Amy DePaul is an award-winning digital reporter who has covered public health in Southern California since 2011. In 2019, she was named a Senior Fellow at the University of Southern California’s Center for Health Journalism. Her work has appeared in a variety of publications in recent years, including NBC.com, Voice of OC, LATimes.com, the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, Forbes.com, ESPN’s The Undefeated and Narratively. She has taught reporting to students in UC Irvine’s Literary Journalism program since 2004 and was a journalism instructor at California State University Fullerton and Miami University of Ohio.

Patricia Pierson is the associate director of UCI's Literary Journalism Program.  She holds a B.A. in English from Trinity College, an M.A. in English Literature from Loyola Marymount University, and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from UC Irvine.  Her research and teaching interests include writing and rhetoric, narrative and narrative theory, critical theory, and collections.