Rachel Aydt is a writer and part-time Assistant Professor at the New School University in New York City. She spent many years working as an editor and research director in national consumer magazines, including American Heritage Magazine, YM, Cosmopolitan, and CosmoGirl. She’s written personal essays that have appeared in publications that include the Huffington Post, the New York Times’ Motherlode blog, The New York Observer, Parents, Redbook, The New York Post, New York Metro Parents, New Mexico magazine, and CosmoGirl. Her literary essays and fiction have appeared online in The White Review, Broad Street Journal, and the University of Dublin’s HCE Review, Breadcrumbs, and is forthcoming in Post Road. She’s written culture pieces for Time Magazine, Photo District News, Inked, Publishing Perspectives, and Reader’s Digest. She received her MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Sarah Lawrence College where she was a Graduate Fellow. While there, she served as Nonfiction Editor of their literary journal, Lumina. She developed and taught a class for the Barnard Pre-college Program called “In Their Footsteps” about finding creative inspiration in an urban landscape, which she’s adapted for an ongoing Freshman seminar at The New School University. She’s the recipient of a grant for creative work from the New School University, and of a fellowship to attend Colgate Writer’s Conference and Kettle Pond Conference. She tweets at @Rachelrooo.

Haley Hach has been teaching in the First-Year Writing Program for seven years. She’s a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has a Master’s in English from Portland State University. She’s published stories in Narrative Magazine, Santa Monica Review, The Saint Anne’s Review, CutBank, Able Muse, 5Chapters, Raritan and others. She’s a finalist for the St. Lawrence Book Award, finalist for the American Short Fiction contest and has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize. She’s a fellow at Stony Brook’s BookEnd mentorship program, where she is working on a novel. She lives in the Hudson Valley with her husband, two daughters and a bunch of dogs.