Daniel Khalastchi is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. A former fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, he is the author of three books—American Parables (University of Wisconsin Press, winner of the Brittingham Prize in Poetry), Tradition (McSweeney’s), and Manoleria. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including The Believer Logger, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Fence, The Iowa Review, Poetry Northwest, The Rumpus, and Best American Experimental Writing. Daniel has taught advanced writing and literature courses at Augustana College, Marquette University, and—most recently—the Iowa Writers' Workshop where he was a Visiting Assistant Professor. He currently serves as Director of the University of Iowa’s Magid Center for Undergraduate Writing and is the cofounder and managing editor of Rescue Press. His recent awards include a residency at the Hermitage Artist Retreat. More information can be found at danielkhalastchi.com.

Mallory Hellman (she/her) has served as the Director of the Iowa Youth Writing Project since 2015. Prior to that, she received an MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and a BA in English and American Literature from Harvard. Mallory's nonfiction has appeared in Tuesday Magazine, Forbes, and elsewhere. She has taught creative writing at the University of Iowa, the Duke University Talent Identification Program, and at K-12 schools, community centers, residential rehabilitation facilities, and shelters throughout the Midwest.

Stephen has been the Director of the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio since 2005. He has led nineteen sessions of the program and hosted more than 1200 students. Stephen attended Kenyon College, where he majored in English, and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he studied with Deborah Eisenberg, Margot Livesey, Ethan Canin, and Frank Conroy. His first novel, Irreplaceable, was published by Hyperion/Voice in 2009 and translated into German, Dutch, and Chinese. Irreplaceable received the Dana Award for the Novel and a James Michener-Copernicus Society of America Award. Stephen lives in Iowa City, and is working on a second novel.

Amy Margolis has run programs for writers at The University of Iowa for 29 years. She joined the staff of the Iowa Summer Writing Festival in 1990 and has served as Director since 2000. Amy received her M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was a Teaching-Writing Fellow in fiction. She did her undergraduate work at Bard College and Northwestern University, where she earned a B.A. in the History and Literature of Religions. Her honors include membership in the Phi Beta Kappa Society. Amy has taught fiction and nonfiction writing in the Festival, at The University of Iowa, and elsewhere as a visiting writer. Her short fiction appears in The Iowa Review. She is currently at work on a memoir-in-shards about her life as a modern dancer in the late seventies, at the onset of the AIDS crisis.

April Bannister (she/her) is a recent graduate from the University of Iowa, where she holds a degree in English and Creative Writing as well as a certificate in Resilience and Trauma-Informed Perspectives. She enjoys writing across all genres, especially within a mental health focus. Among others, her work has appeared in UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity, The Pittsburgher (formerly The Dog Door Cultural), and The Raven Review. In her free time, April loves rock climbing, drinking chai lattes, and spending time with her dog, Scooter.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, Jorge Guerra received his B.A. in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing at CSULB. He is also a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he was a Dean's Graduate Research Fellow. He currently lives in Iowa City and is working on a novel and researching the Guatemalan Coup D'état of 1954 and disappearance of leftists during the Guatemalan Civil War.

Sara McGuirk received an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 2016, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow and IYWP/Magid Center Fellow. She also holds a BA in English and Film Studies from the University of Notre Dame, where she received the Naughton Fellowship for Film Broadcasting, the Ernest Sandeen Award for Poetry, and held status as a USA Rugby Academic All-American. She has taught Creative Writing, Writing Commons, Writers in the Community, and Writing and Community Outreach (formerly Writing with Purpose) and serves as the Women's Rugby Coach at the University of Iowa. Sara is currently finishing her first poetry collection as well as a feature-length, sci-fi screenplay.

Tracy Meginnis has worked as an editor, writing instructor, English Language Arts test developer, and research project manager prior to their current role as Administrative Services Coordinator in the Division of Interdisciplinary Programs. Tracy has an M.F.A. in Fiction from New Mexico State University and a B.A. in English with a Middle-Secondary Education concentration from Butler University. Their academic and personal projects have centered on folklore and oral history, creative writing pedagogy, print and online publishing, and video game development.

Amy Parker received her MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she was a Meta-Rosenburg Fellow and a Teaching Writing Fellow. She has been awarded grants from the Sustainable Arts Foundation, the Marble House Foundation, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Clarion Foundation for her work in fiction. Her debut collection Beasts and Children was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2016, and she is currently at work on a novel. She has taught fiction and creative writing at the University of Iowa and Wichita State University.

Camille Socarras (she/her) is a word nerd who earned her BA and MA from the University of Iowa, focusing her studies on French and Francophone language, literature, and culture. She has taught a wide range of ages and levels - young elementary school through early graduate-level and beyond - and was as surprised as. anyone at how much she loves to teach. While her personal and academic interests are quite varied, Camille feels strongly about working toward social advancement in educational settings, holding the ultimate goal of making the classroom experience challenging, fun, engaged, and empowering.

Lindsay Vella is the Departmental Administrator for the Division of Interdisciplinary Studies, the Magid Center for Writing, Classics, and African American Studies. She has an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa.

Tiana Warner (she/they) received her BA in African American Studies from the University of Iowa. They have been writing and performing spoken word poetry for 8 years and have held workshops across the state on the basics of performance poetry for youth. She has competed in two international poetry slams as part of a team representing Des Moines, IA. Their favorite things are listening to rap music, eating and making soup, spending time with loved ones, and late-night adventures with friends.

Josh Parkinson is a writer from Texas who received an M.A. in fiction from Johns Hopkins University. Over the last dozen years he has written feature originals or rewrites for Warner Bros., Sony, Universal, Paramount, and Media Rights Capital, as well as held TV staff-writing positions on the HBO comedy Eastbound and Down and the AMC horror series The Terror. He has also during that time sold both hour-long drama and half-hour comedy pilots to NBC, CBS, AMC, USA, Showtime, and most recently, Peacock. He continues to live and work in Los Angeles.

Danielle was the 2010-2011 Rona Jaffe fellow in poetry at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she earned her MFA. Since that time, she's been an instructor of rhetoric, creative writing, and business writing at several institutions, both online and in-person, including IWYP, IYWS, and the Department of Rhetoric here at the University of Iowa. 

Alisa Weinstein received a BFA in Drama and MA in Educational Theatre from New York University, and a PhD in Anthropology from Syracuse University; she also studied at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, and conducted dissertation research on a Fulbright-Nehru scholarship. Among her other writing, she authored scripts for India’s Sesame Street, Galli Galli Sim Sim, and is currently at work on an ethnography on tailors working in Jaipur, India. A co-founder of Home Ec. Workshop in Iowa City, she often teaches knitting and sewing to crafters of all ages. At the University of Iowa, she teaches an anthropology course on fashion and culture, and previously served as youth programs coordinator for the International Writing Program.