nurturing writers who enlighten and provoke
Authors
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Shahad Al Rawi
Shahad Al Rawi was born in Baghdad, Iraq, graduated from the University of Damascus and has just completed a PhD student in management and anthropology. Her fiction debut, THE BAGHDAD CLOCK, (“Sa’at Baghdad”) was published in Arabic in 2016 and has been a bestseller from Baghdad to Dubai. The English-language edition published by Oneworld went on to win the Edinburgh International Book Festival’s First Book Award and was also shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction. The translation of her sophomore novel is underway.
Shahad Al Rawi
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Nkiacha Atemnkeng
Nkiacha Atemnkeng is an award-winning writer from Cameroon. He graduated with Honours from the University of Buea and is currently enrolled in the Creative Writing program at Texas State University. Prior to arriving in Texas, Nkiacha worked for Swissport at the Douala airport for eight years, where his blog won Ethiopian Airlines Cameroon’s blogging award. In his writing, he pulls from his life experience, aviation, music, Anglophone marginalization, disasters, among other themes. Nkiacha’s illustrated chapbook, THE GOLDEN BAOBAB TREE, was published by the Africa Book Club, 2014. His work has also been published in The Guardian Longread, the 2015 Caine Prize anthology LUSAKA PUNK AND OTHER STORIES, SHORT STORY DAY AFRICA: HOTEL AFRICA Anthology, OF PASSION AND INK: NEW VOICES FROM CAMEROON by Bakwa Books, The Africa Report, Longreads, The Johannesburg Review of Books, and Porter House Review. His writing has been translated to French, Spanish and German. Nkiacha is a Goethe Institut/Sylt prize winner and has also been selected for the Art Omi international writer’s residency, New York. He is at work on a novel and a collection of essays.
Nkiacha Atemnkeng
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Peter L. Berger
Award-winning scholar and author Peter L. Berger was hailed as one of the most important modern American sociologists. Professor Emeritus of religion, sociology, and theology at Boston University, he was also director emeritus of the Institute for the Study of Economic Culture, which examines relationships between economic development and sociocultural change. Berger’s works, considered classics, include INVITATION TO SOCIOLOGY (1963), THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY (1966) with Thomas Luckmann, THE SACRED CANOPY (1967), and A RUMOR OF ANGELS (1969). More recently, IN PRAISE OF DOUBT, co-authored with noted sociologist and philosopher Anton C. Zijderveld, looks at out how we can survive the political, moral, and religious challenges raised by the extreme poles of relativism and fundamentalism, and was published in Germany, The Netherlands, Japan, Poland, Korea and Italy. His latest study, ADVENTURES OF AN ACCIDENTAL SOCIOLOGIST, is both a series of personal reflections on the meaning of religion in society and other key intellectual questions that motivated his work and a witty memoir about how he stumbled into the field he so greatly influenced. Berger passed away in 2017 at the age of 88.
Peter L. Berger
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Po Bhattacharyya
Po was born into a family of doctors in Kolkata, India. He holds a degree in geology and biology from Brown and a degree in human-computer interaction from Carnegie Mellon. By day, he designs research tools for biologists and chemists. By morning and evening, he writes, usually fiction, and usually at a glacial clip. He lives in Oakland, CA, in a sunny apartment filled with plants. Currently he is workng on a novel set in India.
Po Bhattacharyya
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Andrea J. Buchanan
Before becoming a writer, Andrea J. Buchanan trained as a pianist, making her debut at Carnegie Hall. She earned a Bachelor’s of Music in piano performance from the Boston Conservatory of Music and a Master’s from the San Francisco Conservatory. Her many publications include the award-winning MOTHER SHOCK and international bestselling DARING BOOK FOR GIRLS series, which she co-authored. Buchanan, who co-founded the popular web magazine literarymama.com, has edited several well-received anthologies, including LITERARY MAMA, IT'S A BOY and IT'S A GIRL. In 2012, Open Road Integrated Media published her ground-breaking multimedia young adult e-book, GIFT, replete with music, videos, art, and a Minecraft map based on the world of the book. Buchanan’s memoir, THE BEGINNING OF EVERYTHING, was shortlisted for the PEN E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. Her debut adult novel, FIVE-PART INVENTION, was published by Pegasus Books in July 2022.
Andrea J. Buchanan
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Andrew Burstein
Andrew Burstein has been, since 2008, the Charles P. Manship Professor of History at Louisiana State University. He is the author of eleven previous books. As a noted Jefferson scholar and biographer, he has been a consultant on several documentary films and was prominently featured in the Ken Burns PBS documentary “Thomas Jefferson.” His books have received praise in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and various other recognized periodicals. Among his best-known titles are: THE PASSIONS OF ANDREW JACKSON (Knopf) and JEFFERSON'S SECRETS (Basic Books), along with the two books he coauthored with Nancy Isenberg, MADISON AND JEFFERSON (Random House, 2010) and THE PROBLEM OF DEMOCRACY (Viking, 2019). As a frequent opinion writer, he has written extensively for Salon.com, plus occasional reviews and opinion pieces in national news outlets. He received a Ph.D. in U.S. History from the University of Virginia after having earlier studied Chinese politics and culture at Columbia University and the University of Michigan. His next nonfiction book, LONGING FOR CONNECTION: MEMORY AND EMOTION IN AMERICAN LIFE, 1775-1865, is forthcoming from Johns Hopkins University Press.
Andrew Burstein
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Sheila Curran
The daughter of a fighter pilot-turned-professor and wife of an academic, Sheila Curran has lived in more than a dozen towns and cities throughout the US. She currently lives in Tallahassee, with her husband, two children, and a standard poodle who gets suicidal when she leaves the house. Her first novel, DIANA LIVELY IS FALLING DOWN, a comedy-of-manners set in Oxford, England and Phoenix, Arizona, was widely praised for its lively wit. Her second novel, EVERYONE SHE LOVED, is a moving story about the faith one woman places in her dearest friends, the care she takes to protect her family, and the many ways in which romantic entanglements will confound even the most determined of planners. She is currently working on a novel about an activist nun.
