Masi Asare Composer, Playwright, Performance Scholar • Author of several acclaimed books, shows, and lyrics including The Family Resemblance, lyrics for Monsoon Wedding, Mirror of Most Value, Rishor, and Sympathy Jones • Assistant Professor of Theatre at Northwestern University • A past Dramatists Guild Fellow • Winner of the inaugural Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award for a woman composer of musicals
Bob Hass Poet, Literary Critic • Professor at Edinboro University in Pennsylvania • Author of Going by Contraries: Robert Frost’s Conflict with Science • Author of the poetry collection Counting Thunder • Outstanding Academic Title in 2004 • Winner of the Academy of American Poets Prize • Winner of AWP Intro Journals Award • Creative writing fellow to Bread Loaf
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Rhett Miller ’89 Singer, Songwriter, Poet
• Lead singer of the Old ‘97’s • Recording artist for eight solo albums, the most recent The Messenger • Contributor to Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, and McSweeney’s • Author of No More Poems, a collection of children’s poetry
Lauren Groff
Brent P. Johnson ’89 Writer Novelist, Short Story Writer • Author of three award-winning novels: The Monsters of Templeton, Arcadia, and Fates and Furies • Author of two bestselling short story collections: Delicate Edible Birds and Florida • Finalist for the National Book Award, winner of the Story Prize • Winner of the Paul Bowles Prize for Fiction, the Medici Book Club Prize, the PEN/O. Henry Award, and the Pushcart Prize, and has been shortlisted for the Orange Prize for New Writers and a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize • Finalist for the National Book Award for Fates and Furies, and Amazon’s #1 Best Book of the Year in 2015
Calvin Watkins Sports Reporter • Sportswriter for the Dallas Morning News • Covered the Dallas Cowboys (twelve years), Houston Rockets (three years), and New York Jets (one season) • Worked for Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, ESPN, Newsday, The Athletic, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and Dallas Morning News