Amy Gerstler (lyrics/book) is a writer living in Los Angeles. In 2019, she received a Foundation for Contemporary Arts CD Wright Grant. In 2018, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. Scattered at Sea, a book of her poems published by Penguin Random House in 2015 was longlisted for the National Book Award, shortlisted for the Kingsley Tufts Award, and was a finalist for the PEN USA Literary Award. Her book Dearest Creature (Penguin, 2009) was named a New York Times Notable Book and was shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Poetry. Her book Bitter Angel won a National Book Critics Circle Award in 1990. In 2010 she was guest editor of the annual anthology Best American Poetry. Her work has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies including The New Yorker, Paris Review, American Poetry Review, Poetry, several volumes of Best American Poetry, and The Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Poetry. Gerstler has also collaborated on artists’ books with visual artists, and writing fiction, nonfiction, a children’s book in collaboration with artist Lindsey Burwell, and journalism and art criticism. 

Steve Gunderson (music/book) a  Creative Catalyst Award winner for The Artificial Woman, is an actor, singer, composer, arranger, and playwright. He co-wrote, starred in, and was the musical arranger for Off Broadway’s Suds, which has gone on to have dozens of productions worldwide. He co-created (with Kathy Najimy), arranged, and starred in Off Broadway’s critically acclaimed Back to Bacharach & David, which was revived in Hollywood with the participation of Burt Bacharach and Hal David. He was on the creative team (Arranger/Co-creator) for Everybody’s Talkin’: The Music of Harry Nilsson at San Diego Rep, and Yours Truly (Arranger) at Playwrights Horizons, Theatreworks, York Theatre, and Naples Players. Some of the musicals he created original scores for are The Brontes, Dixie Highway, Rock Candy, and A Christmas Carol.

As an actor Gunderson has played major roles in productions at La Jolla Playhouse, Old Globe Theatre, Pasadena Playhouse, Laguna Playhouse, La Mirada Theatre, San Diego Repertory Theatre, Lambs Players Theatre, Diversionary Theatre, North Coast Rep, Cygnet Theatre,  Fritz Theatre, New Village Arts, Colony Theatre, Alliance Theatre and in the National Tour of The Grapes of Wrath. For over two years he played “Sparky” in Off Broadway’s Forever Plaid (directed by Stuart Ross), and logged in over a thousand performances of the role in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and San Diego. Steve did multiple voices on TV’s King of the Hill and (The New) Beavis & Butthead.