Sheila Curran
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Charles Dellheim
Charles Dellheim is an award-winning scholar and Professor of History at Boston University, where he co-founded and directed the Kilachand Honors College. His books include THE FACE OF THE PAST: THE PRESERVATION OF THE MEDIEVAL INHERITANCE IN VICTORIAN ENGLAND and THE DISENCHANTED ISLE: MRS. THATCHER'S CAPITALIST REVOLUTION. His newest book BELONGING AND BETRAYAL: HOW JEWS MADE THE ART WORLD MODERN, an epic story that charts the fortunes and misfortunes of a small number of Jewish art dealers and collectors from the late-19th century to the present and spans both Europe and the United States, was a Kirkus Best of 2021 Non-Fiction Books, a TLS Book of the Year, and one of Artnet’s top twenty Best Books About Art and the Art World. Currently, he is researching a book on Freud.
Charles Dellheim
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Thomas Drake
Thomas Drake is a former senior executive at the National Security Agency where he blew the whistle on the government’s post–9/11 secret mass surveillance programs, alleging they had led to fraud, waste and the widespread violations of citizens’ rights. In 2010 the Obama Administration indicted Drake, making him the first whistleblower since Daniel Ellsberg to be charged with espionage and branding him an enemy of the state. Drake went free in a plea deal after the government’s case against him collapsed in 2011. He is the recipient of the 2011 Ridenhour Truth Telling Prize, and a joint recipient with Jesselyn Radack of the 2011 Sam Adams Associates Integrity in Intelligence Award and the 2012 Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award. He is now dedicated to the defense of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Thomas Drake
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Leslie Epstein
Literary lion Leslie Epstein is a renowned author and playwright and director of Boston University’s Creative Writing Program. His publications include the widely-praised KING OF THE JEWS, PANDAEMONIUM, and SAN REMO DRIVE. Most recently, Norton published the third novel in Epstein’s Goldkorn trilogy, LIEBESTOD: OPERA BUFFA WITH LEIB GOLDKORN, reuniting readers with this most compelling literary character, now a randy centenarian, who leads readers on a multi-lingual odyssey through his past.
Leslie Epstein
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Reese Erlich
Multiple award-winning journalist and author of DATELINE HAVANA: THE REAL STORY OF U.S. POLICY AND THE FUTURE OF CUBA, THE IRAN AGENDA: THE REAL STORY OF U.S. POLICY AND THE MIDDLE EAST CRISIS, and best-selling TARGET IRAQ: WHAT THE NEWS MEDIA DIDN'T TELL YOU (co-authored with Norman Solomon), Reese Erlich reported regularly for NPR, Latino USA, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, San Francisco Chronicle, St. Petersburg Times, Dallas Morning News and Chicago Tribune. INSIDE SYRIA: THE BACKSTORY OF THEIR CIVIL WAR AND WHAT THE WORLD CAN EXPECT was reissued in paperback with a new foreword by Noam Chomsky in 2016 and THE IRAN AGENDA TODAY was published in 2018. Reese passed away in April 2021.
Reese Erlich
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Shai Feldman
Feldman holds the Raymond Frankel Chair in Israeli Politics and Society at Brandeis University. Previously, he served as President of Sapir University, was a Senior Fellow and member of Harvard University’s Board—where he co-chaired the Crown-Belfer Middle East Project—and was Director of Brandeis' Crown Center for Middle Easter Studies. Between 1997 and 2005, he headed the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University and, from 2001-2003, he served as a member of the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters. A new and revised edition of his seminal textbook, ARABS AND ISRAELIS: CONFLICT AND PEACEMAKING IN THE MIDDLE EAST, co-authored with Abdel Monem Said Aly and Khalil Shikaki, was published by Bloomsbury Academic in September 2022.
Shai Feldman
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Dan Formosa
Dan consults with companies and organizations worldwide on design and innovation. He holds degrees in design, ergonomics and biomechanics. In addition to his consulting, he co-founded 4B, a design collective focusing on opportunities for brands to better connect with the world’s almost-4-billion females. He also co-founded the Masters in Branding program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Dan created BASEBALL FIELD GUIDE with Paul Hamburger, an award-winning graphic designer. The book serves as an essential tool for both the baseball fanatic and novice. It has been published in the United States, Taiwan and Korea. The most recent edition was published by The Experiment in 2016, and updated in 2019. An updated and revised fourth edition published in April 2023.
Dan Formosa
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MEAGAN FRANCIS
Meagan Francis writes about family and motherhood. She contributes regularly to magazines and websites, including Parenting, Parents, Fit Pregnancy, American Baby, Disney’s Family.com, and Pregnancy, and writes a pregnancy blog for WEtv.com. Francis also writes about travel and lifestyle (focusing on the Midwest), health and mind-body wellness for magazines such as Natural Health, Yoga Journal, AAA Living, and Michigan BLUE. Meagan and her book, TABLE FOR EIGHT: RAISING A LARGE FAMILY IN A SMALL-FAMILY WORLD, were featured in the New York Times Style Section. She currently hosts the Mom Hour podcast, which has gone on to become a top-rated show in Apple’s Parenting category, and has been downloaded over 5 million times.
MEAGAN FRANCIS
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MALCOLM FRIEDBERG
Malcolm Friedberg is the Chief Marketing Officer of a Silicon Valley company and author of WHY WE'LL WIN: THE LEFT'S LEADING VOICES ARGUE THE CASE FOR AMERICA'S TOUGHEST ISSUES and WHY WE'LL WIN: THE RIGHT'S LEADING VOICES ARGUE THE CASE FOR AMERICA'S TOUGHEST ISSUES. In 2006, with a fulltime position as a marketing executive, he graduated from Loyola Law School’s evening program and is now licensed to practice law in the state of California. He is currently working on his first novel, a political thriller involving the murder of a Supreme Court Justice.
