Alex Temblador is a Dallas-based award-winning author, freelance writer, public speaker, and creative writing instructor. Her first novel, Secrets of the Casa Rosada, won such awards as Kirkus Reviews' Best of YA Books 2018, NACCS Tejas Foco Young Adult Book Award 2019, Writer's League of Texas Book Awards' MG/YA Discovery Prize Winner in 2018, and Texas Library Associations TAYSHA's 2020 Reading List. Her second novel, Half Outlaw, is forthcoming from Blackstone Publishing in 2022. Alex's articles and essays have appeared in publications like Outside, Architectural Digest, Dwell, Texas Highways, D Magazine, VICE, The Daily Beast, Travel + Leisure, Lonely Planet, Dallas Morning News, and Bustle. In addition to covering travel, design, art, and the outdoors, Alex is best known for her coverage of diversity, equity, and inclusion. She was the Bessie Award recipient for "Most Impactful Piece of Writing" for a Conde Nast Traveler article about traveling with an anti-racist perspective. You can often find the Mixed Latinx writer working on her next book or researching her next article on the front porch of her historic home.

Amber Fletcher is the head of marketing for the multi-million dollar Texas staple, Fletcher's Original Corny Dogs. The granddaughter of Dallas’ famous corn dog inventor Neil Fletcher, and daughter of the late Skip “The Corny Dog King” Fletcher, Amber is the third generation of Fletcher's at the helm of the iconic brand, along with her brother, Aaron, and cousin, W.C. From a young age Amber could be found behind the counter at the State Fair of Texas getting to know customers as well as keenly observing her father as he built the empire. Amber assumes a dual focus: preserving her family's deep legacy in the state, while also expanding Fletcher's reach nationally through events operations, a strong digital footprint and most importantly, top-notch quality control. Amber is a born and raised Texan who spent her life working in the family business at State Fair of Texas. She is passionate about her family, her dogs, and public speaking.

The son of second-generation owner John “Jack” Renfro, Doug learned the family business from the bottom up, starting on the factory floor as a teenager and weighing spices through college. After graduating magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Texas, Doug proved his salt outside the company, working seven years for Electronic Data Systems (later purchased by General Motors), where he was promoted to divisional finance manager. At the same time, he earned his master’s degree from Southern Methodist University and qualified for his Certified Management Accountant designation. Doug returned to Renfro Foods in 1992.

Samantha Dodd is the curator for the Archives of Women of the Southwest at the DeGolyer Library at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. Her work entails collecting, appraising, processing, and making accessible archival collections in women’s history to document the historical experience of women in the Southwest, with special emphasis on Dallas and North Texas, as well as Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and the Spanish Borderlands.

Samantha was most recently the special collections archivist at the University of Texas at Arlington, where she had been working since 2016.  From 2011-2015, she was the archivist at the Dallas Historical Society.  She holds a BA in history from UTA, an MA in history from UTD, and an MLIS from the University of North Texas.  She is a Certified Archivist and has professional certificates in Advanced Management in Libraries (UNT) and Archival Arrangement and Description (SAA).

David Marquis is a long-time committed activist for environmental and social change in the Dallas area. He is the author of The River Always Win: Water as a Metaphor for Hope and Progress, published in 2020 by Deep Vellum, as well as I Am A Teacher, which became a series of widely performed plays. He founded the Oak Cliff Nature Preserve in Dallas and has consulted with the Texas Conservation Alliance since 2011. David grew up on the high, dry plains of West Texas listening to family stories of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, of World War II and starting over after years of lean times. He owes his love of a good story, his sense of social justice, his ties to nature and the land, and his first-hand experience with both strong women and strong men to his family.

Molly Plummer is the Senior Program Manager for The Trust for Public Land in North Texas. As the trained landscape architect and skilled community organizer, Molly leads the implementation of the Five Mile Creek Urban Greenbelt Program and manages our Cool Schools Neighborhood Parks program. Molly is currently managing the development and construction of a park at Alice Branch Creek Greenbelt and leading the community engagement and design of the 40 acre Judge Charles Rose, Sr. Park.  At The Trust for Public Land, she has also managed several projects for the North Texas office including the GIS-based citywide planning initiative Smart Growth for Dallas, a crowdsourced park quality assessment project, a master planning initiative for parks and trails along the Five Mile Creek Corridor, as well as previously providing park design support for projects in New Orleans.  Her research is focused on equity, the environment, and how community resiliency and the urban built environment are impacted by historic planning mechanisms, particularly in Dallas. David Marquis

Kathryn Holliday is Professor of architecture and Director of the Dillon Center for Texas Architecture at the University of Texas at Arlington. She is an architectural historian whose research and teaching focus on the built environment in American cities. She studied architecture, art history, and environmental studies at Williams College and the University of Texas at Austin and she brings this interdisciplinary approach to the classroom and to her writing. She is the author of two monographs on New York architects and edited The Open-Ended City, a collection of essays by David Dillon, the former critic for the Dallas Morning News. She is currently at work on several projects, including a book about the history of the Bell monopoly, telephone buildings, and telecommunications infrastructure, as well as a collaborative project with colleagues and community members called "Reclaiming Black Settlements," advocating for historic preservation and equitable redevelopment in Freedman's Towns along the Trinity River in Fort Worth and Dallas. Her research has been supported by grants from the SOM Foundation, the National Park Service, the Hagley Library, and the Dallas Regional Chamber and, for her work with the Dillon Center, she is the recipient of awards for excellence in the media from the Texas Historical Commission and the Texas Society of Architects