Mary Karr is an American poet, essayist and memoirist. She rose to fame in 1995 with the publication of her bestselling memoir The Liars' Club. She is the Peck Professor of English Literature at Syrac…
I'm the product of a happy and uneventful childhood in the suburbs of Cleveland, followed by a happy and pretty eventful four years as a student at University of Michigan. From there, I wandered to th…
I have always been a storyteller. Even before I could write my name, I could tell a good tale. And I told them all the time. As a preschooler, I told my neighbors all about my three-legged cat named S…
A #1 New York Times bestselling author of eight novels, including The Exiles, Orphan Train, and A Piece of the World, Christina Baker Kline is published in 40 countries. Her novels have received the N…
Dully was born on November 30, 1948, in Oakland, California, the eldest son of Rodney and June Louise Pierce Dully. Following the death of his mother from cancer in 1954, Dully's father married single…
Tom Kizzia traveled widely in rural Alaska as a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News. He has written for The New Yorker and The Washington Post and been featured on CNN. Tom is a former Knight Journa…
After graduating Vassar College with honors, Ms. Cheney attended UCLA School of Law. After years of secretly struggling with manic depression, Ms. Cheney decided to leave the law and devote her advoca…
Stefan grew up in Plano, Texas. His first book, The Story of Forgetting, was an international bestseller and the winner of Best First Fiction at the Rome International Festival of Literature, The Ovid…
Jericho Brown worked as the speechwriter for the Mayor of New Orleans before receiving his PhD in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Houston. He also holds an MFA from the Universi…
Shilpi Somaya Gowda is the New York Times bestselling, award-winning author of four novels: Secret Daughter (2010), The Golden Son (2015), The Shape of Family (2020), and A Great Country (2024). Her n…
Bobi Conn was born in Morehead, Kentucky, and raised in a nearby holler, where she developed a deep connection with the land and her Appalachian roots. She obtained her bachelor's degree at Berea Coll…
J. Dana Trent is a speaker, professor, award-winning spirituality author, and minister. A graduate of Duke Divinity School, she teaches world religions and critical thinking at Wake Technical Communit…
Courtney Maum is the author of the novels Costalegre (a GOOP book club pick and one of Glamour Magazine’s top books of the decade), I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You and Touch (a New York Times…
RUTH WARINER lives in Portland, Oregon. At the age of fifteen, Wariner left Colonia LeBaron, the polygamist Mormon colony where she grew up, and moved to California. She raised her three youngest sist…
Chrysta Bilton is the author of Normal Family, a memoir about love, addiction, family secrets, and meeting 35+ siblings. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children.
Debora Harding spent her childhood in the midwest prairie states of Nebraska and Iowa. At the age of nineteen she dropped out of university to work for Senator Gary Hart’s presidential campaign, befor…
Kelly Mustian is the USA Today bestselling author of The Girls in the Stilt House and The River Knows Your Name. She is the recipient of the Mississippi Library Association's 2023 Author Award for Fic…
Cait West is a writer and editor based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her work has been published in The Revealer, Religion Dispatches, Fourth Genre, and Hawai`i Pacific Review, among others. As an advoca…
Bridey Thelen-Heidel is a teacher, writer, and youth advocate. She’s given a TEDx Talk, performed in Listen to Your Mother NYC, published in MUTHA Magazine, and is a frequent podcast guest. She’s bee…
An acclaimed playwright and screenwriter, Zayd Ayers Dohrn is a professor and director of the MFA in Writing for Screen + Stage at Northwestern University. He is creator of the hit narrative podcast M…