MALCOLM FRIEDBERG
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Paul Hamburger
Paul Hamburger, originally from New York City, is a recent transplant to sunny Los Angeles, where he works as a creative director. Growing up in the streets of Brooklyn, Paul was an accomplished player of stoopball. As a Mets fan, he is bitter and resentful toward the relative success of other local baseball organizations. He lives in the past, nostalgic for the glory days of the mid‑eighties. Paul created BASEBALL FIELD GUIDE with Dan Formosa, an award-winning industrial designer. The book serves as an essential tool for both the baseball fanatic and novice. It has been published in the United States, Taiwan and Korea. The new, revised third edition was published by The Experiment in 2016, and updated again in 2019. An updated and revised fourth edition published in April 2023.
Paul Hamburger
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Brenda Horrigan
Brenda L. Horrigan’s Russia obsession started in a high school language class and led to stints as a Soviet specialist at CIA, the State Department and SAIC. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Russian area studies and a doctorate in political theory and comparative politics. The Faulkner-Wisdom International Creative Writing Competition named her first novel to its 2017 novel-in-progress shortlist. She’s published in scholarly journals like Demokratizatsiya and the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Research Report and also in lifestyle magazines including La Vie Claire, Cape & Island Homes, and Martha’s Vineyard Magazine. A Navy brat born on the island of Oahu, Brenda now lives on Martha’s Vineyard and is a senior managing editor for an international IT media corporation and she is at work on a novel that incorporates much of what she learned as a Soviet analyst at the CIA.
Brenda Horrigan
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Randall Horton
Randall Horton is the recipient of a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship in Literature, the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award, the Bea Gonzalez Poetry Award, and the Great Lakes College Association New Writers Award for Creative Nonfiction. He has been interviewed for on Fox News, NPR, CTNPR, CSPAN, the New Haven Register and countless journals, magazines, and radio shows. He sits on the Advisory Board of Pen America’s Pen Prison Writing Program. In 2018-2019 Randall was selected as Poet-in-Residence for the Civil Rights Corps in Washington DC, which is a non-profit organization dedicated to challenging systemic injustice in the American legal system. Randall has toured, conducted workshops and lectured at numerous adult and juvenile detention centers across the nation to provide encouragement and hope for those entangled within the legal system. He is very interested in eradicating the language of incarceration that tends to re-criminalize those entangled in the legal system. Currently, Dr. Horton is the only tenured Full Professor at a United States university or college who has seven felony convictions. He is a member of the experimental performance group Heroes Are Gang Leaders which received the 2018 American Book Award in Oral Literature and their latest musical project, The Baraka Sessions, was named best vocal jazz album by NPR in 2019. Randall’s latest collection of poetry, {#289-128}, was published by the University of Kentucky Press in September 2020 and won an American Book Award. His memoir-in-essays, DEAD WEIGHT, which chronicles his improbable turn-around from drug smuggler to tenured professor and explores how the weight of felony convictions never leaves the returning citizen, was published as a lead title from Northwestern University Press in February 2022. Dr. Horton is a Professor of English at the University of New Haven.
Randall Horton
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Uzma Jalaluddin
Uzma Jalaluddin is a critically acclaimed and internationally bestselling author, playwright, and educator. Her forthcoming MUCH ADO ABOUT NADA is a second-chance romance inspired by Jane Austen’s Persuasion, and THREE HOLIDAYS AND A WEDDING is a multi-faith holiday romcom co-written with Marissa Stapley. Her debut novel, AYESHA AT LAST was a Goodreads Choice Award Finalist, Cosmopolitan UK Book of the Year and Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2019. Her second novel, HANA KHAN CARRIES ON was named a Best Romance by the Washington Post, and is currently in development for film by Amazon Studios and Mindy Kaling. Her debut play THE RISHTA premiered in Montreal at the Centaur Theatre in Spring 2023. Uzma is a former contributor to The Toronto Star, and has written for The Atlantic. She lives near Toronto, Canada, with her husband and two sons, where she also teaches high school.
Uzma Jalaluddin
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Dahr Jamail
Dahr Jamail, recipient of the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Award for Journalism, is an independent journalist who reports extensively from the Middle East. He is best known for his uncompromised reporting on the human cost of the Iraq war for the Iraqi people and American soldiers, the focus of his first two books, BEYOND THE GREEN ZONE: DISPATCHES FROM AN UNEMBEDDED JOURNALIST IN OCCUPIED IRAQ, and THE WILL TO RESIST: SOLDIERS WHO REFUSE TO FIGHT IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN. His articles have appeared in The Independent, The Nation, Foreign Policy in Focus and many other national and international publications. Jamail is now based in Doha, Qatar, working as an Online News Producer for Al Jazeera English.
Dahr Jamail
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Tatiana Johnson-Boria
Tatiana (she/her) is the author of the forthcoming poetry collection NOCTURNE IN JOY (2023). She’s an educator and expert facilitator who uses her writing practice to dismantle racism, reckon with trauma, and to cultivate healing. She’s an award-winning writer who’s received distinguished fellowships from Tin House, The Massachusetts Cultural Council, The MacDowell Residency, and others. Tatiana completed her MFA in Creative Writing at Emerson College and teaches at Emerson College, GrubStreet, Catapult, and others. Find her work in or forthcoming at Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, Pleiades, among others.
Tatiana Johnson-Boria
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Max Karpov
Max Karpov is a Washington-based novelist and investigative journalist. A longtime Russia-watcher, Max spent several years researching and writing THE PLOT TO KILL PUTIN (published in hardcover as THE CHILDREN'S GAME), a geo-political thriller novel about current-day U.S.-Russia relations, released in March 2018 by Arcade Publishing. He has written features for The Washington Post, The Miami Herald and elsewhere. Max Karpov also writes mysteries as James Lilliefors.
