Leah Henderson’s novel, One Shadow on the Wall, is an Africana Children’s Book Award notable book and a Bank Street “Best Book of 2017” starred for outstanding merit. Her short story “Warning: Color May Fade” is part of the YA anthology Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America and her debut picture book is entitled Mamie on the Mound. Leah mentors at-risk teens and her volunteer work has roots in Mali, West Africa. She attended Callaloo Writing Workshop at Oxford University, is on Highlights Foundation faculty, and volunteers with Kweli Journal and We Need Diverse Books. She received her MFA from Spalding University and lives in Washington, D.C. Website: www.leahhendersonbooks.com. Twitter: @LeahsMark

Rodney Lofton has been a voice and advocate for those living with HIV for almost 20 years. He has served as a keynote speaker and requested facilitator by the New Jersey World AIDS Day Celebration, the United States Conference on AIDS, the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association Conference among others. He served on the United States – Saratov Oblast HIV prevention partnership program, in the Saratov-Oblast region in Russia. He is a former freelance writer and public relations professional, having worked with Kool and the Gang and Mary Wilson of the legendary Supremes. He served as a columnist for the online website GBMNews. His column focused on issues around HIV/AIDS and African-American gay men. His debut novel, The Day I Stopped Being Pretty: A Memoir, along with his sophomore effort, No More Tomorrows: Two Lives, Two Stories, One Love were both nominated for Lambda Literary Awards. Rodney serves as Deputy Director of Diversity Richmond. 

Michael Paul Williams is a columnist for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. A graduate of Virginia Union University and Northwestern University, he won Virginia Press Association awards for column writing in 1992, 1994, 2007 and 2014. During 1999-2000, he was one of a dozen U.S. journalists awarded a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University. He was the 2010 recipient of the George Mason Award for outstanding contributions to Virginia journalism, given by the Virginia Pro Chapter of the Society for Professional Journalists. He has also received a 2012 Humanitarian Award from the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities and the 2014 Will Rogers Humanitarian Award from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists.