A professor of English studies at Fitchburg State University and a visiting lecturer at Tufts University, he lives in the area with his wife and son.

Steve Edwards is the author of the memoir Breaking into the Backcountry, the story of the seven months he spent as the lone caretaker of a remote homestead along the federally designated “Wild and Scenic” Rogue River in Oregon. He is also the recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship in Fiction/Nonfiction, and the author of essays that have appeared in The Sun, Orion, Literary Hub, and Longreads, including works dedicated to Henry David Thoreau and the natural and literary spaces of Concord and beyond. His latest work, an essay about the intersection of writing, mental health, and neurodiversity, was one of The Yale Review’s most-read articles in 2024.

Steve Edwards is the 2025 Writer-in-Residence at the Concord Free Public Library.

Nicky Gonzalez is a writer from Hialeah, Florida. Her fiction has appeared in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, BOMB, The Kenyon Review, Taco Bell Quarterly, and other publications. She has received support from the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Granum Foundation, Millay Arts, Lighthouse Works, and the Hambidge Center. Mayra, a literary Gothic novel set in the Everglades, is her first book.

Courtney Gustafson is a cat rescuer, community organizer, and creator of Poets Square Cats on TikTok and Instagram.

Originally from Massachusetts, and an alum of both Fitchburg State University and UMass Amherst, she now lives and works in Tucson, Arizona.

Her first book, Poets Square: a Memoir in Thirty Cats, debuted on the New York Times Bestsellers list.

Christine Murphy has lived, worked, and traveled in more than a hundred countries, including living for eleven months in a tent across the African continent and a year as a resident in a Buddhist nunnery in the Himalayas.

A trained Buddhologist, Murphy has a Ph.D. in religious studies.

Notes on Surviving the Fire is her first novel.

For more info, visit https://www.christinemurphyauthor.com/