Max Karpov
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Mandla Langa
Mandla Langa was born in 1950 in Durban. He went into exile in 1976 and has lived in Botswana, Mozambique, Angola, Hungary, Zambia and the United Kingdom. In 1980 Mandla won Drum Magazine’s Africa-wide story contest and in 1991 was awarded the Arts Council of Great Britain bursary for creative writing. Mandla was the Cultural Representative of the ANC in the UK and Western Europe. He has been a columnist for various newspapers and was the Convenor of the Task Group on Government Communications (COMTASK) in 1997, which restructured apartheid’s communication systems. From 1999 to 2005 he chaired the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA). In 2007, he received the National Order of Ikhamanga in Silver for his literary and journalistic contribution to democracy. In 1999 to 2000, he wrote the book of the musical, MILESTONES, which featured music by Hugh Masekela. His published works include TENDERNESS OF BLOOD (1987), A RAINBOW ON A PAPER SKY (1989), THE NAKED SONG AND OTHER STORIES (1997), THE MEMORY OF STONES (2000), THE LOST COLOURS OF THE CAMELEON (2008), which won the 2009 Commonwealth Prize for Best Book in the African Region and THE TEXTURE OF SHADOWS (2014). He co-authored DARE NOT LINGER with Nelson Mandela’s archives (2017) and was a fellow with STIAS (Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies.) His latest novel, THE LOST LANGUAGE OF THE SOUL, was released in 2021. He is currently at work on a new novel. A recipient of honorary doctorates from the Universities of Fort Hare and Wits respectively, Mandla sits on various boards such as Multichoice’s Phuthuma Nathi and Primedia and is a trustee of Media Monitoring Africa. He is married to June Josephs and they have four children.
Mandla Langa
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Jerry Lembcke
Jerry Lembcke, Associate Professor of Sociology at the College of the Holy Cross, is the author of CNN’S TAILWIND TALE: INSIDE VIETNAM'S LAST GREAT MYTH and THE SPITTING IMAGE: MYTH, MEMORY, AND THE LEGACY OF VIETNAM. His most recent book, HANOI JANE: WAR, SEX, AND FANTASIES OF BETRAYAL, looks at the reality of Jane Fonda’s civic engagement and representation during the Vietnam War years.
Jerry Lembcke
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James Lilliefors
James Lilliefors is author of the mystery novels THE PSALMIST (2014) and THE TEMPEST (2015), both set in the Chesapeake Bay community of Tidewater County and featuring Pastor Luke Bowers and homicide investigator Amy Hunter. Lilliefors is also author of two critically acclaimed geo-political thriller novels, VIRAL (2012, audio edition 2016) and THE LEVIATHAN EFFECT (2013), which feature the Mallory brothers, as well as an earlier mystery novel, BANANAVILLE. He’s currently at work on a third Bowers/Hunter novel. Lilliefors is a former newspaper editor and award-winning reporter who has written for The Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, Miami Herald and Boston Globe. He was born in Los Angeles, grew up in the Washington, D.C. area and currently lives in South Florida, where he worked for many years as head writer at the Philharmonic Center/Naples Museum of Art (Artis-Naples).
James Lilliefors
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Yvonne Lin
Yvonne Lin likes to make things and people’s lives better through design. She is a founder of 4B Collective, Wondernik and the Femme Den. She has designed numerous award winning and best-selling products, messages, and services for clients such as Nike, Under Armour, Lego, Hasbro, Proctor & Gamble, Pepsi, Nissan and American Express. She is the inventor on more than 20 patents. She was named a Master of Design by Fast Company. Her work has been featured in numerous publications including The New York Times, I.D. Magazine and GOOD. In addition, she shares her knowledge by writing for Fast Company and teaching at Parsons. She also spends a lot of time skiing, cooking and dressing up her small kids in a variety of unwieldy and fuzzy outfits. Her children’s book, THE A-Z OF WONDER WOMEN, was published simultaneously in the U.S. and U.K. in December 2018.
Yvonne Lin
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Kanan Makiya
Kanan Makiya is the former Sylvia K. Hassenfeld Professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at Brandeis University. Born in Baghdad, he left Iraq to study architecture at M.I.T, later joining Makiya Associates to design and build projects in the Middle East. In 1981 he began to write, at first under the pseudonym, Samir al-Khalil. His titles include the nonfiction works REPUBLIC OF FEAR: THE POLITICS OF MODERN IRAQ (1989), THE MONUMENT (1991), and CRUELTY AND SILENCE: WAR, TYRANNY, UPRISING, AND THE ARAB WORLD (1993), as well as the novel, THE ROCK: A SEVENTH-CENTURY TALE OF JERUSALEM (2001). Makiya has written for The Independent, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement and The Times. In 2003 he founded the Iraq Memory Foundation, a NGO based in Baghdad and the US dedicated to issues of remembrance, violence and identity formation. Makiya’s latest novel, THE ROPE, about what went wrong in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein, was released in 2016 by Pantheon Books. He is currently working on a book about cruelty.
Kanan Makiya
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Chloe Maxmin
Chloe Maxmin is a Maine State Senator and former Representative for the rural Maine House District 88. She ran for the Maine House of Representatives in 2018 in her hometown, winning her primary with 80% of the vote and the General Election with 52.4% of the vote, making her the first Democrat to win the District 88 seat and the youngest state representative in the country. Chloe’s expertise and focus is on building a durable, values-based movement — with a particular focus on rural regions — to combat the climate crisis. Chloe was raised on her family’s farm in Nobleboro, Maine, and has been a community organizer for 14 years. Chloe co-founded Divest Harvard – a campaign calling on Harvard University to divest from fossil fuels that ultimately drew 70,000 supporters. In 2015, after graduation from Harvard, Chloe returned to Maine. Prior to that, Chloe founded First Here, Then Everywhere to empower youth climate activists. Her life-long climate activism has won her broad recognition. She is the recipient of the Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes and the Brower Youth Award, she was named a “Green Hero” by Rolling Stone and recognized by the Washington Post, CNN and many other news outlets for her leadership. Chloe's book, DIRT ROAD REVIVAL, a long-term framework for rural political organizing drawing from on-the-ground experience engaging with rural moderate voters in Democratic campaigns, co-authored with Canyon Woodward, was published by Beacon Press in May 2022. You can follow her on Twitter at @chloemaxmin.
Chloe Maxmin
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STUART HOWELL MILLER
Stuart Howell Miller is the author of the autobiographical PRAYER WARRIORS: THE TRUE STORY OF A GAY SON, HIS FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIAN FAMILY, AND THEIR BATTLE FOR HIS SOUL. He is the former president of the media and communications firm Bold New World and was previously the director of public affairs for the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center. Currently, Stuart Miller is the CEO of Growing Generations, LLC., a fertility cryobank in Los Angeles.
STUART HOWELL MILLER
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Keletso Mopai
Keletso Mopai is a storyteller who was born and raised in a small township in South Africa, Limpopo. Her debut collection of short stories titled IF YOU KEEP DIGGING was published in 2019 in South Africa by Blackbird Books. She was selected as one of the 2020 Mail & Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans. Her work is published in numerous journals such as Catapult, The Johannesburg Review of Books, The Temz Review, Fresh Ink, Omenana, Lolwe, and anthologies such as Joburg Noir. Her work mostly focuses on social and political issues that affect the ordinary and marginilised. Keletso studied geology and chemistry, and has a Bachelor of Science honours degree in Geology. She is currently working on her debut novel.
Keletso Mopai
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Katherine Nichols
Katherine Nichols is the author of DEEP WATER (Simon Pulse, 2017), optioned for screen adaptation by Sony Pictures. As a staff writer and freelancer for over 20 years, she has written countless articles for publications such as the New York Times Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle, Harvard Magazine, and the Associated Press. She’s also written, co-produced, and hosted travel and sports features for television. Katherine earned an M.B.A. from the Yale School of Management, and a B.A. and master’s degree from the University of California at Los Angeles, where she graduated in three years and was a member of the intercollegiate cross-country and track teams. An athlete since age 7, she has competed in numerous running, swimming, and triathlon events, and is a five-time qualifier and finisher of the Ironman Triathlon World Championship in Kona, Hawaii. Her new novel, UNDER THE SURFACE, has been optioned for television by Breaking Bad’s Betsy Brandt.
Katherine Nichols
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David Niose
David Niose is an attorney, activist, and author of NONBELIEVER NATION: THE RISE OF SECULAR AMERICANS (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). He is currently the legal director of the American Humanist Association, whose mission is to advance humanism, an ethical and life-affirming philosophy free of belief in any gods and other supernatural forces. Previously, he served as president of the Washington-based Secular Coalition for America, a group that lobbies on behalf of church-state separation and the rights of America’s atheists, agnostics, and humanists. As a lawyer David has advocated for secular government and the rights of nonbelievers in the courts, and was lead counsel in a major case heard by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in the fall of 2013. His most recent book, FIGHTING BACK THE RIGHT: RECLAIMING AMERICA FROM THE ATTACK ON REASON, traces the emergence of a new progressive coalition committed to fighting for rational public policy and reversing the damage inflicted by decades of conservative dominance.
David Niose
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Martha Riva Palacio Obón
Martha Riva Palacio Obón is a Mexican author of novels, poetry, and television for children of all ages. She won the 2011 Premio Barco de Vapor for MERMAIDS DREAM OF TRILOBITES (which was also selected in 2013 for the White Ravens International Children's Library Catalog), as well as the 2014 Premio Hispanoamericano de Poesía para Niños for her illustrated poetry book LUNÁTICA. Her bilingual picture book BESO / KISS was published in the US by Scholastic in 2017 and in Malta in 2018. Her book KITSUNEBI, FUEGO DE ZORRO was included in the 2020 White Ravens International Children's Library Catalog. Martha is a current nominee for the 2024 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award. She has a degree in psychology. The English translation of MERMAIDS DREAM OF TRILOBITES was published by Bloomsbury in October 2023 as SECRETS WE TELL THE SEA.
Martha Riva Palacio Obón
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Lexi Pandell
Lexi Pandell is a writer from Oakland, California. Her short stories have been published by Wired, New Ohio Review, Salt Hill, and The Normal School, among others. She was a 2020 Writing by Writers fellow and, in 2022, she won the Editors’ Prize in Fiction from New Ohio Review. Her background in journalism has brought her bylines with dozens of outlets, including The New York Times, The New Republic, and Wired. She is an alumna of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, where her thesis won the Felker Award for Excellence in Long Form Print Journalism and was published by The Atlantic. She is at work on a novel.
Lexi Pandell
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Martin Philip
Martin Philip is a baker and award-winning author. His book, BREAKING BREAD: A BAKER'S JOURNEY HOME IN 75 RECIPES, is a Wall Street Journal bestseller and was awarded the 2018 Vermont Book Award as well as the best cookbook of 2018 by the New York Book Industry Guild. He is a MacDowell Fellow and a graduate of Oberlin Conservatory.
Martin Philip
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Jodi Picoult
Jodi Picoult is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of twenty-eight novels, including WISH YOU WERE HERE, THE BOOK OF TWO WAYS, A SPARK OF LIGHT, SMALL GREAT THINGS, LEAVING TIME, THE STORYTELLER, LONE WOLF, SING YOU HOME, HOUSE RULES, HANDLE WITH CARE, CHANGE OF HEART, and MY SISTER'S KEEPER, and, with daughter Samantha van Leer, two young adult novels, BETWEEN THE LINES and OFF THE PAGE. Picoult’s books have been translated into thirty-four languages in thirty-five countries. Four novels — THE PACT, PLAIN TRUTH, THE TENTH CIRCLE, and SALEM FALLS — have been made into television movies. MY SISTER'S KEEPER was a film released from New Line Cinema, with Nick Cassavetes directing and Cameron Diaz starring. SMALL GREAT THINGS has been optioned for motion picture adaptation by Amblin Entertainment, and WISH YOU WERE HERE has been optioned by Netflix. Picoult’s two YA novels have been adapted and developed by the authors into a musical entitled "Between The Lines" which had its world premiere in September 2017 at the Kansas City Repertory Theater and off-Broadway premier in July 2022. Her most recent novel, MAD HONEY, co-authored with Jennifer Finney Boylan, remains a New York Times bestseller. She is at work on a new novel to be published in late 2024.
