Electric Literature, NextTribe, and won accolades from Playboy, New Stone Circle, El Dorado Writers’ Guild, World Wide Writers. She is a founder of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop. She received her MFA from Columbia University.
Molly Gaudry is the author of We Take Me Apart, which was a finalist for the Asian American Literary Award and shortlisted for the PEN/Osterweil. Desire: A Haunting, its sequel, and Fit Into Me: A Novel: A Memoir, are further explorations of the same storyworld and characters. Molly holds master’s degrees in fiction and poetry from the University of Cincinnati and George Mason University, and a PhD in experimental prose from the University of Utah.
Rebecca F. Kuang is the award-winning, 1 New York Times and #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of the Poppy War trilogy, Babel: An Arcane History, Yellowface, and Katabasis. She has an MPhil in Chinese Studies from Cambridge and an MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies from Oxford; she is now pursuing a PhD in East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale.
Jennifer Maritza McCauley is the author of the cross-genre collection Scar On/Scar Off, When Trying to Return Home, a short story collection, Neon Steel, and the poetry collections Kinds of Grace, Versus and Tumbao. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, CantoMundo, Kimbilio, and Sundress Academy for the Arts. Her work has appeared in the Boston Review, and Crab Orchard Review, amongst others. She teaches at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
LaTanya McQueen is the recipient of grants from the National Endowment of the Arts, the Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fund for feminist fiction, and the Elizabeth George Foundation. She is the author of two books—the essay collection And It Begins Like This (Black Lawrence Press, 2017) and the novel When the Reckoning Comes (Harper Perennial, 2021), a Goodreads Choice nominee and Bram Stoker Award finalist.
Amy Shearn is the award-winning author of 5 novels, including Animal Instinct (Putnam, 2025), one of NPR’s best books of the year. She is an editor, writing coach, and works 1:1 with writers at all stages of their careers. Amy's work has appeared in the New York Times Modern Love column, Ms. Magazine, Slate, Poets & Writers, and many other publications. She lives in Brooklyn with her two children.
Mishka Shubaly is an author, songwriter, and storyteller. His book, Cold Turkey: How to Quit Drinking By Not Drinking was a Times bestseller. His seven nonfiction Kindle Singles have all been bestsellers. He tours around the world and has shared the stage with everyone from Yeah Yeah Yeahs to Richard Price. Other works include, I Swear I’ll Make It Up to You, and his Kindle Singles title The Long Run and Other True Stories.
Kirsten Bakis is author, most recently, of King Nyx, which Esquire magazine named one of the Best Horror Books of 2024 and Victor LaValle called "a novel of delicious disquiet." In a profile in the Washington Post, Jacob Brogan called Bakis "a major talent, a writer of prodigious commitment, capability and imagination." She is the recipient of multiple awards and has been teaching at the Yale Writers’ Workshop since 2012.
Lecture Date: Monday, June 8, 2026 @ 1:30 pm
Amy Bloom is the author: White Houses, Lucky Us, Away, Love Invents Us and I'll Be Right Here; and three collections of short stories: Where the God Of Love Hangs Out, Come to Me and A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You. Her New York Times bestselling memoir is the widely acclaimed In Love. Her first book of nonfiction, Normal: Transsexual CEOs, Crossdressing Cops and Hermaphrodites with Attitudes, is a staple of university sociology and biology courses. Amy Bloom’s first mystery novel, Blunt Instrument, will be released in June 2026.
Lecture Date: Wednesday, June 10, 2026 @ 2:30 pm
Arielle Datz grew up in Los Angeles, and has lived in Chicago, Paris, Vietnam, and New York. An agent at DCL since 2016, she is looking for upmarket fiction, both literary and commercial. While she is a plot-focused reader, she enjoys dynamic characters and elevated language, and crossover genres with elements of speculative fiction, magical realism, mystery, and suspense. In nonfiction, she is looking for unusual personal narratives, pop culture and science, and social commentary.
Lecture Date: Tuesday, June 9, 2026 @ 1:30 pm
Luis Jaramillo is the author of The Witches of El Paso. He is also the author of the award-winning short story collection The Doctor’s Wife. He is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at The New School. He received an undergraduate degree from Stanford University and an MFA in creative writing from The New School.
Lecture Date: Wednesday, June 10, 2026 @ 2:30 pm
Laura Katz is a junior agent at Writers House Literary Agency, seeking authors of literary and upmarket fiction. She is most interested in character-driven yet propulsive novels with complex themes (Circle), plot-driven stories with deep emotional intelligence (If We Were Villains), and books balanced perfectly between (The God of the Woods). She enjoys vivid settings, both realism and genre-influenced stories, and voices ranging anywhere from atmospheric to earnest to wry.
Lecture Date: Wednesday, June 10, 2026 @ 2:30 pm
Erica McGrath is a literary agent at Writers House, where she works with award winning authors and illustrators on everything from children’s books through adult literary fiction and narrative non-fiction. She is actively building her list and is interested in working with ambitious, uncommon, and little-seen voices in all ages across the board. With a background in visual arts, Erica is passionate about the intersection of visual media and the written word. Outside of the book world, she enjoys live music and lying in the park (preferably both, when possible). Her favorite book of 2025 (that she read for pleasure) was Al Pacino’s memoir. She looks forward to reading your work!