Beck, Zeina Hashem: - Zeina Hashem Beck is a Lebanese poet. Zeina's writing covers a variety of topics: home, estrangement, language, the body, love, motherhood, and faith, among others. Her poetry often exists at the intersection of the personal & the political, the divine & the profane. Educated in Arabic, English, and French, Zeina has a BA and an MA in English Literature from the American University of Beirut.

Alyan, Hala: - HALA ALYAN is the author of the novel Salt Houses, winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Arab American Book Award and a finalist for the Chautauqua Prize, as well as the forthcoming novel The Arsonists' City, and four award-winning collections of poetry, most recently The Twenty-Ninth Year. Her work has been published by the New Yorker, the Academy of American Poets, Lit Hub, The New York Times Book Review, and Guernica. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, where she works as a clinical psychologist.