Will Levitt is a Brooklyn-based writer with a focus on food, innovation and entrepreneurship.
Adrian Louis Chandler is a Los Angeles based writer.
Erica Hawkins is a baptist preacher's daughter and Atlanta based music writer with too much spirit for her circumstance; read her stories on bands, life, and culture at ericahawkins.com.
The opera, which has a libretto by Cesare Mazzonis, is based on a novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, a writer with a modest international reputation but one who is a fixture in Russia.
Ireland's president, Michael D Higgins, led the tributes to Houlihan, describing him as a "most original writer, with a unique style based on his extensive knowledge of literature, politics, life and sport".
Kenn Taylor is a writer and journalist based in Liverpool with a particular interest in community, culture and the urban environment.
Zoe Wilder is a writer and publicist based in Portland, Oregon, with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from the College of William & Mary and a Master of Social Work from Fordham University.
Monica Potts is a writer based in Manassas, Virginia, and a fellow with the New America Foundation Asset Building Program.
(He's not the only character based on a writer; someone with the novelist Ethan Canin's name also appears).
About the writer: Jessica Stillman is a freelance writer based in London with interests in unconventional career paths, generational differences, and the future of work.
