LORE SEGAL is the author of Shakespeare's Kitchen, a Pulitzer Prize nominee, as well as Half the Kingdom, Lucinella, Other People's Homes, and Her First American. She has received awards from the American Academy and Institutes of Arts and Letters, as well as a Guggenheim Fellowship, the O'Henry Prize, and the Harold U. Miller Prize. The Ribalow Prize is an award given by the Ribalow Foundation. She's written for publications such as The New Yorker, The New York Times, Harper's Magazine, The New Republic, and many others. She has also written children's books and is a German translator.

Segal is based in New York City and works there. CATHERINE LACEY is the author of the novels Nobody is Ever Absent and The Answers, as well as the short story collection Certain American States, which was published recently.