Jonathan Franzen said ”Kapitoil” is ”one of those uncommon novels that really is novel.  Though the storytelling is conventional, it is satisfyingly so, and the book’s estimable young narrator is a human type whom nobody until Wayne was ever inspired to write about.”

The Boston Globe raved that “Wayne has written one of the best novels of my generation… Why did 9/11 happen, and why do we continue to respond so blindly? Wayne answers these questions better than Mohsin Hamid or Joseph O’Neill, the best authors of this genre until now… Wayne has completely foreseen and transcended the exhaustion of the 9/11 genre.”

His work has also appeared in The New Yorker, the New York Times, Vanity Fair, Time, Esquire, McSweeney’s and the Wall Street Journal, among other publications. In 2010, Wayne received an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship.

Wayne is a graduate of Harvard and Washington University in St. Louis, where he taught fiction and creative nonfiction writing. He lives in New York.

Visit him online at www.teddywayne.com.

Frederick Barthelme said that reading “Bad Marie” is “like spending a rainy afternoon in a smaller, older movie theater watching a charming French movie with a woman (or a man) you’ve just met on the street and already like far too much. It’s sinful in all the right ways, delicate, seditious, and deliciously evil.” Added Antonya Nelson: “A naughty pleasure, a philosophical romp, heady hedonism: what could be better?”

The New York Times called “Twins” a “brainy, emotionally sophisticated bildungsroman-for-two.”

Her short stories have been published in McSweeney’s, Alaska Quarterly Review, Mississippi Review and Indiana Review, among other publications.

A former MacDowell fellow, Marcy is the winner of the Smallmouth Press Andre Dubus Novella Award and Story Magazine’s Carson McCullers short story prize.

Marcy serves as a board member of the online literary community Fictionaut and is a film critic for About.com.

She lives in Astoria, N.Y., with her husband, writer Jürgen Fauth, and her daughter Nina.

Visit her online at www.marcydermansky.com.

“Finny,” says Jim Crace, is “Dickensian in its span and generosity, contemporary in its exuberance and furtive humor, timeless in its assessment of family and friendship, innocence and love, this is a debut novel of exceptional achievement.”

A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Kramon has published stories in Glimmer Train, Story Quarterly, Boulevard, Fence and TriQuarterly, among other publications.

He has received honors from the Michener-Copernicus Society of America, Best American Short Stories, the Hawthornden International Writers’ Fellowship and the Bogliasco Foundation.

He lives in Philadelphia and teaches at Gotham Writers’ Workshop in New York City and at the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio.

Visit him online at www.justinkramon.com.

The Boston Globe observed that “Ghosts of Wyoming” is filled with “sharp-eyed tender stories” that are “vibrant tales of disappearance, murder, bad weather, loneliness, generosity, betrayal, and, yes, ghosts.”

Her work has been published in a number of journals and magazines, including Ploughshares, Shenandoah, Virginia Quarterly Review and the New York Times Magazine. 

Her fiction has also been recorded for National Public Radio. 

Hagy has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Christopher Isherwood Foundation.  Her short stories have been awarded a Nelson Algren Prize, a Pushcart Prize, and been included in the Best American Short Stories series. 

Hagy currently lives in Laramie, Wyoming and teaches at the University of Wyoming.

Her first graphic novel, “The Plain Janes,” launched the DC Comics Minx imprint and she was awarded the 2007 Shuster Award for best Canadian Comic Book Writer.  It was followed up by the sequel “Janes in Love.” Her first picture book, “Grandma’s Gloves,” is due out in August 2010.

Her short stories have appeared in Strange Horizons, The Eternal Kiss, Geektastic (which she co-edited) and Interfictions 2, among other anthologies and literary journals.  

Her books have been on the American Library Association’s (ALA’s) BBYA, Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers, Great Graphic Novels for Teens lists, as well as the NYPL Books for the Teen Age and the Amelia Bloomer list.

Recently she was commissioned by ECM+ to write the libretto for an original opera with music composed by Andre Ristic, “Les Aventures de Madame Merveille,” which premiered in Montreal in May.

She was the recent recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship where she completed a new novel The Year of the Beasts due out in 2012.

She has participated in the Lincoln Center Directors Lab West and the Banff Centre for the Arts “Writing with Style” program and had both writing and directing assistantships at the Mark Taper Forum.

In 2006 she wrote and directed her first feature film, “Happy Is Not Hard To Be.”  It debuted in Los Angeles at the Alternative Screen series at the Egyptian Theatre.

Visit her online at castellucci.wordpress.com.

The New York Times called it a “haunting debut” that’s “tough and lyrical (and) quietly mesmerizing.” People said that “the novel is steeped in history, yet gorgeous sensory details enliven the prose . . .   35 years after the fall of Saigon, Soli’s entrancing debut brings you close enough to feel a part of it.”

Her stories have appeared in The Sun, StoryQuarterly, Confrontation, Gulf Coast, Other Voices, Nimrod, Third Coast, Carolina Quarterly, Sonora Review and North Dakota Quarterly among other publications.

Soli’s work has been twice listed in the 100 Distinguished Stories in Best American Short Stories and nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

She was awarded the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Prize, the Dana Award, named a finalist for the Bellwether Prize, and received scholarships to the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.

Born in Salzburg, Austria, Soli attended Stanford University and the Warren Wilson MFA Program.

She lives with her husband in Orange County, California, and teaches through the Gotham Writers’ Workshop.

Visit her online at www.tatjanasoli.com.

The Boston Globe called it “a lyrical and insightful debut novel.” Kate Walbert said that it’s “an intricately structured and powerfully resonant portrait of lives lived at the crossroads of culture, and a family torn between the old world and the new, ‘Long for This World’ marks a powerful debut from a young writer of great talent and promise.”

Sonya’s stories, reviews, & essays have appeared in The Threepenny Review, Crab Orchard Review, Sonora Review and BOMB Magazine, among other publications.  

She is a recipient of a Pushcart Prize nomination, the Charles Johnson Fiction Award and the Bronx Council on the Arts Writers’ Fellowship & Residency.

She contributes regularly to the literary blog The Millions and teaches fiction writing at New York University and the Gotham Writers’ Workshop. In fall 2010, Sonya will join the full-time faculty of the creative writing program at Columbia University.

Visit her online at www.sonyachung.com.

At Harvard, she co-authored the book and lyrics for the Hasty Pudding Theatrical’s 157th drag burlesque musical, “HPT 157: Terms of Frontierment.”

Maggie received her MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop in 2008 and is currently a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.

Her stories have recently appeared in American Short Fiction, Crazyhorse, Open City, Tin House, TriQuarterly, Zoetrope: All-Story and in the anthologies Best New American Voices, Best American Nonrequired Reading, Home of the Brave: Stories in Uniform and The Worst Years of Your Life.

A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Amber received her Ph.D. in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Houston.

A recipient of a Donald Barthelme Memorial Fellowship, Amber is currently an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia.

Jhumpa Lahiri said that “With precise brushstrokes and startling imagery, Carin Clevidence renders the portrait of a family at once stubbornly bonded and splintering apart. Casting a steady spell on the reader, Clevidence is a breathtaking new American voice.”

Her short stories have appeared in Story, the Indiana Review and the Michigan Quarterly Review, among other publications.

She is the recipient ofa Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers Award and a fellowship from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Mass.

Clevidence earned her MFA from the University of Michigan.