Christine Byl is the author of Dirt Work: An Education in the Woods. Byl received her MFA in fiction from the University of Alaska Anchorage; her prose has appeared in Glimmer Train, The Sun, and Crazyhorse, among other journals. Byl has also received awards from Alaska State Council on the Arts, Rasmuson Foundation, Breadloaf, and Fishtrap. She lives with her husband and an old sled dog north of Denali National Park outside of Healy, Alaska, where she owns and operates a small trail design and construction company.

Carolyn Kremers writes creative nonfiction and poetry, and is a dedicated teacher and lifelong musician. Her books include Place of the Pretend People: Gifts from a Yup'ik Eskimo Village (memoir), The Alaska Reader: Voices from the North (anthology), and Upriver (poetry). Her poems and essays have appeared in numerous journals, magazines, and anthologies, and her piece, "John Haines and the Dream Place," was named a "Notable" essay in Best American Essays 2012. Kremers designed and implemented the MFA creative nonfiction program at Eastern Washington University in Spokane and currently teaches part-time at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She has been artist-in-residence at Gates of the Arctic National Park and Denali National Park and is a founding member of the Alaska artists and scientists group, In a Time of Change. In 2008-09, she was a US Fulbright Scholar at Buryat State University in Ulan Ude, Russia.