Steve Almond is the author of two story collections, My Life in Heavy Metal and The Evil B.B. Chow, the novel Which Brings Me to You (with Julianna Baggott), and the non-fiction book Candyfreak. His new book is a collection of essays, (Not That You Asked). He lives outside Boston with his wife and daughter Josephine, who can now make the noises of seven different farm animals.  http://www.stevenalmond.com

 
Jonathan Ames is the author of the novels I Pass Like Night, The Extra Man, and Wake Up, Sir!; the essay collections What’s Not to Love?, My Less Than Secret Life, and I Love You More Than You Know; and the editor of Sexual Metamorphosis: An Anthology of Transsexual Memoirs. Ames performs frequently as a storyteller and comedian, and has been a recurring guest on The Late Show with David Letterman. http://www.jonathanames.com

 
Jami Attenberg is the author of Instant Love and The Kept Man. She has written for Nerve, Print, New York, Jane, and others. She lives in Brooklyn.   http://www.jamiattenberg.com

 
Laura Calder is the author of French Food at Home and host of the television series by the same name. Her writing has appeared in publications including Vogue Entertaining & Travel, Gourmet, Gastronomica, Salon,
The Times (London), the Los Angeles Times, The Wine Journal, and Flare magazine. Her next book will be released in Spring 2009 (HarperCollins, Toronto).   http://www.lauracalder.com

 
Mary Cantwell was the author of three memoirs: American Girl, Speaking with Strangers, and Manhattan, When I Was Young. She was an editor at Mademoiselle and Vogue and a member of the editorial board of the New York Times. 

 
Dan Chaon is the author of You Remind Me of Me, Fitting Ends, and Among the Missing, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. His work has received many honors, most recently the Literature Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in Cleveland, where he does all the cooking for his wife and sons. 

 
Laurie Colwin was the author of five novels: Happy All the Time; Family Happiness; Goodbye without Leaving; Shine On, Bright and Dangerous Object; A Big Storm Knocked It Over; three collections of short stories: Passion and Affect, Another Marvelous Thing, The Lone Pilgrim; and two collections of essays: Home Cooking and More Home Cooking. 

 
Laura Dave was born in New York City, where she currently resides. She is the author of The Divorce Party and London Is the Best City in America, both of which are currently being developed as feature films at Universal Studios.   http://www.lauradave.com

 
Courtney Eldridge is the author of The Generosity of Women, a novel which comes out in June, and Unkempt, a collection of short stories. She lives in Buenos Aires.  http://www.courtneyeldridge.com/index.html

 
Nora Ephron is a journalist, novelist, playwright, screenwriter, and director. Her credits include Heartburn, When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail, and Imaginary Friends. Her latest book is I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman. She lives in New York City. 

 
Erin Ergenbright is a codirector of the Loggernaut Reading Series and the author of The Ex-Boyfriend Cookbook (with Thisbe Nissen). Her work has appeared in many anthologies, journals, and magazines including Tin House, The Believer, Indiana Review, The May Queen: Women on Life, Love, Work, and Pulling It All Together in Your 30s, and Paper & Carriage. She teaches writing workshops in the greater Portland area and is frequently preoccupied by the idea of owning a horse.  http://www.erinergenbright.com

 
M.F.K. Fisher was the author of numerous books of essays and reminiscences, many of which have become American classics. 

 
Colin Harrison is the author of the novels The Finder, The Havana Room, Afterburn, Bodies Electric, Manhattan Nocturne, and Break and Enter. He and his wife, Kathryn Harrison, live in Brooklyn.  

 
Marcella Hazan the acknowledged godmother of Italian cooking in America, has written six cookbooks, including The Classic Italian Cook Book, Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, and Marcella Cucina. She lives with her husband, Victor, himself an authority on Italian food and wine, in Longboat Key, Florida.  

 
Amanda Hesser writes the "Recipe Redux" column in the New York Times Magazine. She has published two books, The Cook and the Gardener and Cooking for Mr. Latte, both of which won the International Association of Culinary Professionals' Literary Food Writing award, and she is the editor of the forthcoming Eat, Memory: Great Writers at the Table, an anthology of essays that appeared in the Times Magazine. Her next book is a collection of New York Times recipes from 1853 until today.  

