Boston book festival
Encyclopedia
The Boston Book Festival is an independent non-profit group based in Cambridge, Massachusetts
, and the name of its main event. The non-profit was founded in 2009 by Deborah Z. Porter, and aims to "celebrate the power of words to stimulate, unite, delight, and inspire by holding an annual event that highlights the importance of literacy, literature, and ideas in our culture."
The annual book festival is a free one-day event, combining a street festival with an array of authors and other literary presenters from around the world. In 2010 some 25,000 people participated in the 12-hour event.
Throughout the year, the Boston Book Festival hosts talks and presentations that cover a range of programming similar to that of the event itself. On April 28, 2011 the BBF hosted a "Science (non) Fiction" event and dinner at the MIT Media Lab
, with talks by scientists Hugh Herr
and Cynthia Breazeal
moderated by Steven Pinker
.
, Old South Church, Trinity Church
, and Back Bay Events Center.
The street festival is hosted on Copley Square
, and usually includes a live music stage, dozens of exhibitors and vendors, and many free participatory activities for attendees and their families – programming and activities for children, writing workshops and contests, and open mic opportunities.
, Anita Diamant
, Andre Dubus III
, Tom Perrotta
, Alicia Silverstone
, and John Hodgman
. Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk
delivered the keynote address in the sanctuary of Old South Church to over 1000 festival-goers.
, Food Network star Tyler Florence
, Boston novelist Dennis Lehane
, Nobel Prize
winners Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen
, Diary of a Wimpy Kid
creator Jeff Kinney
, and Atul Gawande
.
Joyce Carol Oates
closed the festival with a standing-room-only keynote address in the Trinity Church
sanctuary. Attendance at BBF 2010 was 24,000, doubling the size of the crowd from the first year.
This year's festival also celebrated the start of a new literary outreach program in 2010: One City, One Story. This initiative encouraged the greater Boston community to read and discuss a piece of literary fiction by making it readily available. The short story chosen was Tom Perrotta
's "The Smile on Happy Chang's Face," and 30,000 copies were bound, printed, and distributed for free throughout the city's libraries, subway stops, coffee shops, and bookstores. Translations of the story were published on the Festival's website in Spanish, Haitian Creole, Chinese and Portuguese.
.
- poet, essayist, playwright, and teacher; composed and delivered "Praise Song for the Day" at President Obama's inauguration
Steve Almond
- short story writer and novelist, book reviewer for The Boston Globe and L.A. Times; author of Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life
Brunonia Barry- author of The Lace Reader and The Map of True Places
Kate Bernheimer
- founder and editor of Fairy Tale Review, novelist and short story writer; editor of My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me
Lisa Birnbach
- author of the 1980 bestseller The Official Preppy Handbook and, most recently, True Prep: It's a Whole New World
Bill Bryson
- author of A Short History of Nearly Everything, I'm a Stranger Here Myself, and At Home: A Short History of Private Life, among others
Nicholas G. Carr
- writes of the impact of technology on everyday lives; titles include The Big Switch and The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains
Justin Cronin- author of The Summer Guest, Mary and O'Neil, and The Passage; winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Stephen Crane Prize
Alan Dershowitz
- professor at Harvard Law School, author of The Case for Israel and Rights From Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights
Hallie Ephron
- book reviewer, journalist, and novelist; author of Never Tell a Lie and 1001 Books for Every Mood
Haleh Esfandiari
- expert on Middle Eastern women's issues and author of My Prison, My Home: One Woman’s Story of Captivity in Iran
Noah Feldman
- author of Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR's Great Supreme Court Justices and The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State
Joshua Ferris
- short story writer and novelist, author of Then We Came to the End, winner of the 2007 PEN/Hemingway Award, and The Unnamed
Tyler Florence
- Food Network star and host of "Tyler's Ultimate"; author of five bestselling cookbooks including Stirring the Pot and Family Meals
Nick Flynn
- poet, playwright, and memoirist of The Ticking is the Bomb and Another Bullshit Night in Suck City
Atul Gawande
- physician and journalist; author of the New York Times Bestseller The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right
Myla Goldberg
- musician and novelist, author of Bee Season, Wickett's Remedy, and The False Friend
Christina Gonzalez
- news reporter and author of a debut novel The Red Umbrella
Allegra Goodman
- author of Kaaterskill Falls, a National Book Award finalist, Intuition, and most recently The Cookbook Collector
Andrew Gross
- best known for his six collaborations with thriller author James Patterson, also a solo author of Don't Look Twice and Reckless
Jennifer Haigh
- novelist and short story writer, winner of a PEN/L.L. Winship award for her novel Baker Towers and a PEN/Hemingway Award for Mrs. Kimble
James Hirsch- author of Hurricane: The Miraculous Journey of Rubin Carter and Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend
Tony Hiss- staff writer at The New Yorker; author of The Experience of Place and In Motion: The Experience of Travel
A. M. Homes
- short story writer and novelist; author of The End of Alice, This Book Will Save Your Life, and The Mistress's Daughter
Ann Hood
- author of thirteen books including the novels The Red Thread, The Knitting Circle, and the memoir Comfort: A Journey Through Grief
Gish Jen
- novelist and short story writer; author of Typical American, Mona in the Promised Land, The Love Wife, and World and Town
Steven Berlin Johnson
- contributing editor at Wired and popular science author of The Invention of Air and Where Good Ideas Come From
Kevin Kelly- founding executive editor of Wired and author of Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World and What Technology Wants
Jeff Kinney
- game designer, cartoonist, and author of the children's Diary of a Wimpy Kid series
David Kirkpatrick
- former senior editor for Internet and Technology at Fortune magazine and author of The Facebook Effect
Kathryn Lasky
- Newbury Medal-winning author of more than 100 children's books including installments in The Royal Diaries series and the bestselling Guardians of Ga'Hoole series
Dennis Lehane
- bestselling Boston native author of A Drink Before the War, Shutter Island, The Given Day, and Moonlight Mile
Marianne Leone Cooper
- film and television actress most popular for her role on The Sopranos; author of the memoir Knowing Jesse: A Mother's Story of Grief, Grace, and Everyday Bliss
Kelly Link
- author of short story collections Stranger Things Happen, Magic for Beginners, and Pretty Monsters; co-manager for Small Beer Press with husband Gavin Grant
Simon Mawer
- author of Swimming to Ithaca, The Gospel of Judas, The Fall, and The Glass Room- a finalist for the 2009 Man Booker Prize
Mark Moffett- regular contributor to National Geographic and author of Adventures Among Ants
Dambisa Moyo
- economist and New York Times bestselling author of Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is a Better Way For Africa
Joyce Carol Oates
- author of Them, winner of the National Book Award in 1970, and Pulitzer Prize-nominated works Black Water, What I Loved For, and Blonde; her latest book is Sourland
Jane O'Connor- author of more than thirty children's books including the New York Times bestselling Fancy Nancy series
Jay Parini
- poet, novelist, and critic who has written or edited over forty books; author of The Last Station, now a major motion picture
Tom Perrotta
- bestselling author of multiple novels and the short story "The Smile on Happy Chang's Face," the selected story for the inaugural One City, One Story program
David Rakoff
- contributor to NPR's "This American Life," writer-at-large for GQ and author of Half Empty and Don't Get Too Comfortable, among others
Nir Rosen
- freelance journalist focusing on the relationship between the US and Iraq; written articles for The New Yorker, Time Magazine, and Atlantic Monthly
Moshe Safdie
- architect and urban designer of buildings such as the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore and Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport
Michael Sandel
- Professor at Harvard University and author of Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?
Stacy Schiff
- biographer and author of Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov), winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize, and most recently Cleopatra: A Life
Kathryn Schulz
- author of Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error and blogger for "The Wrong Stuff" through Slate
Amartya Sen
- awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics; author of numerous books, most recently The Idea of Justice
David Shields
- author of The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead and Reality Hunger: A Manifesto
Brando Skyhorse
- author of The Madonnas of Echo Park, winner of the 2011 PEN/Hemingway Award
Joseph Stiglitz- winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics; author of Making Globalization Work and Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy
Ellen Doré Watson
- poet, translator, and teacher; collections of poetry include This Sharpening, Ladder Music, and Dogged Hearts
Kevin Young
- award-winning author of six books of poetry including Dear Darkness and Jelly Roll: A Blues which was a finalist for the National Book Award
- writer, columnist, radio host, and novelist; author of Turn of the Century and Heyday
Tom Ashbrook
- journalist and broadcaster, host of NPR's On Point
Jack Beatty
- senior editor of The Atlantic and analyst for NPR's On Point
Ken Burns
- documentary director and producer of such films as National Parks, The War, Baseball, and The Civil War
Dana Cameron
- archaeologist and crime novelist; author of Ashes and Bones
Stephen L. Carter
- professor of law, columnist, and bestselling novelist; author of The Emperor of Ocean Park
Harvey Cox
- theologian and author of The Future of Faith and When Jesus Came to Harvard
Anita Diamant
- New York Times bestselling author of The Red Tent and The Last Days of Dogtown
Andre Dubus III
- author of House of Sand and Fog, winner the National Book Award and an Oprah Book Club pick
Joseph Finder
- author of thrillers such as High Crimes and Killer Instinct
Ethan Gilsdorf
- poet, editor, critic, and journalist; author of Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks
Mary Gordon- novelist and memoirist; author of Circling My Mother, Pearl, and Reading Jesus
Lani Guinier
