W-3

Bette Howland (1937-2017) published three books in her lifetime: W-3, and the story collections Blue in Chicago and Things to Come and Go. She received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1984, after which she did not publish another book. Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, her selected stories, was published in 2019, restoring to the canon the work of a remarkable writer. She was born and raised in Chicago.

Yiyun Li's books include Where Reasons End, which received the 2019 PEN/Jean Stein Award; the essay collection Dear Friend, From My Life I Write to You in Your Life; and the novels The Vagrants and Must I Go. The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, Guggenheim Fellowship, and Windham-Campbell Prize, among other honors, she teaches at Princeton University.