Authors

DARROW FARR is a Salvadoran American writer. She was a Stegner Fellow in fiction at Stanford University from 2017 to 2019 and received an MFA in creative writing from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin. The Bombshell: A Novel (Pamela Dorman Books) is her debut work of fiction. Farr was born and raised outside Philadelphia, where she now lives with her husband and son.

RICKEY FAYNE is a fiction writer from rural west Tennessee whose work has appeared in American Short Fiction, Guernica, The Sewanee Review, and The Kenyon Review, among other publications. He holds an M.A. in English from Northwestern University and an MFA in fiction from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin. His writing embodies his Black, Southern upbringing in order to reimagine and honor his ancestors’ experiences.

REUVEN FENTON has been covering breaking news for the New York Post since 2007, and has earned national recognition for his exclusive reporting on myriad national stories. He is a graduate of Yeshiva University and Columbia University School of Journalism. Goyhood: A Novel (Central Avenue) is his debut.

MARÍA CRISTINA FERNÁNDEZ (Santiago de Cuba, 1970) ha publicado varios libros de narrativa, entre ellos No nací en Castalia (2016) y P (2020), medalla de plata del Florida Book Awards, y dos volúmenes de poesía, Miracle Mile (2021) y Mandorla (2023). Ha escrito también literatura infantil. Desde 2006 vive en Miami.

AGUSTÍN FERNÁNDEZ MALLO (La Coruña, 1967), físico y escritor, es considerado uno de los mayores renovadores de la literatura. Su producción artística abarca géneros híbridos que combinan el videoarte, la palabra escrita y hablada, la música, el cine y la performance. Es el creador del concepto «Poesía Postpoética», que fusiona arte y ciencia. Autor de poemarios, ensayos y novelas como Nocilla Dream, referente de la literatura española contemporánea. Sus libros han sido traducidos a varios idiomas. Otras de sus obras son: Nocilla Experience (2008), Nocilla Lab (2009), El hacedor (de Borges), Remake (2011), Limbo (2014) y más recientemente, Madre de corazón atómico.

ALEJANDRA FERRAZZA participó en Antología de Cuentos del Club Cultural de Miami: Atenea (2000). Antología de narrativa y poemas de Nuevo Milenio de LiArt Internacional (2002). Selección poética de Miami La ciudad de la unidad posible editada por Editorial Ultramar en 2009 traducida al inglés en 2011: The City of Possible Unity. Selección de poetas mujeres de Miami Aquí [Ellas] en Miami de Katakana Editores (2018). Madre de Editorial Mercurio (España) selección de poemas de mujeres de todas partes del mundo (2024) Puente de palabras/Bridge of Words, selección de cuentos traducidos al inglés editado por Laurel Review (2025). Asepsia y otras obsesiones (Nagari, 2025), es una antología de 32 cuentos breves que transitan entre lo extraño, lo inquietante y lo siniestro, con destellos de humor y absurdo. Cada relato propone una mirada singular sobre lo insólito, construyendo atmósferas sugestivas y giros inesperados que desafían la lógica y perturban la aparente normalidad de lo cotidiano.

DAN FESPERMAN served as a foreign correspondent for The Baltimore Sun, based in Berlin. His coverage of the siege of Sarajevo led to his debut novel, Lie in the Dark, which won Britain’s John Creasey Memorial Dagger Award (now known as the ILP John Creasey First Novel Dagger) for best first crime novel. His subsequent books have won the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for best thriller, the Hammett Prize from the International Association of Crime Writers, the Barry Award for best thriller, and selection by USA Today as the year’s best mystery/thriller novel. He lives near Baltimore.

Lifelong best friends SHANA FESTE and Jen Besser met as 11-year-olds in California and have been collaborating ever since, beginning with writing, directing, producing, and starring in many regrettable middle school talent shows. Dirty Diana first launched as a podcast starring Demi Moore, debuted at No. 1 on Apple Podcasts, was nominated for podcast of the year, and won the Ambie for Best Fiction, Screenwriting. Today, Feste is the award-winning screenwriter and director of several feature films, including Country Strong and Run Sweetheart Run, while Besser is a fiction editor and publisher. They now live thousands of miles apart but still talk every day.  

