Reese Okyong Kwon’s stories are published or forthcoming in the Kenyon Review, American Short Fiction, Sun Magazine, Missouri Review, and elsewhere; her nonfiction is published in the Believer, More Intelligent Life, and Rumpus. She has received scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Norman Mailer Writers’ Colony, and Ledig House International. In addition, she has been named one of Narrative’s “30 Below 30” writers.

Marie Motsuki Mockett was born in Carmel, California to a Japanese mother and American father. Marie’s essay “Letter from a Japanese Crematorium” was published in Agni 65, cited as distinguished in the 2008 Best American Essays, and anthologized in Creative Nonfiction 3. Additional poems, stories and essays appear in The North Dakota Quarterly, Phoebe, Fugue, LIT and other journals. Marie’s debut novel, Picking Bones from Ash, was published by Graywolf Press on October 1st, 2009. The LA Times said of Picking Bones from Ash: “Some fiction makes the world a little smaller; illuminates the dark corners, puts the taste of, say, breakfast in a small mountain village of Japan in the mouth of the reader.” Picking Bones from Ash was a Finalist for the Paterson Prize for Fiction, shortlisted for the Saroyan International Prize for Writing, and shortlisted for the Asian American Literary Award. In 2009, Marie attended the Bread Loaf Conference as a Bernard O’Keefe Scholar in Nonfiction.