- lawyer, scholar, and civil rights activist; author of The Miner's Canary: Rethinking Race and Power
Jennifer Haigh
- short story writer and author of Mrs. Kimble, Baker Towers, and The Condition
John Hodgman
- actor, humorist, and author of The Areas of My Expertise and More Information Than You Require
Walter Isaacson
- former managing editor of TIME and former CEO of CNN; biographer and author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
Calestous Juma
- expert in science and technology, particularly pertaining to sustainable development
Tim Kring
- television producer and screenwriter; creator of Heroes and Crossing Jordan
Corby Kummer
- senior editor at The Atlantic and food critic for Boston Magazine; author of The Pleasures of Slow Food
Dennis Lehane
- award-winning author of novels such as Mystic River, Gone Baby, Gone, Shutter Island, and The Given Day
Jill Lepore
- history professor, contributor to The New Yorker, and novelist of Blindspot with Jane Kamensky
Brian Lies
- author and illustrator of children's books such as Bats at the Beach and Bats at the Library
Elinor Lipman
- short story author and novelist of The Family Man and Then She Found Me
Michael Patrick MacDonald
- anti-violence activist and memoirist of All Souls: A Family Story From Southie
Jackie MacMullan
- sportswriter for ESPN.com; former senior writer for Sports Illustrated and columnist for The Boston Globe
Megan Marshall
- scholar and Pulitzer Prize-finalist for The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism
Kim McLarin
- author of the novels Jump at the Sun, Meeting of the Waters, and Taming it Down
Ben Mezrich
- bestselling author of Bringing Down the House and The Accidental Billionaires
Nicholas Negroponte
- architect and founder of MIT's Media Lab and One Laptop per Child
Orhan Pamuk
- winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature; author of Istanbul: Memories of a City, Snow, and The Museum of Innocence
Tom Perrotta
- screenwriter and novelist of Election, Little Children, and The Abstinence Teacher
Robert Pinsky
- Former U.S. Poet Laureate; poetry editor for Slate; poet of Gulf Music: Poems, Samurai Song, and Jersey Rain
David Pogue
- technology writer and commentator, columnist for The New York Times; author of The World According to Twitter
Richard Russo
- screenwriter and author of That Old Cape Magic, Bridge of Sighs, and Empire Falls
Hank Phillippi Ryan
- investigative reporter and author of crime novels Prime Time, Face Time, and Air Time
Anita Shreve
- author of novels such as Changes in Altitude, The Weight of Water, and The Pilot's Wife (Oprah Book Club pick)
Alicia Silverstone
- actress, fashion model, and author of The Kind Diet
Jessica Stern
- policy consultant on terrorism, author of Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill, The Ultimate Terrorists, and the new memoir, Denial
Scout Tufankjian
- photojournalist of Yes We Can: Barack Obama's History-Making Presidential Campaign
Larry Tye
- journalist and non-fiction author of Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend
Chris Van Allsburg
- Caldecott Award-winning author and illustrator of the children's books Jumanji and The Polar Express
Cornel West
- philosopher, activist, actor, and author of Race Matters and Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
, and the name of its main event. The non-profit was founded in 2009 by Deborah Z. Porter, and aims to "celebrate the power of words to stimulate, unite, delight, and inspire by holding an annual event that highlights the importance of literacy, literature, and ideas in our culture."
The annual book festival is a free one-day event, combining a street festival with an array of authors and other literary presenters from around the world. In 2010 some 25,000 people participated in the 12-hour event.
Throughout the year, the Boston Book Festival hosts talks and presentations that cover a range of programming similar to that of the event itself. On April 28, 2011 the BBF hosted a "Science (non) Fiction" event and dinner at the MIT Media Lab
MIT Media Lab
The MIT Media Lab is a laboratory of MIT School of Architecture and Planning. Devoted to research projects at the convergence of design, multimedia and technology, the Media Lab has been widely popularized since the 1990s by business and technology publications such as Wired and Red Herring for a...
, with talks by scientists Hugh Herr
Hugh Herr
Hugh Herr is an American rock climber, engineer and biophysicist.-Early life:The youngest of five siblings of a Mennonite family from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Hugh Herr was a prodigy rock climber: by age eight, he had scaled the face of the Mount Temple in the Canadian Rockies, and by 17 he was...
and Cynthia Breazeal
Cynthia Breazeal
Cynthia Lynn Breazeal is an Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she is the director of the Personal Robots Group at the MIT Media Laboratory...
moderated by Steven Pinker
Steven Pinker
Steven Arthur Pinker is a Canadian-American experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, linguist and popular science author...
.
Annual festival
The Festival is held in mid-October in Boston's Back Bay. Speaker presentations take place in the Boston Public LibraryBoston Public Library
The Boston Public Library is a municipal public library system in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was the first publicly supported municipal library in the United States, the first large library open to the public in the United States, and the first public library to allow people to...