DR. EDDA L. FIELDS-BLACK, PH.D., a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, teaches history at Carnegie Mellon University and serves as director of the Dietrich College Humanities Center. A descendant of Africans enslaved on rice plantations in Colleton County, South Carolina, and a USCT soldier (her great-great-great grandfather) from Beaufort County who fought in the Combahee River Raid in June 1863, she has written extensively about the transnational history of West African rice farmers. She was a co-editor of Rice: Global Networks and New Histories, which was selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title. She consulted for the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture's permanent exhibition, "Rice Fields in the Low Country of South Carolina." She is also the executive producer and librettist of Unburied, Unmourned, Unmarked: Requiem for Rice, a widely performed original contemporary classical work by celebrated composer John Wineglass. Her book, Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War (Oxford University Press), has been named winner of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in History; the 2025 Gilder Lehrman Institute Lincoln Prize; the Society of Civil War Historians 2025 Tom Watson Brown Award; the South Carolina Historical Society 2024 George C. Rogers Jr. Award; and the Association for Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society’s 2024 Marsha M. Greenlee History Award. In addition, Combee was also named to several best-of lists in 2024, including by The New Yorker.

ANGELA FLOURNOY is the author of The Turner House: A Novel, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize; a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection; an Indie Next pick; and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Her fiction has appeared in The Paris Review, and she has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, the Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she has taught at the University of Iowa, Princeton University, and the University of California, Los Angeles. She lives in New York.

DENIS FORTÚN BOUZO (La Habana, 1963). Poeta y narrador. Reside en Miami. Ha publicado los poemarios Zona desconocida (Editorial Itinerante Paradiso 2007), Serio divertimento (Neo Club Ediciones 2016), Noticia en desarrollo (Editorial Exodus 2019) presentado en la 37 Feria Internacional del Libro en Miami, Coordenadas ilícitas (CAAW Ediciones 2023), y Alma vieja (CAAW Ediciones 2024). En narrativa El libro de los Cocozapatos (Cuentos. Editorial Silueta 2011), Diles que no me devuelvan. Crónicas del aeropuerto (Crónicas. Alexandria Library 2013), la novela 324 Mendoza (Editorial CAAW 2018), presentada ese mismo año en la 35 Feria Internacional del Libro en Miami, y el libro de cuentos Los hijos de Sobek (Editorial Exodus 2024).

ALEX FOSTER received his MFA from New York University, where he served as fiction editor of Washington Square Review. Previously, he studied economics at the University of Chicago and conducted research for the U.S. government and for the World Bank’s Gender Innovation Lab in West Africa. He also works at Henry Holt & Company, an imprint of Macmillan, on New York Times-bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning books. Circular Motion (Grove Press) is his first novel.

ROB FRANKLIN is a writer of fiction and poetry, and a co-founder of Art for Black Lives. Born and raised in Atlanta, he was a Kimbilio fiction fellow and finalist for the New England Review Emerging Writer Award. He has published work in New England Review, Prairie Schooner, and The Rumpus, among other publications. He teaches writing at the School of Visual Arts. Great Black Hope: A Novel (S&S/Summit Books) is his first novel.

CAROLINE FRASER is the author of Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, which won the Pulitzer Prize as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize, and the Plutarch Award for Best Biography of the Year. She is also the author of God's Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church, and her writing has appeared in The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, the Los Angeles Times, and the London Review of Books, among other publications.

TOM FRIEDEN, M.D., MPH, served as the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and commissioner of the New York City Health Department. His work made New York’s tuberculosis control program and overall health department models for the world; established effective programs in India; and improved morale, effectiveness, and impact at the CDC. Frieden is a physician with advanced training in internal medicine, infectious disease, public health, and epidemiology.