 
Holly Hughes is the editor of the annual Best Food Writing anthology, and the author of Frommer's New York City with Kids, Frommer's 500 Places to Take Your Kids Before They Grow Up, and Frommer's 500 Places to Go Before They Disappear. She lives in New York City and has three children, all of whom know how to cook.  

 
Jeremy Jackson was raised in central Missouri and is a graduate of Vassar College and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he received a Teaching-Writing Fellowship. He’s the author of the novels In Summer and Life at These Speeds, which is being developed for a feature film. His cookbooks include Desserts That Have Killed Better Men Than Me, Good Day for a Picnic, and The Cornbread Book, which was nominated for a James Beard Award. He has written about food for the Chicago Tribune and The Washington Post, and was featured in Food & Wine magazine. He lives in Iowa City, Iowa. 

 
Rosa Jurjevics is, among other things, a video editor and writer. Her written work has been featured in the San Diego Reader, The Naughty American, and Real Simple .   http://www.rosajurjevics.com

 
Ben Karlin runs Superego Industries, a humorously named production company. He is the editor of the anthology Things I've Learned From Women Who've Dumped Me. Prior to that he was the executive producer, of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report. Karlin also co-authored America (The Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction. Prior to his work with Comedy Central, he was the editor of The Onion. Prior to that, he was like, in high school.  

 
Rattawut Lapcharoensap is the author of Sightseeing, a collection of short stories, which was a finalist for the Guardian First Book Award and the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award. His stories have appeared in Granta, Zoetrope: All-Story, One Story, Glimmer Train, Best New American Voices, and Best American Non-Required Reading. He lives in New York City. 

 
Beverly Lowry was born in Memphis and reared in Greenville, Mississippi. She is the author of six novels--including Come Back, Lolly Ray, Daddy’s Girl and The Track of Real Desires (a novel about a dinner party--and two books of nonfiction--Crossed Over: A Murder, A Memoir, which is about her friendship with death-row inmate Karla Faye Tucker, and a biography, Her Dream of Dreams: The Rise and Triumph of Madam C. J. Walker. Her most recent book is Harriet Tubman: Imagining a Life. Her book reviews have appeared in the New York Times, the Houston Chronicle, and the Los Angeles Times, and her essays and feature journalism in various anthologies as well as The New Yorker, Granta, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Redbook, and Ladies Home Journal. The past recipient of Guggenheim and Rockefeller fellowships, she teaches in the MFA program at George Mason University. She lives in Austin, near her son and not far from Wimberley, where her mother and father lived and are buried. 

 
Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo. He is the author of the novels Kafka on the Shore; Sputnik Sweetheart; South of the Border, West of the Sun; The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle; Dance Dance Dance; Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World; Norwegian Wood; and A Wild Sheep Chase, and of a collection of stories, The Elephant Vanishes. He is also the author of the nonfiction work Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche. His work has been translated into sixteen languages. 

 
Phoebe Nobles recommends: Cream-Nut peanut butter from Grand Rapids, Michigan; Rogue River blue cheese; Philippe’s French dip sandwich in Los Angeles; banh-mi from a strip mall in Houston; South Carolina peaches and fireworks at the Georgia border; Edmund Fitzgerald porter from Cleveland, Ohio; blood sausage and an egg deep-fried in olive oil.  

 
Ann Patchett is the author of five novels, The Patron Saint of Liars, Taft, The Magician’s Assistant, Bel Canto, and Run, as well as two nonfiction books, Truth & Beauty: A Friendship and What Now?. She has been the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and England’s Orange Prize. She lives in Tennessee.  http://www.annpatchett.com

 
Anneli Rufus lives in California and is the author of four books including The Farewell Chronicles, Party of One and Stuck. She is the coauthor of five more, including Weird Europe and California Babylon. Several world-famous restaurants thrive in her town and she has never set foot inside any of them.   http://www.annelirufus.com

 
Paula Wolfert is an internationally known cookbook author specializing in Mediterranean cooking. Her award-winning books include The Cooking of Southwest France, The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen, and Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco. She has won the Julia Child Award (twice), the James Beard Award (three times), the Tastemaker Award, the M. F. K. Fisher Prize, the Cooks Magazine Platinum Plate Award, and the Périgueux Award for Lifetime Achievement. Born in Brooklyn, the mother of two grown children, Paula has lived in Paris, Tangier, Manhattan, northwest Connecticut, and northern California. Married to crime fiction writer William Bayer, she currently lives in the Sonoma Valley. http://www.paulawolfert.com