Melissa Scholes Young

Melissa Scholes Young is the author of the award-winning novels Flood and The Hive. She is Editor of Grace in Darkness, Furious Gravity, and Grace in Love, anthologies by women writers, and Contributing Editor at Fiction Writers Review. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, Ms., Washington Post, Poets & Writers, Literary Hub, and Believer Magazine. She has received fellowships from the Bread Loaf Bakeless Camargo Foundation, the Center for Mark Twain Studies, and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts and grants from the Maryland State Arts Council and the Humanities Truck. Born and raised in Hannibal, Missouri, she is a Professor in the Literature Department of American University, where she coordinates the undergraduate creative writing program. Melissa teaches at the Tennants Cove Writers Workshop in New Brunswick, Canada, every summer.

Rebecca Bright

Rebecca Bright is an editor at Island Press, an independent nonfiction publisher based in Washington, DC. She welcomes projects that explore novel ways of looking at the natural world and those shaped by a fresh perspective, surprising argument, or engaging writing. Rebecca’s recent acquisitions touch on a range of topics from ecology and history to environmental justice, climate change, energy, and the rights of nature. She also manages the licensing of subsidiary rights for Island Press titles, including international and audio editions. Before joining Island Press in 2010, Rebecca worked for a union, an environmental NGO, and as a park ranger in her home state of Alaska.