REBECCA FRIEDMAN is the founder and director of the Public Humanities Program at Florida International University. She is a 2024 Academic Studies Press author (Masculinity, Autocracy and the Russian University, 1804-1863) and her monograph Modernity, Domesticity and Temporality in Modern Russia: Time at Home explores the connections between time and culture, as shaped by history, geography, and social norms. She is widely recognized for using humanistic disciplines like poetry, art, and philosophy to engage with the public, making scholarly ideas accessible through public programming.

OSCAR FUENTES, known as The Biscayne Poet, is a Miami-based multidisciplinary artist, curator, and author of 11 poetry and prose collections. Born in New York City to Honduran immigrant parents, his work explores themes of family, memory, and legacy. His typewriter poetry was recently featured on Bravo’s The Real Housewives of Miami, and he serves as poet-in-residence at 1 Hotel South Beach. He is currently promoting Poetry City: Ciudad Poesía (Indie Earth Publishing), a new poetry collection inspired by Miami. In 2023, he received the inaugural Miami-Dade Mayoral Poetry Commendation.

JAVIER FUENTES is a Spanish American writer whose debut work of fiction, Countries of Origin: A Novel (Vintage), won the 2024 PEN/Hemingway award. He has received fellowships from Columbia University, Lambda Literary, and the Ucross Foundation. Fuentes has taught at the School of Visual Arts, Columbia University, and Bard College, where he was the inaugural Paris Review visiting professor of literature at the Bard Prison Initiative. Born in Barcelona, he lives in New York.

MALU FURCHE ROSSÉ (Temuco, 1988) escritora y guionista. Es autora de Islas de calor (La Pollera Ediciones, 2022), libro ganador del premio Municipal de Santiago y Mejores Obras Literarias del Ministerio de las Culturas, las Artes y el Patrimonio en Chile. En 2025 publicó su primera novela Reina del Tamarugal (La Pollera Ediciones). Como guionista destaca su trabajo en el documental Robar a Rodin (2017), la serie Zander (2021), la película Oro Amargo (2024) y el cortometraje Petra y el sol (2025).

ANDREW FURMAN is a professor of English at Florida Atlantic University and teaches in its MFA program in creative writing. His fiction and creative nonfiction frequently engage with the Florida outdoors, but he has also written about Maine, Jewish identity, basketball, lighthouses, swimming, and cast-iron cookware. His essays and stories have appeared on Terrain.org and in such publications as Prairie Schooner, Oxford American, The Southern Review, Santa Monica Review, Ecotone, Willow Springs, Poets & Writers, Flyway, and The Florida Review. He is the author, most recently, of the environmental memoir Of Slash Pines and Manatees: A Highly Selective Field Guide to My Suburban Wilderness (University Press of Florida, 2025), and The World That We Are (Regal House Publishing, 2025). Other books include Jewfish (Little Curlew Press, 2020), Goldens Are Here (Green Writers Press, 2018), and Bitten: My Unexpected Love Affair with Florida (University Press of Florida, 2014), a finalist for the ASLE Environmental Book Award.

JULIA GAFFIELD is associate professor of history at William & Mary. She is the author of Haitian Connections in the Atlantic World: Recognition after Revolution.

GLENDA GALÁN es una escritora y periodista dominicana radicada en Miami. Realizó una Licenciatura en Comunicación Publicitaria en UNIBE, Diploma en Periodismo Digital de University of Miami (KC) y Maestría en Estudios Avanzados en Literatura Española e Hispanoamericana de la Universidad de Barcelona. Ha trabajado como periodista y productora en América TeVe, Miami y actualmente es directora de la Revista Cultural Dominicana en Miami. En años recientes, se ha dedicado a la enseñanza del idioma español en Our Lady of Lourdes Academy. Sus relatos y poemas han sido publicados en varias revistas literarias. Reconocimientos: Premio Emmy (2011) como Productora. Nominación Premio Emmy (2011) como Guionista. Medalla de Plata, Florida Book Awards (2018). Primera finalista en el concurso "Nuevos valores de la poesía hispana” auspiciado por el Centro Cultural Español de Cooperación Iberoamericana en Miami y la Revista Literaria Baquiana (2010). Publicaciones: Mar de fugas (2011) Guayabas y fresas (2012). Tsunami (2014) Ventanas: Ventanas: Entrevistas de Glenda Galán a escritores latinoamericanos (2018) Medalla de plata, Florida Book Awards.

