Elizabeth Hardwick (1916-2007) was born in Lexington, Kentucky, and educated at the University of Kentucky and Columbia University. A recipient of a Gold Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she is the author of three novels, a biography of Herman Melville, and four collections of essays. She was a co-founder and advisory editor of The New York Review of Books and contributed more than one hundred reviews, articles, reflections, and letters to the magazine. NYRB Classics publishes Sleepless Nights, a novel, and Seduction and Betrayal, a study of women in literature.

Joan Didion is the author of the novels Run River, Play It as It Lays, A Book of Common Prayer, Democracy, and The Last Thing He Wanted. Her nonfiction includes Slouching Towards Bethlehem, The White Album, Salvador, Miami, After Henry, and Political Fictions.