Jodi Picoult
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Mark Pryor
Mark Pryor is the author of the Henri Lefort series set in Paris in the 1940s. The first, DIE AROUND SUNDOWN, was published in August 2022 and the second, THE DARK EDGE OF NIGHT, was published in August 2023. A third installment in the series is forthcoming from St. Martin's in 2025. Mark is also the author of the Hugo Marston series, set in Paris, London, and Barcelona. And he has two books set in Austin, HOLLOW MAN and DOMINIC. Away from books, Mark is a retired prosecutor, and now a partner at a criminal defense firm in Austin, Texas. He began his career as a journalist in England, where his beat was also crime-related: the police blotter. He is a guest analyst on CourtTV and he has appeared on CBS News's 48 Hours, NBC's Dateline, and Discovery Channel's Discovery ID: Cold Blood.
Mark Pryor
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Jesselyn Radack
Jesselyn Radack heads the Whistleblower and Source Protection Program (WHISPeR) at ExposeFacts. As National Security and Human Rights Director of WHISPeR, her work focuses on the issues of secrecy, surveillance, torture and drone attacks, where she has been at the forefront of challenging the government’s unprecedented “war on whistleblowers.” Among her clients are seven national security and intelligence community employees who have been investigated, charged, or prosecuted under the Espionage Act for allegedly mishandling classified information, including Edward Snowden, Thomas Drake, and John Kiriakou. She also represents clients bringing whistleblower retaliation complaints in federal court and other administrative bodies. Previously, she served for seven years as National Security and Human Rights Director at the Government Accountability Project, the nation’s leading whistleblower protection organization, on the DC Bar Legal Ethics Committee and worked at the Justice Department for seven years, first as a trial attorney and later as a legal ethics advisor.
Jesselyn Radack
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Heidi Raykeil
Heidi Raykeil’s first book entitled CONFESSIONS OF A NAUGHTY MOMMY — based on her popular LiteraryMama.com blog “Sex in the Suburbs” — was featured on the Today Show. Her second, LOVE IN THE TIME OF COLIC, co-authored with Ian Kerner, presents a sort of Adam’s Rib approach to the dialogue between couples regarding their relationship while raising young children.
Heidi Raykeil
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Holly Raynes
Holly Raynes was inspired to write NATION OF ENEMIES by a family member who was a Titanic survivor and another who escaped Poland in World War II. Combining lessons from the past with a healthy fear of the modern landscape, this novel was born. A longtime member of Boston’s writing community, she has a history of trying anything once (acting, diving out of a plane, white water rafting, and parenting). Writing and raising children seem to have stuck.
Holly Raynes
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ABDEL MONEM SAID ALY
Said Aly is Chairman of the Board, CEO, Director of the Regional Center for Strategic Studies in Cairo and Chairman of Al-Masry Al-Youm, a leading Arabic language daily in Egypt. He previously served as President of the Al-Ahram Center for Political & Strategic Studies in Cairo and Chairman of the Board and CEO of the Al-Ahram Newspaper and Publishing House. A new and revised edition of his seminal textbook, ARABS & ISRAELIS: CONFLICT AND PEACEMAKING IN THE MIDDLE EAST, co-authored with Shai Feldman and Khalil Shikaki, was published by Bloomsbury Academic in September 2022.
ABDEL MONEM SAID ALY
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Judith D. Schwartz
Judith D. Schwartz, a longtime freelance writer whose work has appeared in a wide array of publications from Glamour and Redbook to the Christian Science Monitor and New York Times, lives with her family in Southern Vermont. The author of several books, including TELL ME NO LIES: HOW TO FACE THE TRUTH AND BUILD A LOVING MARRIAGE (co-authored) and THE THERAPIST'S NEW CLOTHES, Schwartz has an MA in Counseling Psychology and an MS from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Her book COWS SAVE THE PLANET, a groundbreaking book on the pivotal role soil plays in our ecology and economy, a call to action, and an antidote to the despair that environmental news so often leaves us with (Chelsea Green, 2013), was named one of 2013’s top ten books on sustainability by Booklist. Her book WATER IN PLAIN SIGHT was published by St. Martin’s Press in 2016, and in paperback by Chelsea Green in 2019. Her newest book, THE REINDEER CHRONICLES, was published in August 2020 by Chelsea Green.
Judith D. Schwartz
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Liese O'Halloran Schwarz
Liese O'Halloran Schwarz, an emergency-room doctor, published her first novel, a Southern mystery entitled NEAR CANAAN, while in medical school. Her next novel, THE POSSIBLE WORLD — which traces the converging lives of a young boy who witnesses a brutal murder, the ER doctor who tends to him, and an older woman guarding her long buried secrets — was published in June 2018 by Scribner. Her newest book, WHAT COULD BE SAVED, an Indie Next Pick, was published by Atria in January 2021. She is at work on her next novel.
