Gina Frangello’s fifth book, the memoir Blow Your House Down: A Story of Family, Feminism, and Treason (Counterpoint), was selected as a New York Times Editor’s Choice, received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and BookPage, and has been included on numerous “Best of 2021” lists including at Lithub, BookPage, and The Chicago Review of Books. Her sixth book, on Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet, was released as part of IG Publishing’s “Bookmarked” series in July 2024. Gina is also the author of four books of fiction, including A Life in Men, which went into 3 printings and was optioned by Charlize Theron’s production company Denver & Delilah, and Every Kind of Wanting, also optioned by Denver & Delilah and included on several “Best of 2016” lists including at Chicago Magazine’s and The Chicago Review of Books. Her first two books, My Sister’s Continent and Slut Lullabies, out of print for some time, are being reissued by Northwestern University Press in January 2026. A freelance editor for Row House and RISE Books, Gina brings thirty years of experience as an editor, having founded both the independent press Other Voices Books and the fiction section of the popular online literary community The Nervous Breakdown. She has also served as the Sunday editor for The Rumpus, the faculty editor for both TriQuarterly Online and The Coachella Review, and the Creative Nonfiction Editor for the Los Angeles Review of Books. Gina obtained her PhD in English/Creative Writing from the University of Illinois Chicago, with a specialization in Gender Theory. She is on the low residency MFA faculty at the University of Nevada-Reno/Tahoe and runs Circe Consulting, a full-service company for writers, with Emily Rapp Black. In her professional life prior to devoting herself to the literary community, Gina was a therapist and advocate working with survivors of domestic violence and other forms of abuse and with adolescent/teen girls in the foster care system. She obtained her MA in Counseling Psychology from Antioch New England Graduate School.

Jeannine Ouellette (The Part That Burns, Split/Lip Press, 2021) is a multi-genre writer with published work across fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and journalism and more than thirty years of continuous editorial experience. She is the  author of several books in addition to TPTB, including the children’s picture book Mama Moon and an array of educational titles. As the founder/director of Writing in the Dark (the workshops and the Substack) and Writing in the Dark | The SCHOOL in 2024, Jeannine’s teaching has helped guide hundreds of writers to deepen their craft and publish their work, both short form and books. She is highly experienced at teaching online. Through Writing in the Dark on Substack, an 18,000 member community, she teaches rigorous craft through specific forms (essays, stories, flash, etc.) and elements of craft (scene, place, voice, etc.) in novel ways that have helped to dramatically transform countless people’s writing. With 25 years of teaching experience spanning settings from PhD programs to elementary schools to prisons, Jeannine is committed and skilled at nurturing writers at every level. She holds an MFA in fiction from Vermont College of Fine Arts and teaches writing and narrative health at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, mentors through the Association of Writers & Writing Program's Writer-to-Writer Program, and teaches creative writing through the Minnesota Prison Writers Workshop. She is the recipient of fellowships from Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts and Millay Colony, where she also served as a juror. Additionally, she served as editor-in-chief of Minnesota Parent, associate editor of The Rake arts and culture magazine, and nonfiction editor at Orison Books, among other editorial roles.. Jeannine’s essays and fiction have won many awards and have appeared widely in magazines and literary journals. You can learn more about Writing in the Dark here. 

Emily Rapp Black is the author of five books of nonfiction: Poster Child: A Memoir (Bloomsbury), The Still Point of the Turning World (The Penguin Press), which was a New York Times bestseller; Sanctuary (Random House), which was a New York Times Editor’s Choice; Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg (Nottinghill Editions); and I Would Die If I Were You: Notes on Art and Truthtelling, forthcoming from Counterpoint Press in 2026. Her short fiction, poetry and essays have appeared widely in many magazines and journals, including Vogue, the Guardian, and The Wall Street Journal. She has ghostwritten books that have gone on to win the PEN USA Award in Nonfiction and a Pulitzer Prize nomination. A former Fulbright scholar and Guggenheim fellowship recipient, she attended Harvard Divinity School many years ago and integrates philosophy and classical texts into her teaching and work in order to disrupt and redefine those narratives. While a Winter Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, she began collaborating with the visual artist Carrie Scanga, and she has been working with visual artists ever since. Trained as a teenager for the opera, musicality and rhythm remain a dedicated focus in her prose. A longtime competitive skier, she also understands the importance and power of endurance. A longtime disabilities activist, she brings a passion for social justice and a firm belief in the power of community, as well as more than twenty-five years of experience teaching diverse groups of writers and thinkers all over the world. She is professor of creative writing at the University of California-Riverside, where she also teaches in the School of Medicine. She runs Circe Consulting, a full-service company for writers, with Gina Frangello.