They say editing by committee never works, but they’ve never seen a committee like this. Below you will find the bios of the Best American Nonrequired Reading (BANR) committee. These students met on a weekly basis at McSweeney’s Publishing in San Francisco, California, to select the work that ended up in this book. They were aided by a group of students in Ann Arbor, Michigan, whose bios you will also find herewith.
Laura Burns is a freshman at Huron High School in Ann Arbor, Michigan. As the first bio, she would like to welcome you to the student bios section. Her favorite color is irrelevant, favorite place in the world is Austin, Texas, favorite beverage is a banana shake. Chai lattes come in as a close second.
Samantha Cho is 15 years old and a sophomore at Huron High School. She is on the field hockey team and plays violin in her school orchestra. In her free time, she enjoys writing and reading historical fiction, and walking her dog, whom she finds historically cute.
Emilia Fernández is a junior at Lick-Wilmerding High School in San Francisco, who likes to read and sleep. In 20 years she sees herself writing novels in a cabin somewhere in the Alaskan wilderness, with several cats. And perhaps a domesticated wolf. She has not ruled out the possibility of wolf ownership.
Marcus Gee-Lim is a senior at Lowell High School in San Francisco. He almost got into a bike accident with a squirrel once. Now he looks both ways before crossing the street and avoids squirrels at all costs. They are utterly reckless creatures, in his estimation.
Emma Hardison is a junior at Oakland School of the Arts who took very long BART rides all year to help make this book. It was worth it. At strange times, she finds herself picturing the flying baby, the Rebecca Makkai story that is featured in this anthology. She is not sure why.
Sidney Hirschman is a junior at Lick-Wilmerding High School. They enjoy singing songs, reading books, making miniatures, pining over robots, and wearing vogue night looks to the Sunday morning farmers’ market. This is their first year on the BANR committee.
Niki King Fredel is a freshman at New York University. She likes to take photos, read books, and listen to music. She wants to be taken seriously by other people but does not want to take herself seriously. She was formerly a student at Urban High School in San Francisco.
Sian Laing is a junior at Mission High School in San Francisco. If you need to summon Sian, simply mention the words “gymnastics” or “tea.” On occasion, someone says one of these words without realizing it will automatically summon Sian. This has resulted in several uncomfortable situations.
Zoe Olson is a junior at Mission High School and this was her first year on the committee. She lives in a house full of books with her family and her cat. One day she hopes to live in a house with even more books and twice the amount of cats and a similar amount of family.
Marco Ponce graduated from George Washington High School in San Francisco this past spring. This was his fourth and final year on the committee. His motto is, and always has been: “In order to feel good you have to dress good.”
A junior at Jewish Community High School in San Francisco, Zola Rosenfeld enjoys musical theater and rock climbing. She has been known to leave a trail of broken hearts wherever she goes, but she has also been known to pick up their pieces. She is notably tidy.
Ben Schaedig is a freshman at Huron High School. In his free time, Ben enjoys reading, listening to music, and eating. Sometimes, when his time is extra free, he does all three of these things at the same time.
Isaac Schott-Rosenfield is a senior at the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts in San Francisco. Among other things, Isaac has forgotten where he wrote down the joke he was going to use for this bio. But he did write one down, he did. It’s bound to turn up sometime. These things always do.
Cynthia Van is a freshman at UC San Diego. She spent three years on the BANR committee, while she was a student at George Washington High School. Her interests include writing, engineering, and deer antlers, among other things. The antlers of a deer are actually considered to be more of a handicap than an advantage because of their nutritional demand. Is it just a style thing, in that case? Cynthia has wondered. This is all she can do: wonder.
Grace VanRenterghem graduated from Huron High School this past year. She was a member of the BANR committee for three years. The person below her is her identical twin. She enjoys having an identical twin.
Hadley VanRenterghem graduated from Ann Arbor Huron High School this past year. Like her sister, she worked on the BANR committee for three years. As far as she knows, she and Grace are the only identical twins in the history of BANR.
Annette Vergara-Tucker is a sophomore at Lick-Wilmerding High School. Most days, you will find her reading a book or spending way too much time with her best friend, Anna. As the last bio, she would like to thank you for taking the time to get to know the editors of this book. It makes her happy.
Very special thanks to Dave Eggers, Nicole Angeloro, Clara Sankey, Mark Robinson, and Jillian Tamaki. Thanks also to Adam Johnson, Daniel Handler, Mikayla McVey, Maura Reilly-Ulmanek, Elliott Eglash, Daniel Cesca, Belle Baxley, Helena Smith, Andi Winnette, Jordan Bass, Ruby Perez, Dan McKinley, Sunra Thompson, Elizabeth Hanley, Claire Boyle, Ted Gioia, Kristina Kearns, Chris Monks, Mimi Lok, Gerald Richards, Christina Perry, Kona Lai, Ashley Varady, Bita Nazarian, Jorge Garcia, María Inés Montes, Amy Popovitch, Ricardo Cruz, Kavitha Lotun, Jillian Wasick, Caroline Kangas, Molly Parent, Emma Peoples, Lauren Hall, Allyson Halpern, Amanda Loo, Alyssa Aninag, Olivia White Lopez, Jenesha de Rivera Diana Adamson, Selina Weiss, Monica Mendez, Piper Sutherland, Kate Bueler, Juliana Sloane, Rachael Reiley, Noel Ramírez, and Phyllis DeBlanche.