Justin Simien is an American filmmaker, actor, and author. His first feature film, Dear White People, won the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Talent at the 2014 Sundance Film Festiva…
Steven David Levitt is an American economist and co-author of the best-selling book Freakonomics and its sequels (along with Stephen J. Dubner). Levitt was the winner of the 2003 John Bates Clark Med…
Anna Marie Quindlen is an American author, journalist, and opinion columnist. Her New York Times column, Public and Private, won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1992. She began her journalism care…
Gregory Maguire is an American author, whose novels are revisionist retellings of children's stories (such as L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz into Wicked). He received his Ph.D. in English …
William Styron (1925–2006), born in Newport News, Virginia, was one of the greatest American writers of his generation. Styron published his first book, Lie Down in Darkness, at age twenty-six and wen…
Karin Slaughter is one of the world’s most popular storytellers. She is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty- five novels, including the Edgar nominated COP TOWN and standalone…
Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit is the author of more than twenty books on feminism, western and indigenous history, popular power, social change and insurrection, wandering and walkin…
Ishmael Beah was born in Sierra Leone in 1980. He moved to the United States in 1998 and finished his last two years of high school at the United Nations International School in New York. In 2004 he g…
Patricia McCormick is a journalist and writer. She graduated from Rosemont College in 1978, followed by an M.S. from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1986 and an M.F.A. from New Sc…
Lysa TerKeurst is President and Chief Visionary Officer of Proverbs 31 Ministries. She is also an 8x New York Times’ bestselling author of I Want to Trust You, but I Don't, Good Boundaries and Goodbye…
Gene Luen Yang writes, and sometimes draws, comic books and graphic novels. As the Library of Congress’ fifth National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, he advocates for the importance of read…
Amy Bloom is the New York Times bestselling author of White Houses; Come to Me, a National Book Award finalist; A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist; …
Actor Stanley Tucci was born on November 11, 1960, in Peekskill, New York. He is the son of Joan (Tropiano), a writer, and Stanley Tucci, an art teacher. His family is Italian-American, with origins i…
Matthew Desmond is social scientist and urban ethnographer. He is the Maurice P. During Professor of Sociology and the Director of the Eviction Lab at Princeton University. He is also a Contributing W…
David Eagleman is an internationally bestselling author, a TED speaker, and a Guggenheim Fellow. He teaches neuroscience at Stanford University and is CEO of a neurotech startup, Neosensory. At night …
Megan Miranda is the New York Times bestselling author of All the Missing Girls; The Perfect Stranger; The Last House Guest, which was a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick; The Girl from Widow Hills; Su…
Jenny Sarah Slate is an American actress, stand-up comedian, and author best known as the creator of the Marcel the Shell With Shoes On short films, which was also spun off into a children's book. She…
Makiia Lucier is the author of Year of the Reaper, the Isle of Blood and Stone duology, and A Death-Struck Year. Her stories are inspired by history and mythology and have been called “brilliant” (Boo…
Josh Malerman is the New York Times best selling author of BIRD BOX, MALORIE, GOBLIN, PEARL, GHOUL n THE CAPE, and more. He's also one of two singer/songwriter for the rock band The High Strung.
Maggie Su is a writer and editor. She received a PhD in fiction from University of Cincinnati and an MFA from Indiana University. Her work has appeared in New England Review, Four Way Review, TriQuart…
John Edward Douglas is a former United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent, one of the first criminal profilers, and criminal psychology author. He also wrote four horror novels in the …
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE grew up in Nigeria. Her work has been translated into more than fifty-five languages. She is the author of the novels Purple Hibiscus, which won the Commonwealth Writers' Priz…
Heather Charisse McGhee is an American political commentator and strategist. She is a former president and currently a distinguished senior fellow of Demos, a non-profit progressive U.S. think tank. M…
Emily Krempholtz has never quit her day job to go open a flower shop, but that might be because she works with stories all day for a living, so she’s already doing what she loves. As a bestselling gho…
Gretchen Whitmer is the governor of Michigan and a rising figure in US politics. Known for her bold and plainspoken style, Whitmer is a national voice on the rights of women, voters, and the LGBTQ+ co…
