Barbara Ras is the author of four poetry collections: The Blues of Heaven; The Last Skin, which was named the Texas Institute of Letters Best Book of 2010; One Hidden Stuff; and Bite Every Sorrow, which won the Walt Whitman Award and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. She is also the editor of Costa Rica: A Traveler’s Literary Companion, an anthology of short fiction in translation. She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller foundations, among others, and has had residencies from the Bellagio Center, the Hermitage, Ucross Foundation, and the Vermont Studio Center. Ras has taught at the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers and other workshops nationally and internationally and has served as a Fulbright specialist at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. For forty years she worked in book publishing, most recently as the founding director of the revitalized Trinity University Press. She lives in Denver.

Terrell James is a painter and educator. She has worked for the Smithsonian Institution and Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. Her work has been included in nine books, most recently 4 Paintings: Terrell James. She is the recipient of numerous awards, residencies, and fellowships and is widely collected and represented in galleries. She lives in Houston.