Jessica Hagedorn was born and raised in the Philippines and came to the United States in her early teens. In San Francisco, Hagedorn was mentored by poet and translator Kenneth Rexroth, who edited Four Young Women, the anthology that first featured her poetry.
 
Her novels include Toxicology, Dream Jungle, The Gangster of Love, and Dogeaters, winner of the American Book Award and finalist for the National Book Award.
 
Hagedorn is also the author of Danger and Beauty, a collection of poetry and prose, and the editor of three anthologies: Manila Noir, Charlie Chan is Dead: An Anthology of Contemporary Asian American Fiction and Charlie Chan is Dead 2: At Home in the World.
 
Her theatrical work includes adaptations of Dogeaters and The Gangster of Love, and collaborations with Fabian Obispo (Felix Starro), Mark Bennett (Most Wanted), Campo Santo (Stairway To Heaven, Fe In The Desert), Han Ong (Airport Music), Robbie McCauley & Laurie Carlos (Teenytown), Urban Bushwomen (Heat), Blondell Cummings (The Art Of War/Nine Situations), Lawrence “Butch” Morris (Crayon Bondage), Michael Gregory Jackson (Mango Tango), and Ntozake Shange & Thulani Davis (Where The Mississippi Meets The Amazon).
 
Hagedorn wrote the screenplay for Fresh Kill, the newly restored feature film directed by Shu Lea Cheang. She wrote the scripts for the experimental animated series The Pink Palace, which was developed by Woo Art International.
 
From 1975-1985, Hagedorn led a band called The Gangster Choir. One of their signature songs, “Tenement Lover”, is part of John Giorno’s 1985 compilation album, A Diamond Hidden in the Mouth of a Corpse.
 
Jessica Hagedorn is the recipient of literary honors and awards including The Rome Prize for Literature, a Guggenheim Fiction Fellowship, a Philippine National Book Award, an American Book Award and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Before Columbus Foundation.


Patrick Rosal is the author of five full-length poetry collections, including The Last Thing: New and Selected Poems. He has received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Fulbright Scholars Program. His work has been honored by the Academy of American Poets, the Poetry Society of America, and the Association for Asian American Studies. He has read and performed at hundreds of venues, including the Lincoln Center, the Villa Cesar Chavez Apartments for agricultural workers, the Filipino Community Hall (Delano), and other sites spanning four continents. He is a professor of English at Rutgers University–Camden and serves as campus codirector of the Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice.