Nick Flynn is the author of three memoirs, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, The Ticking Is The Bomb, and most recently, The Reenactments. Flynn has worked as a ship’s captain, electrician, and caseworker for the working poor. His film credits include work as a field poet and artistic collaborator on Darwin’s Nightmare, which was nominated for an Academy Award, and executive producer/collaborator on Being Flynn. Each spring, he teaches poetry, nonfiction, and collaboration at the University of Houston, and the rest of the year, he is in, or near, Brooklyn.

Elvis Mitchell is the host of the pop culture radio show The Treatment on KCRW 89.9 FM and film curator of the Film Independent at LACMA film series. Previously, he hosted the TCM interview program Under the Influence and was also the chief film critic for “Movieline” and a visiting lecturer at Harvard in Visual and Environmental Studies and African American Studies. Prior to this, Mitchell served as the film critic at the New York Times and was the entertainment critic for NPR’s Weekend Edition. He produced and co-created The Black List, Volume One, a documentary focusing on achievement in the African American community, and was nominated by the WGA for his work on The AFI Lifetime Achievement Award on Sidney Poitier.