JOAQUÍN GÁLVEZ (La Habana, 1965). Poeta, ensayista y periodista. Reside en Estados Unidos desde 1989. Se licenció en Humanidades en la Universidad Barry y obtuvo una maestría en Bibliotecología y Ciencias de la Información en la Universidad del Sur de la Florida. Ha publicado los poemarios Alguien canta en la resaca, El viaje de los elegidos, Trilogía del paria, Hábitat, Retrato desde la cuerda floja (poemas escogidos 1985-2012) y Desde mi propia isla. De 2009 a 2024, coordinó la tertulia La Otra Esquina de las Palabras y en la actualidad dirige Insularis Magazine, revista de literatura, arte y pensamiento.

Naiti Gamez

JAMIE GANGEL is an award-winning veteran correspondent at CNN. She reports for the network’s digital and television platforms, and regularly appears on CNN’s AC360, The Lead with Jake Tapper, and The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.

ROMINA GARBER is a New York Times and international bestselling author whose books include Lobizona, Cazadora, and the Zodiac quartet. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and raised in Miami, Florida, Garber landed her first writing gig as a teen with College She Wrote, a weekly Sunday column for the Miami Herald that was later picked up for national syndication, and she hasn’t stopped writing since. She is a graduate of Harvard College and a Virgo to the core.

LUIS GARCÍA FRESQUET nació en Regla, La Habana. Graduado de la Escuela de Dibujo Publicitario y de Periodismo en cursos para periodistas de la Facultad Julio Antonio Mella del Vedado. Su libro, Yo, Tú, Él y el humor, publicado por la Editorial de Prelo de Portugal y Pluma en Ristre de Cuba, 1970, fue considerado como «un éxito del humorismo cubano de vanguardia». En 2016, la tercera edición fue presentada en la Feria Internacional del Libro de Miami. Fresquet ha sido director artístico de revistas y periódicos en Cuba, España y Estados Unidos. Reside en Miami y trabaja como diseñador freelance y ha publicado los libros: El humor gráfico y la caricatura en la prensa cubana, El arte del cartel al servicio de una ideología, Mi encuentro con el arte, Recuerdos que se bifurcan y se pierden en la memoria, entre otros. Junto con su esposa, Nury A. Rodríguez, publicaron una Colección de Libros Infantiles Interactivos que ha sido elogiada por la crítica.

HENRY LOUIS GATES JR. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. An Emmy-, Du Pont-, and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, and institution builder, he has published numerous books and produced and hosted an array of documentary films about Black history, most recently Great Migrations. His groundbreaking genealogy and genetics series, Finding Your Roots, which received a Primetime Emmy nomination, just concluded its 11th season. His latest book, The Black Box: Writing the Race, was named as a New York Times 100 Best Books of the Year. Most recently, he was awarded the prestigious Spingarn Medal from the NAACP and was elected an honorary fellow by the Royal Academy of Arts in England. His next documentary series, Black and Jewish America: An Interwoven History, will air in February on PBS.

CALEB GAYLE is an award-winning journalist and the author of We Refuse to Forget: A True Story of Black Creeks, American Identity, and Power. A professor at Northeastern University, he is a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine and his work has also appeared in The Atlantic, Time, The Guardian, Guernica, The New Republic, and The Boston Globe.

IDDO GEFEN is an author and a Ph.D. student in cognitive neuroscience at Columbia University, currently based in New York. His research explores the intricate relationship between narrative understanding, human memory, and decision-making. His debut short story collection, Jerusalem Beach: Stories, won the 2023 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. One of the stories from the book is currently being adapted into a film by General Admission, actor Ryan Gosling’s production company.