Nancy Hale (1908-1988) was born in Boston to a distinguished New England family whose forbearers include Revolutionary War hero Nathan Hale and Harriet Beecher Stowe. She was the author of eight novels, including the bestselling The Prodigal Women, four short story collections, two memoirs, two plays, children's stories, and a biography on Mary Cassatt. The winner of ten O. Henry Awards, Hale published over two hundred stories and essays, eighty of which appeared in The New Yorker, making her one of the most important contributors in the history of the magazine.
Lauren Groff is the New York Times-bestselling author of four novels, The Monsters of Templeton, Arcadia, Fates and Furies, and Matrix, and two short story collections, Delicate Edible Birds and Florida. She has won the Paul Bowles Prize for Fiction, the PEN/O. Henry Award, the Pushcart Prize, and the Guggenheim Fellowship, and has been a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award.