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Peter Rand is the author of seven books. A former editor of Washington Monthly and a regular reviewer for the New York Times Book Review, he has taught at Columbia and Harvard universities and has appeared at numerous conferences and on television and radio shows, including the Leonard Lopate Show, Christopher Lydon’s The Connection, WNYC, WBAI, and WBUR, among others. Rand teaches journalism at Boston University and lives with his wife in Belmont, Massachusetts.

Born in Nantong, Jiangsu Province, Fan Zeng is a widely respected master of Chinese painting and calligraphy, a renowned scholar of Chinese classics, and a poet. He holds numerous distinguished positions, including an endowed chair at Peking University, President of Chinese Painting Research Institute, Honorary Doctorate from the University of Glasgow (UK) and the University of Alberta (Canada), Doctoral Faculty Member and Permanent Research Fellow at the National Academy of Chinese Arts, Tenured Professorship at Nankai University (Doctoral Faculty Member in the School of Liberal Arts and the School of History), Tenured Professorship at Nantong University, President of Jishan Academy, and President of Panshan Academy. In 2008, he was awarded a “Citizen’s Star” gold medal in France, and in 2009, he was named “Special Advisor for Cultural Diversity” by UNESCO. In September, 2010, he was awarded an insignia of Chevalier of the Legion of Honor by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. In 2011, he was awarded a life-time achievement award by the Chinese Arts Research Institute. On June 3, 2015, he was awarded the Medal of Supreme Commander by Italian president Sergio Mattarella.

Through his hard work over the years, Mr. Fan has completed some 150 books, including The Poems of a Dignified Gentleman, On the Art of Chinese Painting, A Casual Study of Chinese Classic Prose and History, Fan Zeng’s Poems, The Apparitions of Zhuang Zi, Fan Zeng’s Paintings in Simple Strokes, A Collection of Paintings by a Distinguished Master: Spiritual Communions between Fan Zeng and Badashanren, A Collection of Poetry and Prose by Fan Zeng, Thirty-Three Essays by Fan Zeng, Zhuang Zi: An Attentive Interpretation, On Literature, Approaching Nature, Thirty-Three Essays Composed Overseas by Fan Zeng, and A Great Tree with an Enormous Green Crown. Of these, about 130 are in the collections of the National Library of China.

Mr. Fan has written the following for a self-portrait: “Enamored with painting, rather capable at calligraphy; writing occasional poetry and prose to express personal sentiments; and fond of history books, with a broad understanding of how the world has changed.”

Leslie Li is the director and executive producer of The Kim Loo Sisters, her first feature-length film.

She is the author of Bittersweet, a novel, and of Daughter of Heaven, a culinary memoir. She is also the co-author of Enter the Dragon, a book of children’s plays. Her books have been translated into German, Dutch, Chinese, Portuguese and Thai. She has written personal essays and feature articles for The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, Travel & Leisure, Gourmet, Saveur, and other publications. She lives in New York City.

Alfred Corn was born in Bainbridge, Georgia, in 1943. He grew up in Valdosta, Georgia, and received his B.A. in French literature from Emory University in 1965. He was awarded an M.A. in French literature from Columbia University in 1967, and completed all requirements for the Ph.D. except the doctoral dissertation. His degree work included a year spent in Paris on a Fulbright Fellowship and two years of teaching in the French Department at Columbia College. His first book of poems, All Roads at Once, appeared in 1976, followed by A Call in the Midst of the Crowd (1978), The Various Light (1980), Notes from a Child of Paradise (1984), The West Door (1988), Autobiographies (1992). His seventh book of poems, titled Present, appeared in 1997, along with a novel titled Part of His Story, and a study of prosody, The Poem’s Heartbeat. Stake: Selected Poems, 1972-1992, appeared in 1999, followed by Contradictions in 2002. His most recent volumes of poetry are Tables (2014) and Unions (2015) He has published two collections of critical essays, The Metamorphoses of Metaphor (1988) and Atlas: Selected Essays, 1989-2007 (2008). Also, a work of art criticism, Aaron Rose Photographs (Abrams, 2001). Prizes for his work include the Levinson Prize from Poetry magazine, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the NEA grant, an Award in Literature from the Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and one from the Academy of American Poets. He has taught at the City University of New York, Yale, Connecticut College, the University of Cincinnati, U.C.L.A., Ohio State University, Hofstra University, Oklahoma State University, and the University of Tulsa. A frequent contributor to The New York Times Sunday Book Review and The Nation, he has also written art criticism for Art in America and ARTnews magazines. He held the Amy Clampitt Residency in Lenox, Massachusetts, for 2004-2005 and taught at the Poetry School in London for 2005-2006. His first play, Lowell’s Bedlam, premiered at Pentameters Theatre in London in 2011. In 2012, he was a Visiting Fellow at Clare Hall, Cambridge University, and was made a Life Fellow the following year. His second novel, Miranda’s Book, was published in the U.K. in 2015. In the same year, he was invited to speak at the opening of the new museum dedicated to the life and work of the Chinese painter and writer Mu Xin in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province, China. In 2016 a selection of his poems was translated into Spanish and published in Spain under the title Rocinante. A similar collection was published in Mexico in 2017 under the title Antonio en el desierto. He lives in Hopkinton, Rhode Island.

Mu Xin (1927-2011) is the pen name of a renowned Chinese writer and artist. Born in Wuzhen, near Shanghai, China, into a wealthy aristocratic family, Mu Xin was among the last generation to receive a classical education in the literati tradition, while at the same time he was also exposed through voluminous reading to the highest achievements of Western art and culture at a very young age. From 1947 to 1949, Mu Xin attended Shanghai Institute of the Arts. From 1949 to 1982, Mu Xin lived in China. Although he wrote profusely in that period, all of his earlier manuscripts were confiscated and destroyed during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). In 1982 after coming to live in the US, Mu Xin began to publish books of short stories, prose, and poetry (in Chinese) and contributed regularly to literary columns in Chinese journals and newspapers outside the PRC. Among the Chinese diaspora, Mu Xin's works have attracted an intense following. In addition to his literary accomplishments, Mu Xin was also a well recognized artist whose paintings are preserved, among other places, at Yale University and Harvard University Art Galleries, and now at the upcoming Mu Xin Museum in his hometown Wuzhen. In 2006, Mu Xin returned to China at the invitation of Wuzhen Township where the local government had renovated his family house. The same year, his writings were published for the first time in Mainland China.