NANA KWAME ADJEI-BRENYAH, author of CHAIN GANG ALL-STARS

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is the author of national bestseller Chain-Gang All-Stars (Penguin Random House, 2023) and NYT-bestselling short story collection Friday Black (Mariner Books, 2018). Selected by Colson Whitehead as one of the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” honorees and recipient of a 2025 Guggenheim Fellowship, Adjei-Brenyah is considered a “new and necessary American voice” by Tommy Orange in his The New York Times Book Review for Friday Black, wielding speculative fiction to deftly carve out a space for new black surrealism.

Adjei-Brenyah’s debut novel, Chain Gang All-Stars, is a dystopian vision of barely future America, in which inmates serving lifetime sentences opt into a series of publicly televised death matches in an attempt to win their freedom. About the book, Kiese Laymon said, “In a narrative world where the real is growingly more unbelievable than the make believe, Chain-Gang All-Stars is an uncanny, singular feat of literature. I’ve never read satire so bruising, so brolic, so tender and really, so pitch-perfect.”

Chain Gang All-Stars was a finalist for the National Book Award in Fiction, winner of the 2025 ALA Alex Award, and longlisted for the The Center for Fiction’s 2023 First Novel Prize, The Aspen Literary Award, and The Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence, among others.

nanakwameadjei-brenyah.com
Instagram: @king_nk

SARA AZIZA, AUTHOR OF THE HOLLOW HALF, MEMOIR OF BODIES AND BORDERS

Sarah Aziza (she/هي ) is a Palestinian American writer, translator, and artist with roots in ‘Ibdis and Deir al-Balah, Gaza. She is the author of The Hollow Half. A finalist for the Palestine Book Awards, The Hollow Half is a genre-bending work of memoir, lyricism, and oral history exploring the intertwined legacies of diaspora, colonialism, and the American dream.

Sarah’s award-winning journalism, poetry, essays, and experimental nonfiction have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Best American Essays, The Baffler, Harper’s Magazine, Mizna, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and The Nation, among other publications. Previously a Fulbright fellow in Jordan, she is the recipient of numerous Pulitzer Center grants for Crisis Reporting, a 2022 resident at Tin House Writer’s Workshop, a Pushcart Prize nominee, and a 2023 Margins Fellow at the Asian American Writers Workshop.

sarahaziza.com/
Instagram: @sarahazizawrites

AALIYAH BILAL, author of TEMPLE FOLK

Aaliyah Bilal is a fiction and nonfiction writer who focuses on the Black American Muslim experience and stories that connect Chinese and Afro-Diasporic peoples. She has experience as a director and producer of short films. Bilal has published stories and essays with The Michigan Quarterly Review, The Chicago Quarterly Review, and The Rumpus.

Bilal’s path to publishing was both untraditional and inspiring. Temple Folk, her first short story collection and a 2023 National Book Award finalist, was acquired by Simon and Schuster after an open call for submissions, without an agent or connections to the world of publishing.

Temple Folk explores the multifaceted identity of Black Muslims in America, delving into their experiences with race, religion, economics, politics, and sexuality. The collection of ten stories depicts a community resisting mainstream culture while navigating the expectations placed upon them. Each story offers intimate glimpses into characters grappling with moral contradictions, blending compassion, nuance, and humor to highlight the human aspects of their imperfections and failures.

Born and raised in Prince George’s County, Maryland, Bilal obtained degrees from Oberlin College and the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies.

aaliyahbilal.com
Instagram: @aaliyah.muneerah.bilal

AARON JOHN CURTIS, Author of OLD SCHOOL INDIAN

Aaron John Curtis is an enrolled member of the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe, which he’ll tell you is the white name for the American side of Akwesasne. Aaron has judged for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance prizes, the 2019 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction, and the 2021 National Book Award for Nonfiction. Since 2004, Aaron has been Quartermaster at Books & Books, Miami’s largest independent bookstore. "Old School Indian" is his first novel.

aaronjohncurtis.com
IG: @mohawkmiami

EDWIDGE DANTICAT, author, WE’RE ALONE & EVERYTHING INSIDE

Edwidge Danticat is the Wun Tsun Tam Mellon Professor of the Humanities in the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia University. She received her B.A. in French Literature from Barnard College and her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Brown University. She is the author of seventeen books, including Breath, Eyes, Memory, an Oprah Book Club selection, Krik? Krak!, a National Book Award finalist, The Farming of Bones, an American Book Award winner; the novels-in-stories, The Dew Breaker, Claire of the Sea Light, and The Art of Death, a National Book Critics Circle finalist for Criticism. She has written seven books for children and young adults, a travel narrative, After the Dance, and a collection of essays, Create Dangerously.

