Jessika Malone is a director, producer, and arts educator hailing from her hometown of Nashville, Tennessee. She is the Producing Director of Fusebox Festival in Austin, Texas and the Founding Artistic Director of Kindling Arts. Productions under her direction have been hailed as “fascinating and mesmerizing” [Broadway World] and “guaranteed to keep you talking long after the lights come up” [The Tennessean] as well as “guaranteed to provide an experience that will last way beyond the current season. Maybe well on into the century” [Nashville Scene]. She has twice served as the Fred Coe Artist-in-Residence at Vanderbilt University and has received numerous recognitions for her creative work including Best Director [Nashville Scene], Theatrical Event of the Year [First Night Awards] and Most Intriguing US Festivals [CNN].

Daniel Carter has a PhD in information studies from the University of Texas at Austin and a masters in English Literature from The Ohio State University. His fiction and poetry have appeared or are forthcoming in Always Crashing, Barrelhouse, The Awl, Mid-American Review, Salt Hill and elsewhere. In 2011 he won the Wick Chapbook competition; his book, Here Both Sweeter, is available from Kent State University Press. His essays and criticism have been published in The Outline and A List Apart and have been featured in The New York Times’ “What We’re Reading.” His academic research has been published in Big Data and Society, Social Media + Society, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space and elsewhere.