Leon Alligood is a journalism professor at Middle Tennessee State University's School of Journalism in Murfreesboro, Tenn. Mr. Alligood worked for 29 years as a print reporter. For 22 years he was based in Nashville, first at the Nashville Banner, then The Tennessean. While at The Tennessean, he primarily wrote human interest and narrative stories on a variety of beats. He also was an embedded reporter covering the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division in Afghanistan and Iraq. His writing has won awards in national, regional and state contests.

Michael Berryhill joined the faculty of the Jack J. Valenti School of Communication in 2006 after working as a journalist for more than 25 years. His freelance work has appeared in the New York Times magazine, Harper's, The New Republic, Vogue and Sports Illustrated. He has been a reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the Houston Press, fine arts editor for the Houston Chronicle, and editor of Houstonian Magazine and Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine. He also directed news and publications at Rice University. In 1994 he was named Print Journalist of the Year by the Press Club of Houston. He has won state-wide and national recognition for his environmental writing, features and investigative reporting. He is particularly interested in teaching writing. Before becoming a journalist, he taught American literature and creative writing at Vassar College and was Fulbright junior lecturer in American studies in Lyon, France. His poems have been published in The New American Review, Paris Review and Western Humanities Review. He earned his A.B. in English at Kenyon College and his M.A. and Ph.D. in American studies at the University of Minnesota.

Susan Ihne was most recently executive editor of the Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times, serving in the top newsroom post from 2005 to 2008. Previously, she was executive editor of the St. Cloud (Minn.) Times. Susan started her newspaper career in 1977 as a reporter at the Amarillo (Texas) Globe-News and in 1979 joined the El Paso (Texas) Times, where she was a reporter, night city editor, business editor and features editor. Susan moved to the Detroit Free Press in 1985 as daily business editor and later assistant city editor. She joined The Detroit News in 1987, holding several editing jobs on the metro desk, including suburbs, zones and night city editor. She was weekend city editor for two years. Susan joined the Pensacola News Journal in 1993 as deputy managing editor. In 2004, Susan received the Robert G. McGruder Award for Diversity Leadership, which is given by the Associated Press Managing Editors, the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the Freedom Forum. She received a Gannett President's Ring in 2000 and 2005.