, Old South Church, Trinity Church
Trinity Church, Boston
Trinity Church in the City of Boston, located in the Back Bay of Boston, Massachusetts, is a parish of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. The congregation, currently standing at approximately 3,000 households, was founded in 1733. The current rector is The Reverend Anne Bonnyman...
, and Back Bay Events Center.
The street festival is hosted on Copley Square
Copley Square
Copley Square is a public square located in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, named for the donor of the land on which it was developed. The square is named for John Singleton Copley, a famous portrait painter of the late 18th century and native of Boston. A bronze statue of...
, and usually includes a live music stage, dozens of exhibitors and vendors, and many free participatory activities for attendees and their families – programming and activities for children, writing workshops and contests, and open mic opportunities.
2009
The inaugural festival in 2009 included authors such as Ken BurnsKen Burns
Kenneth Lauren "Ken" Burns is an American director and producer of documentary films, known for his style of using archival footage and photographs...
, Anita Diamant
Anita Diamant
Anita Diamant is an American author of fiction and non-fiction books. She is best known for her novel, The Red Tent, a New York Times best seller...
, Andre Dubus III
Andre Dubus III
Andre Dubus III is an American novelist and writer of short stories. He is a member of the faculty at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.-Early life and career:...
, Tom Perrotta
Tom Perrotta
Thomas R. Perrotta is an Albanian-American/ Italian-American novelist and screenwriter best known for his novels Election and Little Children , both of which were made into critically acclaimed, Academy Award-nominated films...
, Alicia Silverstone
Alicia Silverstone
Alicia Silverstone is an American actress, author, and former fashion model. She first came to widespread attention in music videos for Aerosmith, and is perhaps best known for her roles in Hollywood films such as Clueless and her portrayal of Batgirl in Batman & Robin .-Early life:Silverstone...
, and John Hodgman
John Hodgman
John Kellogg Hodgman is an American author, actor, and humorist. In addition to his published written works, such as The Areas of My Expertise, More Information Than You Require, and That Is All, he is known for his personification of a PC in contrast to Justin Long's personification of a Mac in...
. Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk
Orhan Pamuk
Ferit Orhan Pamuk , generally known simply as Orhan Pamuk, is a Turkish novelist. He is also the Robert Yik-Fong Tam Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, where he teaches comparative literature and writing....
delivered the keynote address in the sanctuary of Old South Church to over 1000 festival-goers.
2010
In 2010, the festival included 130 authors and over 40 sessions, with presenters including Bill BrysonBill Bryson
William McGuire "Bill" Bryson, OBE, is a best-selling American author of humorous books on travel, as well as books on the English language and on science. Born an American, he was a resident of Britain for most of his adult life before moving back to the US in 1995...
, Food Network star Tyler Florence
Tyler Florence
Tyler Florence is a chef and television host of several Food Network shows. He graduated from the College of Culinary Arts at the Charleston, South Carolina campus of Johnson & Wales University in 1991...
, Boston novelist Dennis Lehane
Dennis Lehane
Dennis Lehane is an American author. He has written several award-winning novels, including A Drink Before the War and the New York Times bestseller Mystic River, which was later made into an Academy Award-winning film. Another novel, Gone, Baby, Gone, was also adapted into an Academy...
, Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
winners Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen
Amartya Sen
Amartya Sen, CH is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society's poorest members...
, Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Diary of a Wimpy Kid is a realistic fiction novel by Jeff Kinney. It is the first book in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. The book is about a middle-school child named Greg Heffley and his struggles in middle school. Greg also had problems with his best friend, Rowley Jefferson. The books focuses...
creator Jeff Kinney
Jeff Kinney (writer)
Jeffrey "Jeff" Kinney is an American game designer, cartoonist, producer, and author of children's books including the Diary of a Wimpy Kid book series. He is also attributed to be the creator of the children-oriented website Poptropica...
, and Atul Gawande
Atul Gawande
Atul Gawande is an American physician and journalist. He serves as a general and endocrine surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts and associate director of their Center for Surgery and Public Health...
.
Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates is an American author. Oates published her first book in 1963 and has since published over fifty novels, as well as many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction...
closed the festival with a standing-room-only keynote address in the Trinity Church
Trinity Church
-Albania:*Holy Trinity Church, Berat*Holy Trinity Church, Lavdar i Oparit*Holy Trinity Monastery Church, Pepel-Australia:*Holy Trinity Church, Adelaide*Trinity Church, Perth, Perth-Hong Kong:...
sanctuary. Attendance at BBF 2010 was 24,000, doubling the size of the crowd from the first year.
This year's festival also celebrated the start of a new literary outreach program in 2010: One City, One Story. This initiative encouraged the greater Boston community to read and discuss a piece of literary fiction by making it readily available. The short story chosen was Tom Perrotta
Tom Perrotta
Thomas R. Perrotta is an Albanian-American/ Italian-American novelist and screenwriter best known for his novels Election and Little Children , both of which were made into critically acclaimed, Academy Award-nominated films...
