Lorraine López

In addition to her work with MSU's MFA program, Lorraine López serves as an assistant professor in the MFA program at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Her book Soy la Avon Lady and Other Stories (Curbstone, 2002) won the inaugural Miguel Marmól prize for fiction. Her second book Call Me Henri (Curbstone Press 2006) won the Paterson Prize for Young Adult Literature, and her novel The Gifted Gabaldón Sisters was released in fall of 2008 from Grand Central Press. An associate editor of the Afro-Hispanic Review, Lorraine has written for Prairie Schooner, Voices of Mexico, CrazyHorse, Image, Cimarron Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, StoryQuarterly/Narrative Magazine, and Latino Boom. She lives in Nashville with her husband Louis Siegel.

Julia Watts

A native of Southeastern Kentucky, Julia Watts is the author of nine novels, including the Lambda Literary Award-winning VOYA -recommended young-adult novel Finding H.F. Her 2007 novel The Kind of Girl I Am was a Lambda Literary Award finalist, and her 2008 novel Kindred Spirits is the first in a series of middle-grade novels featuring an unlikely trio of friends: a telepathic girl, a tech-savvy boy, and a ghost. Watts has received grants from the Kentucky Foundation for Women, and her essays and fiction have appeared in a variety of publications, including The American Voice, Brain/Child, The Journal of Kentucky Studies, and Now and Then. She holds an MFA from Spalding University and an M.A. in English from the University of Louisville. She teaches at South College in Knoxville, where she lives with her family and numerous pets. She loves to write.