Liese O'Halloran Schwarz
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Shalash
Shalash the Iraqi is the author of some one hundred unsparingly sarcastic and witty blog posts written in the colloquial Arabic dialect spoken in Iraq, and specifically in Al-Thawrah City, the huge sprawling Sh’ite Baghdad suburb. Immediately following his first post on July 27, 2005 under his pseuydonym, Shalash became the talk of Iraq. His posts were copied and talked about, told, retold, and even plagiarized as fake Shalashs started to appear on the internet and in the media. According to the celebrated Paris based novelist, In’aam Kachachi, the relatively few Iraqis who had access to the posts (25,000 internet users in 2003) “exchanged them by email, and. . .began their mornings with them. With lighting speed, Shalash’s humor shot out from Thawra City and reached Sydney, California, Dubai, Stockholm, Auckland, and Damascus—all the countries Iraqi immigrants settled in.” While Shalash’s identity remains a public mystery to this day, the posts he authored have since been translated into English and were published as SHALASH THE IRAQI with And Other Stories in May 2023.
Shalash
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Peter Shapiro
Although Peter Shapiro was trained as a labor historian at Berkeley in the early 1970s, he left academia and pursued a career with the Postal Service. When not moving the mail, he worked as a labor journalist. For ten years he was labor editor of Unity newspaper; subsequently he edited two union newspapers—the Oakland Postal Worker in the early 1990s and, following that, six years as editor of the B-Mike, organ of the National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 82 in Portland, Oregon. The B-Mike received numerous awards during his tenure as editor, including recognition in 2007 from the national union as the outstanding branch publication. Shapiro’s debut, SONG OF THE STUBBORN ONE THOUSAND, a groundbreaking history of one of the most significant strikes in American labor history, was published by Haymarket Books in 2016.
Peter Shapiro
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KHALIL SHIKAKI
Director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah, Khalil Shikaki is a world-renowned expert on Palestinian public opinion and a widely published author. Since 1993, Dr. Shikaki has conducted more than 200 polls among Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and, since 2000, he has conducted dozens of joint polls among Palestinians and Israelis. A new and revised edition of his seminal textbook, ARABS & ISRAELIS: CONFLICT AND PEACEMAKING IN THE MIDDLE EAST, co-authored with Shai Feldman and Abdel Monem Said Aly, was published by Bloomsbury Academic in September 2022.
KHALIL SHIKAKI
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Naghmeh Sohrabi
Naghmeh Sohrabi is Charles (Corky) Goodman Professor of Middle East History and Director for Research at the Crown Center Institute for Middle Eastern Studies at Brandeis University. Sohrabi grew up in Tehran and moved to the United States, where she attended MIT and Harvard. She is a recipient of the Berlin Prize and is currently working on a book about Iranian women from an insider’s perspective.
Naghmeh Sohrabi
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Norman Solomon
Norman Solomon, an award-winning and nationally syndicated columnist on media and politics, wrote the weekly “Media Beat” column from 1992-2009. His most recent publications include MADE LOVE GOT WAR: CLOSE ENCOUNTERS WITH AMERICA'S WARFARE STATE, WAR MADE EASY: HOW PRESIDENTS AND PUNDITS KEEP SPINNING US TO DEATH, and TARGET IRAQ: WHAT THE NEWS MEDIA DIDN'T TELL YOU (co-authored with Reese Erlich). Solomon’s articles and op-eds have appeared in a wide range of publications, including the Washington Post, LA Times, International Herald Tribune, Newsday, New York Times, and USA Today and he has been a guest on many popular media outlets, including PBS, CNN, Fox News, C-SPAN and NPR. Solomon is also the founder and Executive Director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, a national consortium of policy researchers and analysts. His new book, WAR MADE INVISIBLE: HOW AMERICA HIDES THE HUMAN TOLL OF ITS MILITARY MACHINE, is forthcoming from The New Press in June 2023.
Norman Solomon
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Jeffrey Sterling
Jeffrey Sterling is a former CIA officer (who sued the spy agency for discrimination), and graduate of Washington University School of Law. His memoir, UNWANTED SPY — detailing his early childhood in Missouri to joining the CIA and to his recent incarceration in a Federal penitentiary where he was sent unjustly for almost three years on the false charge of leaking information to journalist James Risen — was released in October 2019 from Bold Type Books.
Jeffrey Sterling
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Tina Sutton
Tina Sutton, a writer, researcher, and journalist for over 30 years, is currently a fashion columnist and feature writer for The Boston Globe. An expert on style, consumer, and lifestyle trends, she also co-authored two books geared to designers and graphic artists: COLOR HARMONY COMPENDIUM: A COMPLETE COLOR REFERENCE FOR DESIGNERS OF ALL TYPES and THE COMPLETE COLOR HARMONY: EXPERT COLOR INFORMATION FOR PROFESSIONAL COLOR RESULTS, which has been re-printed in nine languages. Tina Sutton’s THE MAKING OF MARKOVA was published in August 2013 in the US and the UK and was widely praised.
Tina Sutton
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Rebecca Thompson
Rebecca N. Thompson, MD, MSc, is a family medicine and public health physician who specializes in women’s and children’s health. She is currently working on a community memoir that weaves her own story of multiple pregnancy losses and life-threatening complications into the narratives of her patients, colleagues, and friends as they face the unexpected in motherhood and medicine together. She lives in Portland, Oregon, where she spends her free time wandering through green spaces, playing unreasonably complicated board games, repurposing found objects, and accompanying her husband and children on all-weather adventures with too much gear and too little sleep. Please visit her website to learn more about her professional background and current projects, including THE UNEXPECTED: A COMMUNITY MEMOIR OF MOTHERHOOD, MEDICINE, RESILIENCE, AND HEALING, forthcoming from Harper One.
Rebecca Thompson
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James Whitfield Thomson
Born and raised on the North Side of Pittsburgh, Jim Thomson scored enough touchdowns to catch the eye of college coaches in his senior year of high school but, sensing that he was not destined for football glory, chose to go to Harvard on a scholarship with no athletic requirements. Following two tours of duty in Vietnam, he completed a Ph.D. in American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and spent a year teaching at the University of Miami before joining a start-up company in Atlanta. Thomson, who now lives in a Victorian farmhouse west of Boston, was awarded a grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and his story, “Mr. Spotless,” won a national short story contest. Sourcebooks published his first novel, LIES YOU WANTED TO HEAR, in the fall of 2013, currently in development for the screen. Thomson is currently writing a based on the mystery of his 24-year-old sister’s death by gunshot, ruled a suicide by the LAPD in 1974.