's "The Smile on Happy Chang's Face," and 30,000 copies were bound, printed, and distributed for free throughout the city's libraries, subway stops, coffee shops, and bookstores. Translations of the story were published on the Festival's website in Spanish, Haitian Creole, Chinese and Portuguese.
2011
The 2011 Festival is scheduled to take place on Saturday, October 15 in Copley Square. It expects over 30,000 participants, and is expanding its discussions to include the television series The WireThe WIRE
the WIRE is the student-run College radio station at the University of Oklahoma, broadcasting in a freeform format. The WIRE serves the University of Oklahoma and surrounding communities, and is staffed by student DJs. The WIRE broadcasts at 1710 kHz AM in Norman, Oklahoma...
.
2010 Boston Book Festival
Elizabeth AlexanderElizabeth Alexander (poet)
Elizabeth Alexander is an American poet, essayist, playwright, and a university professor.-Early life:Alexander was born in Harlem, New York City and grew up in Washington D.C. She is the daughter of former United States Secretary of the Army and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Chairman...
- poet, essayist, playwright, and teacher; composed and delivered "Praise Song for the Day" at President Obama's inauguration
Steve Almond
Steve Almond
Steve Almond is an American short story writer and essayist. He is the author of eight books.-Life:He was raised in Palo Alto, California, and graduated from Henry M. Gunn High School. He received his undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University. He spent seven years as a newspaper reporter,...
- short story writer and novelist, book reviewer for The Boston Globe and L.A. Times; author of Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life
Brunonia Barry- author of The Lace Reader and The Map of True Places
Kate Bernheimer
Kate Bernheimer
- Works :Kate Bernheimer's first two novels, The Complete Tales of Ketzia Gold and The Complete Tales of Merry Gold , were published by Fiction Collective 2. Amongst her other work, her short-story collection Horse, Flower, Bird was published in Fall 2010 by Coffee House Press...
- founder and editor of Fairy Tale Review, novelist and short story writer; editor of My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me
Lisa Birnbach
Lisa Birnbach
Lisa R. Birnbach is an author best known for co-authoring The Official Preppy Handbook, which spent 38 weeks at number one on the New York Times bestseller list in 1980.-Career:...
- author of the 1980 bestseller The Official Preppy Handbook and, most recently, True Prep: It's a Whole New World
Bill Bryson
Bill Bryson
William McGuire "Bill" Bryson, OBE, is a best-selling American author of humorous books on travel, as well as books on the English language and on science. Born an American, he was a resident of Britain for most of his adult life before moving back to the US in 1995...
- author of A Short History of Nearly Everything, I'm a Stranger Here Myself, and At Home: A Short History of Private Life, among others
Nicholas G. Carr
Nicholas G. Carr
Nicholas George Carr is an American writer who has published books and articles on technology, business, and culture. His book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction.-Career:Carr originally came to prominence with the...
- writes of the impact of technology on everyday lives; titles include The Big Switch and The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains
Justin Cronin- author of The Summer Guest, Mary and O'Neil, and The Passage; winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Stephen Crane Prize
Alan Dershowitz
Alan Dershowitz
Alan Morton Dershowitz is an American lawyer, jurist, and political commentator. He has spent most of his career at Harvard Law School where in 1967, at the age of 28, he became the youngest full professor of law in its history...
- professor at Harvard Law School, author of The Case for Israel and Rights From Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights
Hallie Ephron
Hallie Ephron
Hallie Ephron is an American novelist, book reviewer, journalist, and writing teacher. She is the author of six acclaimed novels. Her novel Never Tell a Lie was a finalist for the Mary Higgins Clark Award and won the David Award for Best Novel of 2009...
- book reviewer, journalist, and novelist; author of Never Tell a Lie and 1001 Books for Every Mood
Haleh Esfandiari
Haleh Esfandiari
Haleh Esfandiari is an Iranian American academic and the Director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. Her areas of expertise include Middle Eastern women's issues, contemporary Iranian intellectual currents and politics, and...
- expert on Middle Eastern women's issues and author of My Prison, My Home: One Woman’s Story of Captivity in Iran
Noah Feldman
Noah Feldman is an American author and professor of law at Harvard Law School.-Education and career:Feldman grew up in Boston, Massachusetts, where he attended the Maimonides School....
- author of Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR's Great Supreme Court Justices and The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State
Joshua Ferris
Joshua Ferris
Joshua Ferris is an American author best known for his debut 2007 novel Then We Came to the End. The book is a comedy about the American workplace, told in the first-person plural...
- short story writer and novelist, author of Then We Came to the End, winner of the 2007 PEN/Hemingway Award, and The Unnamed
Tyler Florence
Tyler Florence
Tyler Florence is a chef and television host of several Food Network shows. He graduated from the College of Culinary Arts at the Charleston, South Carolina campus of Johnson & Wales University in 1991...