Her memoir, Brother, I'm Dying, was a 2007 finalist for the National Book Award and a 2008 winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography. She is the editor of The Butterfly's Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States, The Beacon Best of 2000, Haiti Noir, Haiti Noir 2, and Best American Essays 2011. She is a 2009 MacArthur Fellow, a 2018 Ford Foundation Art of Change Fellow, a 2018 winner of the Neustadt Prize, a 2019 winner of the Saint Louis Literary Award, a 2020 United States Artist Fellow, a 2020 winner of the Vilceck Prize, and a 2023 winner of the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. Her story collection, Everything Inside, was a 2020 winner of the Bocas Fiction Prize, The Story Prize, and the National Book Critics Circle Fiction Prize.

Her essay collection We're Alone was publishedby Graywolf Press in 2024, and a novel, The Once and Future Dead, is forthcoming from Knopf in 2026.

https://afamstudies.columbia.edu/content/edwidge-danticat

YOHANCA DELGADO, contributing Author, the best american short stories & the best american science fiction and fantasy

Yohanca Delgado’s recent fiction appears in The Best American Short Stories 2022, The O. Henry Prize Stories 2022, The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2021, The Paris Review, One Story, A Public Space, McSweeney’s, Zyzzyva, and elsewhere. Her recent essays appear in TIME, The Believer, and New York Times Magazine. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from American University and is a graduate of the Clarion workshop and the National Book Critics Circle Emerging Fellows program. She is a recent Wallace Stegner fiction fellow at Stanford University and a 2022 National Endowment for the Arts fellow.

https://yohanca.com/
IG: @yodelnyc

NICOLE DENNIS-BENN, author of PATSY & here comes the sun

Nicole Dennis-Benn is an award-winning novelist whose books place working-class Jamaicans, especially women and queer folk, at the center of the universal human experience. Her debut novel, Here Comes the Sun, was a New York Times Notable Book of 2016 and was recently listed as a New York Times Most Notable Book of the decade. Patsy, her second novel, was a Today Show Read with Jenna Book Club Pick and a New York Times Editor’s Choice, and was named best book of the year by TIME, Oprah, People, NPR, among others. Nicole was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Award, the New York Public Library Young Lions Award, The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, Pen/Faulkner Award in Fiction, and a two-time winner of the Lambda Literary Award Fiction Prize. Her books have remained as must-reads on various major lists since publication and have been translated into multiple languages, including German, Italian, French, and Portuguese. She is currently a Visiting Associate Professor in Creative Writing at Bryn Mawr College. Her highly anticipated 3rd novel with Random House is forthcoming.

Nicoledennisbenn.com
IG: @ndennisbenn

NaOMI XU ELEGANT, author of GINGKO SEASON

Naomi Xu Elegant is an author and freelance journalist living in New York. Her debut novel, Gingko Season, was published by W.W. Norton in 2025 and named a New York Times Editors' Choice. She is co-editor of Gully, an independent literary magazine, and writes a monthly newsletter called luanqibazao. Her writing has appeared in Monocle, Fortune, Atlas Obscura, The Drift and elsewhere.

naomixuelegant.com
IG: @gingkoseason
Substack: @naomixe

Lauren francis-sharma, author of CASUALTIES OF TRUTH & BOOK OF THE LITTLE AXE

Lauren, a child of Trinidadian immigrants, has written about the Caribbean in both of her critically-acclaimed novels, “’Til the Well Runs Dry” and “Book of the Little Axe.” Her new release, “Casualties of Truth,” is a riveting literary novel with the sharp edges of a thriller about the abuses of history and the costs of revenge, set between Washington, D.C., and Johannesburg, South Africa.

