EDWARD P. JONES has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and the Lannan Literary Award for The Known World. His first collection of short stories, Lost in the City, won the PEN/Hemingway Award and was short-listed for the National Book Award. Jones received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2005 and was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2019. In 2024 The Known World was voted "the best work of fiction by an American writer in the 21st century" by The New York Times which also included his story collection All Aunt Hagar's Children as one of The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. The Known World appears on Kirkus Reviews' list of the Best Books of the 21st Century (So Far). Jones is a Professor of Creative Writing at The George Washington University. He was born and raised in Washington, DC where he still resides.

JENNY MINTON QUIGLEY is the author of a memoir, The Early Birds, and editor of the anthology Lolita in the Afterlife. She lives in West Hartford, Connecticut, with her husband, sons, and dogs.