Alex Harris is a photographer, writer, and Professor of the Practice of Public Policy and Documentary Studies at Duke University. Harris's photographs are represented in major collections, including the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. His photographs have been exhibited widely, including two solo exhibitions at the International Center of Photography in New York City. As a photographer and editor, Harris has published seventeen books, among them River of Traps: A New Mexico Mountain Life (New Mexico, 1990), with William deBuys, which was a finalist for the 1991 Pulitzer Prize in general non-fiction, and Why We Are Here: Mobile and the Spirit of a Southern City (Liveright/Norton, 2012), with Edward O. Wilson.

Margaret Sartor is a writer, photographer, editor, and curator who, for many years, has taught at Duke University. Her four published books include What Was True: The Photographs and Notebooks of William Gedney (Center for Documentary Studies/Norton, 1999), co-edited with Geoff Dyer, and the memoir Miss American Pie: A Diary of Love, Secrets, and Growing Up in the 1970s (Bloomsbury, 2006), which was a New York Times best-seller, a Washington Post Critics Choice Memoir, and a Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year. Her photographs have been exhibited widely and are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, and Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, among others. As a curator, Sartor has worked with Duke University, the International Center for Photography in New York City, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.