Lauren holds a degree in English Literature with a minor in African-American Studies from the University of Pennsylvania, a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School, and an MFA from the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Lauren, a book reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle and a MacDowell Fellow, is also the Assistant Director of Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference at Middlebury College.

laurenfrancissharma.com
IG: @laurenfsharma

HADDY GASSAMA, author of SOLIDARITY AS A FORCE FOR SYSTEMIC CHANGE

Haddy Gassama is a Gambian-born writer, who moonlights as a lawyer and immigration policy advocate. While Haddy sometimes writes in her capacity as an immigrants rights advocate, her creative work examines the relationship between white and Western points of view and the lived realities and feminism(s) that are inherent in Black womanhood. Her writing interrogates the role of western ideologies and white feminism in creating harmful narratives about Black women. She writes to shatter these stagnant narratives, which are often devoid of nuance, in hopes of creating new ones that are written from the perspective of a Black woman.

https://www.clippings.me/users/haddygassama

xochitl gonzalez, Author of ANITA DE MONTE LAUGHS LAST & OLGA DIES DREAMING

Xochitl Gonzalez is the New York Times bestselling author of Anita de Monte Laughs Last, a Reese's Book Club Pick longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and the award-winning Olga Dies Dreaming, named a Best of 2022 by The New York Times, TIME, Kirkus, Washington Post, and NPR. Gonzalez is a staff writer for The Atlantic and was recognized as a 2023 Pulitzer Prize finalist in Commentary. A native Brooklynite and proud public school graduate, Gonzalez holds a BA from Brown University and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

xochitlgonzalez.com
IG: @xochitltheg

ALEJANDRO HEREDIA, AUTHOR, LOCA

Alejandro Heredia is a writer from The Bronx. He has received fellowships from Lambda Literary, Dominican Studies Institute, UNLV’s Black Mountain Institute, and elsewhere. He received an MFA in fiction from Hunter College. Loca is his debut novel. It was recently shortlisted for the 2025 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize.

JP Infante, Author, On the Tip of Your Mother’s Tongue & Aquí y All: Winston Vargas Photographs the Dominican Community in Washington Heights

JP Infante is the author of On the Tip of Your Mother’s Tongue and Aquí y All:: Winston Vargas Photographs the Dominican Community in Washington Heights. He is the winner of PEN’s Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize and Thirty West’s Chapbook contest. His writing has appeared in Kweli, The Poetry Project, A Gathering of the Tribes, and elsewhere. He has been awarded scholarships and fellowships from the Baldwin for the Arts, NY State Writers Institute, PEN America and The Center for Fiction. He holds an MFA from The New School.

www.yohanca.com
Instagram & X: @yodelnyc

YAHDON ISRAEL, SENIOR EDITOR, SIMON & SCHUSTER

Yahdon has a passion for promoting literacy and connecting readers with books. He brings an entrepreneurial spirit to these pursuits as the founder of a popular book club, host of a literary podcast, event producer, magazine editor, and writer, as well as his work in support of several prestigious literary awards, including the NBCC, Aspen Words Literary Prize and the Young Lions Fiction Award.

Some of the books Yahdon has acquired and edited at Simon & Schuster include Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden by Camille T. Dungy, What Winners Won’t Tell You by 2x NFL Superbowl champion, Malcolm Jenkins, Growing Up Urkel by Jaleel White, Say Hello to the Bad Guys by Marc Raimondi, Loca by Alejandro Heredia, The Fantasies of Future Things by Doug Jones, Black Cherokee by Antonio Michael Downing, Boom Town by Nic Stone, Episodes by Gucci Mane, and Tenderheaded: A Memoir by Michaela Angela Davis.

As a senior editor Yahdon’s first acquisition, Aaliyah Bilal’s debut short story collection, Temple Folk was a finalist for the National Book Award in Fiction, the Aspen Words Literary Prize and won the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence.

At Simon & Schuster, Yahdon acquires literary fiction.

simonandschusterpublishing.com/simonandschuster/yahdon-israel.html
IG: @yahdon

GENAY JACKSON, curator, Mcnally jackson books

Genay Jackson is an emerging writer and Kweli mentee. She has worked in a number of capacities at McNally Jackson Books over the years, curating book selections, and sharing her general love of literature with the world. Genay holds a BA in English from Princeton University and a Master of Public Health from the University of Southern California. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and twin daughters. When not reading and writing, Genay can be found watching Jeopardy! or live sports, playing board games with her family, and supporting other families as their birth or postpartum Doula.

drenchedinlight.com
IG: @gkirkpatz

HONORÉE FANONNE JEFFERS, author, MISBEHAVING AT THE CROSSROADS & THE LOVE SONGS OF W.E.B. DU BOIS

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers is an essayist, novelist, poet, and a student of United States’ history. She is the author of seven books spanning three genres.

