The Judges

Jim Lewis is the author of three novels, most recently The King Is Dead (Knopf). He has written short fiction, essays, and journalism for numerous journals and magazines, among them The New York Times Magazine and Sunday Book Review, Granta, Tin House, Wired, GQ, Vanity Fair, and Slate.

Erin Pringle lives in San Marcos. Her short story collection, The Floating Order, is published by Two Ravens Press.

Born and bred in Abilene, Mary Helen Specht is a former Fulbright scholar and Dobie Paisano fellow. Her work has been published in numerous journals and literary magazines, including an upcoming essay in The New York Times, and she is currently working on a novel as well as a nonfiction book about Nigeria. She teaches writing at Austin Community College. She likes to eat pie.

Clay Smith is the literary director of the Texas Book Festival and a former Books editor at The Austin Chronicle.