Rob Magnuson Smith PZ ’91 is winner of the Elizabeth Jolley Prize, the David Higham Award, and the William Faulkner Award for his debut novel The Gravedigger. His novel Scorper, published by Granta, was called by the Independent as ‘odd, original, darkly comic; Kafka crossed with Flann O’Brien.’ Rob’s third novel Seaweed Rising had its US release in January 2024. Novelist Akhil Sharma described it as ‘truly weird and wonderful.’ Rob is a dual citizen of the US and the UK. Since 2013, he has co-directed the Creative Writing Program at Exeter University in Cornwall.
Melissa Chadburn’s writing has appeared in The LA Times, NYT Book Review, NYRB, Paris Review online, and dozens other places. Her debut novel, A Tiny Upward Shove, was published with Farrar, Straus, & Giroux in April 2022 and was longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Debut Novel Award. She was just awarded her Ph.D. from USC’s Creative Writing Program. Melissa is a worker lover and through her own work and literary citizenship strives to upend economic violence. Her mother taught her how to sharpen a pencil with a knife and she’s basically been doing that ever since.
