Mary Gaitskill is the author of the story collections Bad Behavior, Because They Wanted To (nominated for a PEN/Faulkner Award), and Don’t Cry, the novels Veronica (nominated for a National Book Award), Two Girls, Fat and Thin and The Mare, and a collection of essays, Somebody with a Little Hammer.   She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, and her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Esquire, The Best American Short Stories, and The O. Henry Prize Stories.

Svetlana Kitto is a writer. Her fiction & nonfiction have been featured in the New York times, Salon, VICE, Art21, Plenitude Magazine, the New York Observer, and the book Occupy among other publications. She is at work on a novel called Purvs, which means “swamp” in Latvian, and is the name of the country’s first gay club. She co-curates the reading & performance series Adult Contemporary in NYC.