Tom Lutz is the author of books of fiction, nonfiction, photography, history, and philosophy. He lives in southwestern France. He founded the Los Angeles Review of Books and has taught at Iowa, Copenhagen, Stanford, CalArts, and is and is now Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Riverside. His Latest books are Portraits (2022), The Kindness of Strangers (2021), and Aimlessness (2021); forthcoming in 2025 are the novel Still Slippy and 1925: A Literary Encyclopedia. Australian Ambassador to Nepal, Felicity Volk has published two novels, Lightning (Picador Australia) and Desire Lines, (Hachette Australia). She studied English literature and law at the University ofQueensland before joining Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). After diplomatic postings in Bangladesh and Laos, and following the birth of her two daughters, she began writing for publication while continuing to work at DFAT. Volk is recipient of a grant and fellowships from artsACT and the Eleanor Dark Foundation, (Varuna, the Writers’ House). Several of her short stories have won awards. “No place like home,” was a prize-winner in The Australian Women’s Weekly/Penguin Short Story Competition (2006), “Steal it with a kiss” won the Angelo Natoli Short Story Award (FAW National Literary Awards) and “Ite, missa est” (Go, you are sent forth) won the 2013 Carmel Bird Long Story Award.