Shaina Taub is a songwriter/performer whose honors include two Tony Awards, an Obie Award, and nominations for a Grammy and an Emmy. She created and starred in the Broadway musical Suffs, which began at The Public Theater, toured nationally, and was filmed for PBS Great Performances. An artist-in-residence at The Public Theater, she has also created Twelfth Night and As You Like It for Public Works. She is an Atlantic Records recording artist whose music has been heard at Carnegie Hall and the Hollywood Bowl, and she played Emma Goldman in the Broadway revival of Ragtime at Lincoln Center Theater. She was named to the TIME100 Next list and holds an honorary doctorate from the Manhattan School of Music.

Betsy Cornwell is a New York Times bestselling author of six young adult novels and one adult memoir. Her short writing has been published in the NYT's Modern Love, Fairy Tale Review, Parabola Magazine, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Notre Dame and a BA from Smith College, and teaches at the University of Galway, the Irish Writers Centre, and online. Betsy is the founder of an arts residency space for single parents in a historic knitting factory in west Ireland, where she lives with her son.