The “enthralling” (The Globe and Mail) Chris Cleave's debut novel, Incendiary—in which a grieving mother pens a raw, pleading letter to Osama bin Laden in the wake of a London terrorist attack—received a 2006 Somerset Maugham Award and was adapted into a film starring Michelle Williams and Ewan McGregor. He is also the author of the no. 1 New York Times bestseller Little Bee, an "astonishing, flawless novel" (Library Journal); and Gold, the intertwined stories of three world-class British cyclists that unfold during the final push for an Olympic medal. In his latest novel, Cleave tells the story of three people thrown together in an undulating WWII London.

Brendan Jones’s debut novel The Alaskan Laundry follows an unmoored young woman’s success in a Bering Sea island’s fishing community as she struggles with isolation and her mother’s death. Praised for its realism and authentic depictions of place, the success of this breakout work stems in part from Jones’ talent and imagination, as well as the fact that he lives on a tugboat in Alaska and works in commercial fishing. He is a multiple degree recipient from Oxford University, a Stegner Fellow, and a former boxer, and his work has appeared in the New York Times, Ploughshares, The Huffington Post, and on NPR.