Alex Palmer is the author of The Santa Claus Man: The Rise and Fall of a Jazz Age Con Man and the Invention of Christmas in New York (Lyons Press), a true-crime tale of a dreamer who founded a group that answered the Santa letters of a quarter-million kids — and made himself rich in the process. Palmer has written two earlier nonfiction books, and published in Slate, Vulture, SmithsonianMag.com, and the New York Daily News.

Virginia Pye’s debut novel, River of Dust, was published in 2013 by Unbridled Books and was chosen as an Indie Next Pick by the Independent Booksellers Association; it was also a 2014 Virginia Literary Awards Finalist. Virginia has published award-winning short stories in The North American Review, The Tampa Review, The Baltimore Review, and Failbetter. She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence and has taught writing at New York University and the University of Pennsylvania.

Mindy Raf is a writer, comedy performer, and musician based in Brooklyn. She has contributed to MTV’s GIRL CODE, COLLEGEHUMOR, TNT, VH1, The Daily Comedy Network, and the MY PARENTS WERE AWESOME anthology. Her comedy and writing have received accolades from BUST MAGAZINE (“We walked out holding on to our ribs from laughing so hard”), PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (“Refreshing”), and BCCB (“Pitch-perfect”), among others. Her debut YA novel The Symptoms of My Insanity (DIAL/Penguin) is out now.