- Food Network star and host of "Tyler's Ultimate"; author of five bestselling cookbooks including Stirring the Pot and Family Meals
Nick Flynn
Nick Flynn
Nick Flynn is an American writer, playwright, and poet. His most recent publication is a play, Alice Invents a Little Game and Alice Always Wins...
- poet, playwright, and memoirist of The Ticking is the Bomb and Another Bullshit Night in Suck City
Atul Gawande
Atul Gawande
Atul Gawande is an American physician and journalist. He serves as a general and endocrine surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts and associate director of their Center for Surgery and Public Health...
- physician and journalist; author of the New York Times Bestseller The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right
Myla Goldberg
Myla Goldberg
Myla Goldberg is an American novelist and musician.-Biography:Goldberg was born into a Jewish family. She was raised in Laurel, Maryland, and graduated from Eleanor Roosevelt High School. She majored in English at Oberlin College, graduating in 1993...
- musician and novelist, author of Bee Season, Wickett's Remedy, and The False Friend
Christina Gonzalez
Christina Gonzalez
Christina Gonzalez is a news reporter currently a reporter for FOX 11 . She has been with FOX 11 since 1990.- Biography:Gonzalez was born in New York City grew up in Caracas, Venezuela and Miami, Florida, and graduated cum laude from the University of MiamiGonzalez began her career in radio...
- news reporter and author of a debut novel The Red Umbrella
Allegra Goodman
Allegra Goodman
Allegra Goodman is an American author based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her most recent novel, The Cookbook Collector, was published in 2010. Goodman wrote and illustrated her first novel at the age of seven. -Early years and family:...
- author of Kaaterskill Falls, a National Book Award finalist, Intuition, and most recently The Cookbook Collector
Andrew Gross
Andrew Gross
Andrew Gross is an American author of thriller novels including four New York Times bestsellers. Best known for his collaborations with suspense writer James Patterson. Gross’s books feature close family bonds relationships characterized by loss or betrayal and large degree of emotional resonance...
- best known for his six collaborations with thriller author James Patterson, also a solo author of Don't Look Twice and Reckless
Jennifer Haigh
Jennifer Haigh
Jennifer Haigh is an American novelist and short story writer.She was born in Barnesboro, a Western Pennsylvania coal town 85 miles northeast of Pittsburgh in Cambria County. She attended Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Iowa Writers'...
- novelist and short story writer, winner of a PEN/L.L. Winship award for her novel Baker Towers and a PEN/Hemingway Award for Mrs. Kimble
James Hirsch- author of Hurricane: The Miraculous Journey of Rubin Carter and Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend
Tony Hiss- staff writer at The New Yorker; author of The Experience of Place and In Motion: The Experience of Travel
A. M. Homes
A. M. Homes
Amy M. Homes is an American writer. She is best-known for her controversial novels and unusual stories, most notably The End of Alice , a novel about a convicted child molester and murderer...
- short story writer and novelist; author of The End of Alice, This Book Will Save Your Life, and The Mistress's Daughter
Ann Hood
Ann Hood
Ann Hood is an American novelist and short story writer; she has also written nonfiction. The author of thirteen books, her essays and short stories have appeared in many journals and magazines, including The Paris Review, Ploughshares, and Tin House. Hood is a regular contributor to The New York...
- author of thirteen books including the novels The Red Thread, The Knitting Circle, and the memoir Comfort: A Journey Through Grief
Gish Jen
Gish Jen
Gish Jen is a contemporary American writer.-Background:...
- novelist and short story writer; author of Typical American, Mona in the Promised Land, The Love Wife, and World and Town
Steven Berlin Johnson
Steven Berlin Johnson
Steven Berlin Johnson is an American popular science author.-Education:Steven Johnson attended the prestigious St. Albans School as a youth. He completed his undergraduate degree at Brown University, where he studied semiotics, a part of Brown's modern culture and media department...
- contributing editor at Wired and popular science author of The Invention of Air and Where Good Ideas Come From
Kevin Kelly- founding executive editor of Wired and author of Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World and What Technology Wants
Jeff Kinney
Jeff Kinney (writer)
Jeffrey "Jeff" Kinney is an American game designer, cartoonist, producer, and author of children's books including the Diary of a Wimpy Kid book series. He is also attributed to be the creator of the children-oriented website Poptropica...
- game designer, cartoonist, and author of the children's Diary of a Wimpy Kid series
David Kirkpatrick
David Kirkpatrick
David Kirkpatrick may refer to:*David Kirkpatrick , author of The Facebook Effect *David Kirkpatrick , American film producer, studio executive and screenwriter...