Her first novel The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois was an instant New York Times bestseller, an Oprah’s Book Club pick, and included on President Barack Obama’s reading list. Most recently, Love Songs was included on the “Great American Novels” list of The Atlantic and the “Best Books of the 21st Century” list by Kirkus Reviews. Love Songs won the National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize in Fiction, the Spalding Prize for the Promotion of Peace and Justice in Literature, and the First Novelist’s Award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. Love Songs was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize in Fiction, the Pen/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel, the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, and the NAACP Image Award for Literary Work: Debut. Love Songs was longlisted for the National Book Award in Fiction and appeared on several “year’s best” lists, including Time, People, NPR, and The New York Times. Misbehaving at the Crossroads, Essays & Writings is her debut work of nonfiction (Harper, June 2025).

honoreejeffers.com
IG: @honoree_jeffers

MARTHA S. JONES, Author of THE TROUBLE OF COLOR: AN AMERICAN FAMILY MEMOIR & Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All

I am a writer, historian, legal scholar and public intellectual whose work aims to understanding the politics, culture, and poetics of Black America. Her latest book, The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir, retraces six generations to understand how slavery, freedom, colorism, passing, and civil rights made her family. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland, where she teaches at the Johns Hopkins University.

marthasjones.com
IG: @marthasjones

iwalani kim, Associate Literary Agent, Sanford J. Greenburger Associates

Iwalani is seeking adult upmarket and literary fiction and select nonfiction. In fiction, she loves coming-of-age narratives, family dramas, and stories that challenge systems of power. She is often drawn to a strong sense of voice and/or place, whether the storytelling is grounded in realism or engages with a speculative element. She gravitates toward lush prose, wry humor, irreverent characters, and a sense of yearning. Iwalani is also looking for narrative nonfiction such as memoir, cultural histories, and cultural criticism.

Iwalani joined Sanford J. Greenburger Associates in 2018. She was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawai’i.

greenburger.com/agent/iwalani-kim
Twitter: @IwalaniKim

ebonya lia, AUTHOR, I CAN FEEL IT ALL OVER

Ebonya Lia is a 2023 Kweli Fellow. Her debut novel, I Can Feel It All Over, on illness, identity and isolation is forthcoming from Amistad in spring 2027. Her creative nonfiction has appeared in How I Learned. She lives in Brooklyn with her plant, Chris, who is also thankful to finally be under the care of a compassionate physician.

IG: @ebonya.lia

STEPHANIE MADRID, DESIGN STRATEGIST

Stephanie Madrid is a Brooklyn-based writer and design strategist whose investigative approach shapes both her creative and professional work. A graduate of Parsons School of Design, she previously served as Director of External Relations at the Fine Arts Work Center, where she supported emerging artists and writers. As a ceremonial cacao facilitator, her writing explores Mayan spirituality and ceremonial traditions. By day, she works in design strategy; by night, she writes, reads, and is working towards a short story collection on family, ancestry, and invisible generational inheritances.

stephaniemadrid.com
IG: @stephmadrids

EMERSON MAHONEY, DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY

Emerson is a New York City based director of photography drawing inspiration from interests in fashion, culture, music, nature, and surfing. He has worked as a cinematographer and camera operator for Aubin Pictures, Sony Music, HBO, Cynthia Rowley, Timberland, Veuve Clicquot, the Michelle Obama podcast, Italian producer Ulisse Lendaro, and more. Shooting for the narrative short film, “Submerge” was an exciting opportunity for Emerson to showcase his intimate relationship with the natural beauty of Aquinnah on Martha’s Vineyard through cinematography. Aquinnah is the ancestral territory of his people, the Aquinnah Wampanoag.

emersonmahoneyvisuals.com
IG: @emahoney_97

yasmin adele majeed, contributing author, the best american short stories 2025

Yasmin Adele Majeed’s fiction appears in Narrative, Guernica, Joyland, American Short Fiction, Best Debut Short Stories, and The Best American Short Stories. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she has received fellowships and support from Tin House, Kundiman, Kweli, the Periplus Collective, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center. She is a winner of the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize and the American Short(er) Fiction Prize. She is currently at work on a novel.

yasmaj.com

Megha majumdar, author, a guardian and a thief & a burning

Megha Majumdar is the author of the novel A Guardian and a Thief, which has been longlisted for the National Book Award and is a finalist for the Kirkus Prize. Her first book, the New York Times bestselling novel A Burning, was nominated for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize, and the American Library Association's Andrew Carnegie Medal. Born and raised in Kolkata, India, she now lives in New York.

https://www.meghamajumdar.com/
IG: @megha.maj

DINAW MENGESTU, author, SOMEONE LIKE US & ALL OUR NAMES

Dinaw Mengetsu is the author of four novels, Someone Like Us (Knopf 2024), All Our Names (Knopf,2014), How To Read the Air (Riverhead, 2010), and The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (Riverhead, 2007), all New York Times Notable Books. He is a 2012 MacArthur Fellow and recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship for Fiction, National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Award, Guardian First Book Award,and Los Angeles Times Book Prize, among other honors. He is the director of the Written Arts Program at Bard College and the director of the Center for Ethics and Writing.

