The following writers have been confirmed as participants for the 2007 Southwest Writers Institute.

Esther G. Belin is a writer and two-dimensional artist who was raised in Lynwood, California. She graduated from the University of California at Berkeley and the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 2000, she won the American Book Award for her first book of poetry, From the Belly of My Beauty published by the University of Arizona Press in fall 1999. Her first published work appeared in Moving the Image: Independent Asian Pacific American Media Arts. Other published works appear in these anthologies: Neon Pow Wow, Song of the Turtle, Speaking for the Generations, “BOMB”, Native American Voices, American Indian Urban Experience, Pride of Place, The Iowa Review and Sister Nations. She is currently an MFA student in creative writing at Antioch University Los Angeles. She has lived in Durango for the last nine years with her family.

Steven J. Meyers has been Visiting Instructor of Creative Writing at Fort Lewis College since 2000. He is the author of six books: On Seeing Nature, Lime Creek Odyssey, Streamside Reflections, The Nature of Fly Fishing, Notes from the San Juans, and San Juan River Chronicle. He has taught as an Artist-In-Residence through the Colorado Council on the Arts and Humanities where he also served on numerous juries, grants panels and advisory committees. In 1981 he was chosen as the Colorado Governor’s Awards For The Arts—Honored Artist. In 1992 he was awarded a Western States Arts Foundation/Colorado Council on the Arts and Humanities Co-Visions grant, and he was the Colorado Endowment for the Humanities Colorado Journeys featured author in 1996 and 2004.

Ken Wright is a free-lance writer, college instructor, author, and father, although not necessarily in that order. He is also a contributing editor and columnist for Inside Outside Southwest magazine, where his writings take readers on philosophical and often humorous forays into the unique life and land of the Four Corners region. As a self-described "paleo-dad," Ken's writings reflect on, and often rant for, the blessings and lessons the West's open spaces, wild places, and even wilder people offer our children - "places to create the people who can create the world to come." Ken's essays, book reviews, and news features have appeared in a variety of national and regional magazines and newspapers, and he is the author of two essay collections, A Wilder Life: Essays from Home and Why I'm Against it All. He recently completed his third book, a compilation of stories about raising a family in the 21st-century West.