- former senior editor for Internet and Technology at Fortune magazine and author of The Facebook Effect
Kathryn Lasky
Kathryn Lasky
Kathryn Lasky is an American author whose work includes several Dear America books, The Royal Diaries books, Sugaring Time, The Night Journey, and the Guardians of Ga'Hoole series.-Biography:...
- Newbury Medal-winning author of more than 100 children's books including installments in The Royal Diaries series and the bestselling Guardians of Ga'Hoole series
Dennis Lehane
Dennis Lehane
Dennis Lehane is an American author. He has written several award-winning novels, including A Drink Before the War and the New York Times bestseller Mystic River, which was later made into an Academy Award-winning film. Another novel, Gone, Baby, Gone, was also adapted into an Academy...
- bestselling Boston native author of A Drink Before the War, Shutter Island, The Given Day, and Moonlight Mile
Marianne Leone Cooper
Marianne Leone Cooper
Marianne Leone is an American film and television actress, screenwriter, and essayist. She is likely best-known for her recurring role as Christopher Moltisanti's mother on The Sopranos....
- film and television actress most popular for her role on The Sopranos; author of the memoir Knowing Jesse: A Mother's Story of Grief, Grace, and Everyday Bliss
Kelly Link
Kelly Link
Kelly Link is an American editor and author of short stories. While some of her fiction falls more clearly within genre categories, many of her stories might be described as slipstream or magic realism: a combination of science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, and realism...
- author of short story collections Stranger Things Happen, Magic for Beginners, and Pretty Monsters; co-manager for Small Beer Press with husband Gavin Grant
Simon Mawer
Simon Mawer
Simon Mawer is a British author who currently lives in Italy.-Life and work:Educated at Millfield School in Somerset and at Brasenose College, Oxford, Mawer took a degree in Zoology and has worked as a biology teacher for most of his life. He published his first novel, Chimera, at the...
- author of Swimming to Ithaca, The Gospel of Judas, The Fall, and The Glass Room- a finalist for the 2009 Man Booker Prize
Mark Moffett- regular contributor to National Geographic and author of Adventures Among Ants
Dambisa Moyo
Dambisa Moyo
Dr. Dambisa Moyo is an international economist and New York Times best-selling author of both Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is a Better Way For Africa, published in 2009, and How the West Was Lost: Fifty Years of Economic Folly - And the Stark Choices that Lie Ahead, published in...
- economist and New York Times bestselling author of Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is a Better Way For Africa
Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates is an American author. Oates published her first book in 1963 and has since published over fifty novels, as well as many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction...
- author of Them, winner of the National Book Award in 1970, and Pulitzer Prize-nominated works Black Water, What I Loved For, and Blonde; her latest book is Sourland
Jane O'Connor- author of more than thirty children's books including the New York Times bestselling Fancy Nancy series
Jay Parini
Jay Parini
Jay Parini is an American writer and academic. He is known for novels and poetry, biography and criticism.He was born in Pittston, Pennsylvania, and brought up in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Lafayette College in 1970 and was awarded a doctorate by the University of St. Andrews in 1975...
- poet, novelist, and critic who has written or edited over forty books; author of The Last Station, now a major motion picture
Tom Perrotta
Tom Perrotta
Thomas R. Perrotta is an Albanian-American/ Italian-American novelist and screenwriter best known for his novels Election and Little Children , both of which were made into critically acclaimed, Academy Award-nominated films...
- bestselling author of multiple novels and the short story "The Smile on Happy Chang's Face," the selected story for the inaugural One City, One Story program
David Rakoff
David Rakoff
David Rakoff is a Canadian-born writer based in New York City who is noted for his humorous, sometimes autobiographical non-fiction essays. Rakoff is an essayist, journalist, and actor and is a regular contributor to Public Radio International's This American Life...
- contributor to NPR's "This American Life," writer-at-large for GQ and author of Half Empty and Don't Get Too Comfortable, among others
Nir Rosen
Nir Rosen
Nir Rosen is an American journalist and chronicler of the Iraq War, who resides in Lebanon. Rosen writes on current and international affairs.- Journalistic and academic work :...
- freelance journalist focusing on the relationship between the US and Iraq; written articles for The New Yorker, Time Magazine, and Atlantic Monthly
Moshe Safdie
Moshe Safdie
Moshe Safdie, CC, FAIA is an architect, urban designer, educator, theorist, and author. Born in the city of Haifa, then Palestine and now Israel, he moved with his family to Montreal, Canada, when he was 15 years old.-Career:...
- architect and urban designer of buildings such as the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore and Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport
Michael Sandel
Michael Sandel
Michael J. Sandel is an American political philosopher and a professor at Harvard University. He is best known for the Harvard course 'Justice' which is available to , and for his critique of Rawls' A Theory of Justice in his Liberalism and the Limits of Justice...
- Professor at Harvard University and author of Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?
Stacy Schiff
Stacy Schiff
Stacy Madeleine Schiff is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American nonfiction author and guest columnist for The New York Times.-Biography:...
