Susan Zakin is best known as the author of Coyotes and Town Dogs: EarthFirst! and the Environmental Movement. As a journalist, she has written for national magazines including Vogue, GQ, The New York Times, and many others. In 2001, a Senator John Heinz Fellowship for Environmental Writing took her to Madagascar. She later taught in Dakar, Senegal, and earned an MFA in fiction from The University of Arizona. Her articles and essays on African politics and conservation are collected in 2017’s Waiting for Charlie: Mercenary Soldiers, Failed States, and the Love That Means More Than Money. A novel, Libertyville, is forthcoming.

Brian Cullman is a writer and musician based in New York City. A three-time winner of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for writings on music, he is a regular contributor to The Paris Review. Cullman has written for Rolling Stone, Creem, The Village Voice, and Details. He produced the soundtrack to the documentary Gypsy Caravan, and scored Padre Nuestro, winner of the Grand Jury Prize for best U.S. drama at the 2008 Sundance Festival. His CDs include Winter Clothes, The Opposite of Time, and All Fires the Fire. He is a founding member of Lisbon-based group Rua das Pretas, which he describedas a United Nations of talents: “...samba players from Brazil; fado singers from Lisbon; bass players from the world of jazz; singers from Cape Verde; Americans like me who fell in love with the sea and the cool night air...”