IG: @dinaw_mengestu

Yari mercedes, member, advisory board for justice for black girls

Yaribel Mercedes, Ed.D is an adjunct assistant professor of literacy at Hunter College’s School of Education and an emerging writer.

Dr. Mercedes is also a member of the advisory board for Justice for Black Girls, a nonprofit organization committed to disrupting educational, carceral, and cultural systems that harm young Black girls while creating liberated educational spaces for Black girls ages 13–24. Her research examines race, racism, and the impact of systems of subjugation within and across educational contexts; the practices of critically race-conscious leaders, particularly Black educators; and (re)membering as a praxis and location for healing. Yaribel was inducted into the Barbara L. Jackson Scholars Network by the University Council for Educational Administration in 2023 and received the 2025 Outstanding Dissertation Award from the American Educational Research Association’s (AERA) Critical Examination of Race, Ethnicity, Class, and Gender in Education Special Interest Group for her dissertation, “I (WE) Know What’s at Stake: Critically Race-Conscious and Responsive Leadership as a Site of Resistance.” Dr. Mercedes earned her doctorate from Teachers College, Columbia University.

IG: @yari.mercedes

abhigna mooraka, writer & educator

Abhigna holds an MFA in Fiction from Columbia University’s School of the Arts, where she was a Graduate Teaching Fellow & a finalist for the 2021 Henfield Prize. Her work has appeared in AAWW’s The Margins, Electric Literature, Catapult, The Rumpus, and The Adroit Journal, among others. She is an alum of the Tin House Winter Workshop and was a 2023 Emerging Writer Fellow with Kweli Journal.

abhignamooraka.com/

lauren morrow, author of little movements

Lauren Morrow is the author of the novel Little Movements, which was named a Best Book of the Fall by People, Oprah Daily, Los Angeles Times, Bustle, and more. She studied dance and creative writing at Connecticut College and earned an MFA in fiction from the University of Michigan's Helen Zell Writers' Program. She was a Kimbilio Fellow, an Aspen Words Emerging Writer Fellow, and the recipient of two Hopwood Awards, among other prizes. Her writing has appeared in Ploughshares and the South Carolina Review. She worked in publicity at BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and is now a publicity manager at Dutton, Plume, and Tiny Reparations Books. Originally from St. Louis, she lives in Brooklyn.

laurenmorrowwrites.com/
IG: @lomo_bk

cleyvis natera, Author of the grand paloma resort & neruda on the parK

Cleyvis Natera is a novelist, short story writer, essayist, and critic. She is the author of the debut novel Neruda on the Park, which was a New York Times Editor’s Choice and was awarded a Silver Medal by the International Latino Book Awards for Best First Book of Fiction. The recipient of awards and fellowships from PEN America, the Vermont Studio Center, Hermitage Artist Retreat, and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Natera studied literature and creative writing at Skidmore College and holds a M.F.A. in Fiction from New York University. Her fiction, essays and criticisms have appeared in Kirkus, The New York Times Book Review, URSA, TIME, Gagosian Quarterly, The Brooklyn Rail, The Rumpus, The Washington Post, Pleiades, The Kenyon Review, Aster(ix) and Kweli Journal, among others. Her second novel, The Grand Paloma Resort, is her latest work of art from Ballantine Books (August 2025). Natera currently teaches creative writing at Barnard College of Columbia University and Montclair State University. At Montclair State University, Natera leads the development of a new Bilingual M.F.A.

Cleyvis Natera is currently a Fulbright Specialist. She lives with her husband and two young children in Montclair, New Jersey. The Grand Paloma Resort is her second novel (Ballantine Books, August 2025). 

cleyvisnatera.com/
IG: @cleyvisnatera

Marie pennington, retired attorney, world traveler and writer

Marie Pennington is a retired corporate attorney and business executive. When she retired in 2020, Marie was Vice President and Head of Procurement at Brighthouse Financial, a public company established by MetLife that is a major provider of annuity and life insurance solutions in the US. Prior to that, she was Assistant General Counsel and lead attorney for Procurement, IT and Privacy/Cybersecurity at Brighthouse. She started her legal career as a litigator at the New York City law firm of Heller Ehrman before joining MetLife’s Law Department as a Distribution attorney.

