Quarterfinals

Edan Lepucki is a staff writer for The Millions and the author of the novella If You’re Not Yet Like Me. Her short fiction has been published in McSweeney’s and Narrative Magazine, among other places, and she’s the founder and director of Writing Workshops Los Angeles. Her first novel will be published by Little, Brown in spring 2014.

Elliott Holt’s first novel, You Are One of Them, will be published by The Penguin Press in June 2013. Her short fiction has appeared in The Pushcart Prize XXXV 2011 anthology, among other places. Follow her on Twitter.

Charles Yu is the author of three books, including the novel How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, which was a New York Times Book Review Notable Book and selected by Time magazine as one of the best books of 2010. His most recent book is Sorry Please Thank You. He is always looking for human connection, in a (mostly) non-creepy way.

Dave Pacey, TMN 2013 Reader Judge, is the proud father of an eight-year-old boy named Owen, an avid outdoorsman, a book collector, a traveler, and, when he’s not reading, a dentist.

Ron Hogan launched Beatrice back in 1995, and he’s been using the internet to tell people what they should read ever since. He lives in Queens.

Tony Horwitz is the author, most recently, of Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War. His other books include Confederates in the Attic, Blue Latitudes, Baghdad Without a Map, and A Voyage Long and Strange. He is also a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has written for the New Yorker and worked as a foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal.

Jack Hitt writes for the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, and Rolling Stone. He is also a contributor to public radio’s This American Life. His most recent book, Bunch of Amateurs, is coming out in paperback this May.

D.T. Max is the author of The Family That Couldn’t Sleep and Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, two children, and a rescued beagle named Max.

Stefan Beck has written for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Sun, the Weekly Standard, the New Criterion, the Barnes & Noble Review, and other publications. He lives in Connecticut.

Caity Weaver is a writer for Gawker and mental_floss. She lives in Brooklyn and reads on the train.

Kate Bolick is a contributing editor for the Atlantic. Her first book, Among the Suitors: On Being a Woman, Alone, is forthcoming from Crown/Random House, and her Atlantic cover story “All the Single Ladies” is in development with CBS as a TV sitcom. She lives in Brooklyn Heights.

Saeed Jones is the editor of BuzzFeed LGBT. He received his MFA from Rutgers University, Newark, and is a 2012 Pushcart Prize Nominee. His work has appeared in Ebony, Guernica, The Rumpus, Lambda Literary, and Hayden’s Ferry Review, among others. He has received fellowships from Cave Canem and Queer/Art/Mentors.

Davy Rothbart is the creator of Found Magazine and author of a book of personal essays, My Heart Is an Idiot, and a collection of stories, The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas. He’s also a frequent contributor to the public radio show This American Life, a documentary filmmaker, and founder of Washington II Washington, an annual outdoors adventure for inner-city kids.

Rachel Riederer is an editor at Guernica and a writing teacher at Baruch College. Her work has appeared in Tin House, Mother Jones, the Nation, The Rumpus, and Best American Essays 2011. Her tinier observations can be found on Twitter.

Natasha Vargas-Cooper is a longtime resident of the San Fernando Valley and a former union organizer, and has been published in the New York Times, the Atlantic, GQ, and Spin.

Lev Grossman is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Magicians and The Magician King. He’s also the book critic at Time magazine, and his work has appeared in the New York Times, Wired, the Believer, the Wall Street Journal, and Salon, as well as on NPR. And one day it will all disappear.

Nathan Bradley is an active-duty Army officer and writer. His work has previously appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency and is forthcoming in the Iowa Review. Follow him on Twitter.

Kevin Guilfoile is the author of two novels, Cast of Shadows and The Thousand, that have been translated into more than 20 languages. His latest book, a memoir, is A Drive Into the Gap.

John Warner is the author of The Funny Man, and, as his alter ego, The Biblioracle, a weekly columnist for the Chicago Tribune Printers Row book supplement. He teaches at the College of Charleston.