Randall Albers Young Writers Award Judges

Toya Wolfe

Toya Wolfe earned an MFA in Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago. Her debut novel, Last Summer on State Street is the recipient of the Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award, was a finalist for the PEN Open Book Award, winner of the Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year Award in Traditional Fiction, and selected by four-time NBA Champion Stephen Curry for his August 2022 "Underrated" Book Club. Toya currently resides near Chicago.

Ruben Quesada

Ruben Quesada serves as a faculty member in the Department of English and Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago. He is the editor of the award-winning anthology, Latinx Poetics. His poetry and criticism appear in The New York Times, Best American Poetry, Lambda Literary Review, Harvard Review and elsewhere. His recent collection Brutal Companion was selected as Editor's Choice for the 2023 Barrow Street Poetry Prize and is expected in late 2024.