Marie obtained her bachelor’s degree from the State University of New York and her law degree from Columbia Law School where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. She served as a founding board member of Kweli, and was on the board of directors of the Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy, a nonprofit organization that provides a wide range of civil legal assistance to low-income individuals in Charlotte and surrounding areas. Throughout her legal career, she also provided pro bono legal services in the areas of immigration and asylum.

In her retirement, Marie has been traveling extensively with her husband and writing. She currently lives in Florida and North Carolina where she enjoys playing pickleball and spending time with her large family. 

princess joy l. perry, author, this here is love

Princess Joy L. Perry is the recipient of a Virginia Commission for the Arts Fellowship and a winner of the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Award. Her short stories have appeared in All About Skin, African American Review, and Kweli Journal. She lives in Norfolk, Virginia. Her debut novel, This Here is Love, is a “fierce and luminous” work of art.

wwnorton.com/books/9781324105978
IG: @princessjoywrites

Tebogo Skwambane, INTERNATIONAL strategY CONSULTANT and entrepreneur

A strategist and an entrepreneur, Tebogo Skwambane is passionate about leadership, learning, empowering others and building excellent teams. She excels at bringing people together from diverse businesses, backgrounds, skillsets and challenges to drive collaboration and achieve collective growth for themselves, their businesses, their clients and their teams. This is evident in the work she does as WPP’s first Country Manager for South Africa – a position she has held since 2021.

Tebogo Skwambane shared her love of South Africa long before author Lauren Francis-Sharma’s first visit to her country. In her acknowledgments, Lauren writes of her dear friend’s “willingness not only to answer all my queries over WhatsApp but also to house me while I conducted research in Johannesburg” as invaluable.

vml.com/people/tebogo-skwambane

Artress Bethany WhitE, author, A Black Doe in the Anthropocene: Poems

Artress Bethany White is a poet, essayist, and literary critic. She is the author of A Black Doe in the Anthropocene: Poems (UPK, 2025), a collection which uses plantation archives from the planters who enslaved her family to trace the history of her ancestors’ enslavement in the U.S. She received the Trio Award for her second poetry collection, My Afmerica: Poems (Trio House Press, 2019). White is coeditor with Danielle Legros Geroges of the anthology Wheatley at 250: Black Women Poets Re-Imagine the Verse of Phillis Wheatley Peters (2023), and an associate professor of English at East Stroudsburg University.

NIKESHA ELISE WILLIAMS, author of The Seven Daughters of Dupree

Nikesha Elise Williams is a two-time Emmy Award–winning producer, an award-winning author, and producer and host of the Black and Published podcast. A narrative strategist by day and journalist always, her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Essence, and Vox. Nikesha’s work has been supported by the Kimbilio Fiction Fellowship, the DeGroot Foundation, and the Tin House Summer Workshop. A Chicago native, she lives in Florida with her family.

newwrites.com
IG: @Nikesha_Elise

jenny xu, Senior Editor, Simon & Schuster

Jenny Xu is a Senior Editor at Atria Books and Washington Square Press. Jenny acquires a broad range of literary and commercial nonfiction in addition to poetry, with a particular focus on illuminating more overlooked aspects of history and culture, and work that balances the personal with broader narratives. She has edited bestselling and award-winning titles including The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On by Franny Choi, and Whiskey Tender by Deborah Taffa. Her current authors and titles include: Pria Anand, Cathy Linh Che, Tiana Clark, Tareq Baconi, adrienne maree brown, Saeed Jones, Maggie Smith, and Talia Lavin.

editors.simonandschuster.com/editor/hu-jenny/
IG: jenny.y.xu

ALICE EVELYN YANG, AUTHOR, A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing

Alice Evelyn Yang is a Chinese American writer from Norfolk, Virginia. Her work has been published in MQR, AAWW's The Margins, and The Rumpus, among others. She is the recipient of the 2022–23 Jesmyn Ward Prize from MQR and completed her MFA in Fiction at Columbia University, where she was awarded the Felipe De Alba Fellowship and nominated for the Henfield Prize. Her debut novel, A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing, is forthcoming January 2026.

aliceevelynyang.com/
IG: @aliceevelynyang