Mimi Swartz, author, with Sherron Watkins, of Power Failure, The Inside Story of the Collapse of Enron, is an executive editor of Texas Monthly magazine. Previously, she was a staff writer at the New Yorker and the now defunct Talk Magazine. Overall, Swartz has worked at Texas Monthly for nearly thirty years. She is a two time winner and four time finalist of the National Magazine Award, most recently in 2012. Other awards include the John Bartlow Martin Award for Public Interest Magazine Journalism in 2006. Her work has appeared in Vanity Fair, Esquire, Slate, National Geographic and the New York Times Op Ed page, along with the Times Sunday magazine; T, the style magazine; and Play, the Times Sports Magazine. Her pieces have also been collected in Best American Political Writing, 2006, and Best American Sportswriting, 2007. Swartz grew up in San Antonio, Texas, and now lives in Houston, with her husband John Wilburn. They have a son, Sam. 

Vincent Valdez (b. 1977, San Antonio, TX) lives and works in Houston, TX and Los Angeles, CA. He received a full scholarship to the Rhode Island School of Design, earning his BFA in 2000. He was a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant for Painters and Sculptors (2016), as well as completing residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting (2005), the Vermont Studio Center (2011), the Kunstlerhaus Bethania Berlin Residency (2014), and Joan Mitchell Center (2018). Valdez was the 2019 Artadia awardee in Houston, TX, and a 2020 artist fellow at NXTHVN in New Haven. Recent exhibitions include The Face of Battle: Americans at War, 9/11 to Now, Smithsonian Museum of American Art and National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC; So Different, So Appealing, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; The City, Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX; Between Play and Grief: Selections from the Permanent Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Suffering from Realness, MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA; and ESTAMOS BIEN: LA TRIENAL 20/21, El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY. The artist has been shortlisted as a finalist for the Smithsonian’s 2022 National Portrait Award. Valdez’s portrait of his grandparents was presented in The Outwin 2022: American Portraiture Today, a major exhibition premiering at the National Portrait Gallery from April 30, 2022 through Feb. 26, 2023, before traveling to other cities in the United States. He is represented by Matthew Brown Gallery in Los Angeles, CA.