James Whitfield Thomson
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Kasey Thornton
Kasey Thornton writes literary fiction about the culture of the American South with a focus on religion, family, mental illness, abuse, and grief. She earned her BA in English from Elon University in North Carolina, and attended both the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and North Carolina State University for her MFA in Fiction. During this time, she had the opportunity to study with Wilton Barnhardt, Nina de Gramont, John Kessel, Cassie Kircher, Rebecca Lee, Jill McCorkle, Drew Perry, and others. Thornton lives with fellow author Kevin Kauffmann in Durham County, NC, where members of her family have resided for over two hundred years. Her work has been featured in the Masters Review, Colonnades Literary & Art Journal, and Apeiron Review. Her debut novel, LORD THE ONE YOU LOVE IS SICK, depicting one group of individuals’ efforts to live a modern life in a traditional Southern town, was published by Ig Publishing in November 2020. The novel was featured on The Million‘s Most Anticipated List and was longlisted for the Crook’s Corner Book Prize.
Kasey Thornton
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Kimm Topping
Kimm Topping, Ed.M. (they/them/theirs) is a writer, educator, community organizer, and queer historian. Their work values youth voice, leadership, and activism. Kimm has led workshops and trainings with tens of thousands of people across Massachusetts and nationally. By sharing stories and providing folks with tools to authentically support youth, Kimm believes we can create safer and more welcoming environments for students, educators, and families. They are passionate about queer history and opportunities for LGBTQ+ young people to learn the histories of their communities. Kimm's first YA non-fiction book, GENERATION QUEER, which highlights the stories of modern LGBTQ+ youth activists, is forthcoming from Tu Books/Lee & Low. Kimm is also an Adjunct Lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education focused on gender and sexuality. You can find Kimm on Instagram @kimmwrites or on their website.
Kimm Topping
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Samantha van Leer
Samantha van Leer is the co-author of BETWEEN THE LINES and OFF THE PAGE. She attended Vassar College, where she was a psychology major with a minor in human development. After receiving her Master’s in Education, Samantha taught elementary school in Massachusetts. She now lives in Texas where she is at work on middle grade fiction. Her novel THE ALIEN ZOO, the first in a series, is forthcoming from Pixel+Ink in 2025.
Samantha van Leer
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Spring Warren
A graduate of Black Hills State College in Spearfish, South Dakota with a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of California, Davis, Spring Warren is a longtime painter and furniture maker and an award-winning writer. Her novel TURPENTINE, a sweeping saga of the western frontier in the 1870s, won the bronze medal in ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year for Historic Fiction. In the summer of 2008, Warren decided that she would plow up her family’s Davis, California yard, create a garden and consume at least 75% of her food from what she grew. The result: THE QUARTER-ACRE FARM, a spirited narrative about family, food, and the incredible gratification that accompanies self-sufficiency, peppered with historical useful gardening advice and delicious, easy-to-follow and healthy recipes. Warren is now working on a novel about xenophobia in the American heartland in the interwar period.
Spring Warren
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Karen Wilfrid
Karen Wilfrid is seventh-grade English teacher and author of the middle grade novel JUST LIZZIE. She specializes in fiction, essays, and teaching middle schoolers the finer points of comma usage. After receiving her degree in Creative Writing and Spanish from Oberlin College, she taught English in Spain for two years on a Fulbright grant before settling in Massachusetts. Her work has appeared in Cicada magazine, Publishers Weekly, and Embark literary journal. Her first novel, JUST LIZZIE, was published by Clarion/HarperCollins in November 2023 and was named a Gold Standard Selection by the Junior Library Guild.
Karen Wilfrid
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Canyon Woodward
Canyon Woodward, a native of the Appalachian Mountain region of North Carolina, is a political campaign manager and climate activist. Canyon graduated from Harvard College in 2015. He has since worked on a number of political campaigns, while also organizing Harvard alumni to pressure the University to divest from fossil fuel companies. In 2018 Canyon was the Campaign Manager for Chloe Maxmin for Maine House, successfully flipping a rural Republican stronghold blue for the first time ever. Canyon is also an avid long distance trail runner, outdoor educator, and artist. DIRT ROAD REVIVAL, a long-term framework for rural political organizing drawing from on-the-ground experience engaging with rural moderate voters in Democratic campaigns, co-authored with Chloe Maxmin, was published by Beacon Press in May 2022. @canyonwoodward
Canyon Woodward
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Anton Zijderveld
Anton Zijderveld held doctoral degrees in both sociology and philosophy and was Professor Emeritus at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. Among his publications were THE ABSTRACT SOCIETY, ON CLICHÉ'S, REALITY IN A LOOKING GLASS, and IN PRAISE OF DOUBT: HOW TO HAVE CONVICTIONS WITHOUT BECOMING A FANATIC, co-authored with the late Peter Berger. Anton passed away in July 2022.
Anton Zijderveld
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M Jaime Zuckerman
M Jaime Zuckerman is a poet, translator, and educator. She is the author of two chapbooks, LETTERS TO MELVILLE (Ghost Proposal, 2018) and ALONE IN THIS TOGETHER (Dancing Girl Press, 2016), as well as recent or forthcoming poems in Diode, Fairy Tale Review, Foundry, Glass Poetry, Prairie Schooner, Thrush, Vinyl and other journals. She serves as a reader for Sixth Finch and Ploughshares. She grew up in the woods but now lives in Boston, MA. She has just completed a hybrid novel which explores loss, discovery, and resilience through a pair of poetic, post-apocalyptic journeys. Author photo by Adrianne Mathewitz.
M Jaime Zuckerman