Victoria Brown, the author of Minding Ben was born in Trinidad and at sixteen came alone to New York, where
she worked as a full-time nanny for several years. After attending LaGuardia Community College, she majored in
English at Vassar, read Post-Colonial Literature at the University of Warwick, and earned an MFA in Fiction at
Hunter College. She teaches English at LaGuardia.
Amber Dermont is the author of The Starboard Sea and the
short story collection Damage Control. She is the recipient of a Literature Fellowship from the National
Endowment of the Arts as well as fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Sewanee Writers’
Conference. Dermont’s work has appeared in the anthologies Best New American Voices, The Best American
Nonrequired Reading, as well as numerous journals including Tin House, American Short Fiction, and Crazyhorse.
She currently serves as an Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing at Agnes Scott College.
Moderated by Tiphanie Yanique, assistant professor, Creative Writing.
New York City, NY; NYC