Rev. Dr. Yolanda Pierce is Professor and Dean of the Howard University School of Divinity in Washington, DC. She is the first woman to be appointed as Dean in the Divinity School’s 150-year history. I…
Edith Wharton emerged as one of America’s most insightful novelists, deftly exposing the tensions between societal expectation and personal desire through her vivid portrayals of upper-class life. Dra…
Abdulrazak Gurnah was born in 1948 in Zanzibar and lives in England, where he teaches at the University of Kent. The most famous of his novels are Paradise, shortlisted for both the Booker and the Whi…
Howard Washington Thurman was an author, philosopher, theologian, educator, and civil rights leader. As a prominent religious figure, he played a leading role in many social justice movements and orga…
Victoria Christopher Murray is the author of nine Essence bestselling novels, including The Ex Files; Too Little, Too Late; and Lady Jasmine. Winner of the African American Literary Award for Fiction …
Alton Brown is an American food personality, cinematographer, author, and actor. He is the creator and host of the Food Network television show Good Eats, the miniseries Feasting on Asphalt and the ma…
Barbara Brown Taylor is a New York Times best-selling author, teacher, and Episcopal priest. Her first memoir, Leaving Church (2006), won an Author of the Year award from the Georgia Writers Associati…
Malcolm Foley (PhD, Baylor University) is a pastor, historian, and speaker who serves as special adviser to the president for equity and campus engagement at Baylor University. He has written for Chri…
Barbara Demick is an American journalist. She is the author of Logavina Street: Life and Death in a Sarajevo Neighborhood (Andrews & McMeel, 1996). Her next book, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in No…
Jesmyn Ward is the author of Where the Line Bleeds, Salvage the Bones, and Men We Reaped. She is a former Stegner Fellow (Stanford University) and Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Miss…
Daniel Nayeri is a writer and editor in New York City. He wrote and produced The Cult of Sincerity, the first feature film to be world-premiered by YouTube. He has had all kinds of jobs around books, …
ABI MAXWELL is the author of the novels Lake People and The Den. After graduating from the writing program at the University of Montana, she spent many years working in public libraries, and she now w…
Ruha Benjamin is Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University. She specializes in the interdisciplinary study of science and medicine, race and technology, knowledge and power. Ruha i…
Amena Brown is a spoken word poet, performing artist, and event host whose work interweaves keep-it-real storytelling, rhyme, and humor. The author of five spoken word albums and two non-fiction books…
Misty Danielle Copeland (born September 10, 1982) is an American ballet dancer for American Ballet Theatre (ABT), one of the three leading classical ballet companies in the United States. On June 30, …
ANGELA FLOURNOY is the author of The Wilderness. Her debut novel, The Turner House, was a finalist for the National Book Award. The novel won the VCU Cabell First Novel Prize and was also a finalist f…
Tiffany D. Jackson is the New York Times Bestselling author of YA novels including the Coretta Scott King — John Steptoe New Talent Award-winning Monday’s Not Coming, the NAACP Image Award-nominated A…
Tish Harrison Warren is a priest in the Anglican Church in North America. After eight years with InterVarsity Graduate and Faculty Ministries at Vanderbilt and The University of Texas at Austin, she n…
Kristina Forest is the USA Today bestselling author of romances for both teens and adults. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing at The New School and she can often be found rearranging her bookshelf…
Nancy French is author of the 2025 Evangelical Memoir of the Year, GHOSTED: an AMERICAN STORY. She has also collaborated on multiple books for celebrities - six of which made the New York Times best s…
Abiola Bello is a Nigerian-British, prize-winning children’s/YA author who was born and raised in London. She wrote her first novel at the age of eight and experienced her first taste of ‘being publis…
Ishi Robinson was born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica. A Canadian citizen, she has lived in Bern, Toronto, Rome, London and now lives in Berlin with her Czech husband. Her first published work was a …