- biographer and author of Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov), winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize, and most recently Cleopatra: A Life
Kathryn Schulz
Kathryn Schulz
Kathryn Schulz is an American journalist and author.- Biography :Kathryn Schulz is a journalist whose freelance writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, The Nation, Foreign Policy, and The Boston Globe, among other publications...
- author of Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error and blogger for "The Wrong Stuff" through Slate
Amartya Sen
Amartya Sen
Amartya Sen, CH is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society's poorest members...
- awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics; author of numerous books, most recently The Idea of Justice
David Shields
David Shields
David Shields is an American author of non-fiction, fiction, and works that resist generic classification. His latest book is Reality Hunger: A Manifesto...
- author of The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead and Reality Hunger: A Manifesto
Brando Skyhorse
Brando Skyhorse
Brando Skyhorse is an American author and winner of the 2011 PEN/Hemingway Award, for his novel The Madonnas of Echo Park. He was a professional book editor prior to publishing this book, which was originally named Amexicans...
- author of The Madonnas of Echo Park, winner of the 2011 PEN/Hemingway Award
Joseph Stiglitz- winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics; author of Making Globalization Work and Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy
Ellen Doré Watson
Ellen Doré Watson
Ellen Doré Watson is an American poet, translator and teacher.Watson is author of five collections of poems, most recently, Dogged Hearts . Her book, Ladder Music, was a New York/New England Award winner from Alice James Books...
- poet, translator, and teacher; collections of poetry include This Sharpening, Ladder Music, and Dogged Hearts
Kevin Young
Kevin Young (poet)
Kevin Young is an American poet and teacher of poetry. Young graduated from Harvard College in 1992, was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University , and received his MFA from Brown University. While in Boston and Providence, he was part of the African-American poetry group, The Dark Room Collective...
- award-winning author of six books of poetry including Dear Darkness and Jelly Roll: A Blues which was a finalist for the National Book Award
2009 Boston Book Festival
Kurt AndersenKurt Andersen
Kurt Andersen is an American novelist who is also host of the Peabody-winning public radio program Studio 360, a co-production between Public Radio International and WNYC. In 1986 with E. Graydon Carter he co-founded Spy magazine, which they sold in 1991; it continued publishing until 1998...
- writer, columnist, radio host, and novelist; author of Turn of the Century and Heyday
Tom Ashbrook
Tom Ashbrook
Tom Ashbrook is an American journalist and radio broadcaster. He hosts the public radio call-in program, On Point.-Early life and education:...
- journalist and broadcaster, host of NPR's On Point
Jack Beatty
Jack Beatty
Jack J. Beatty is a writer, senior editor of The Atlantic, and news analyst for On Point, the national NPR news program.-Awards:* 1993 American Book Award* Poynter Fellow at Yale* 1990 Guggenheim Fellowship * two Alfred P...
- senior editor of The Atlantic and analyst for NPR's On Point
Ken Burns
Ken Burns
Kenneth Lauren "Ken" Burns is an American director and producer of documentary films, known for his style of using archival footage and photographs...
- documentary director and producer of such films as National Parks, The War, Baseball, and The Civil War
Dana Cameron
Dana Cameron
Dana Cameron is an American archaeologist, and author of crime fiction.Born and raised in Massachusetts, Dana Cameron began her professional career as an historical archaeologist specializing in British and New English cultural history from 1607-1760...
- archaeologist and crime novelist; author of Ashes and Bones
Stephen L. Carter
Stephen L. Carter
Stephen L. Carter is an American law professor, legal- and social-policy writer, columnist, and best-selling novelist.-Education:...
- professor of law, columnist, and bestselling novelist; author of The Emperor of Ocean Park
Harvey Cox
Harvey Cox
Harvey Gallagher Cox, Jr. is one of the preeminent theologians in the United States and served as Hollis Research Professor of Divinity at the Harvard Divinity School, until his retirement in October 2009...
- theologian and author of The Future of Faith and When Jesus Came to Harvard
Anita Diamant
Anita Diamant
Anita Diamant is an American author of fiction and non-fiction books. She is best known for her novel, The Red Tent, a New York Times best seller...
- New York Times bestselling author of The Red Tent and The Last Days of Dogtown
Andre Dubus III
Andre Dubus III
Andre Dubus III is an American novelist and writer of short stories. He is a member of the faculty at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.-Early life and career:...
- author of House of Sand and Fog, winner the National Book Award and an Oprah Book Club pick
Joseph Finder
Joseph Finder
Joseph Finder is an American writer of several thrillers set in a business environment. His books include Paranoia, Company Man, Killer Instinct and Power Play...
- author of thrillers such as High Crimes and Killer Instinct
Ethan Gilsdorf
Ethan Gilsdorf
Ethan Gilsdorf is an American writer, poet, editor, critic, teacher and journalist. He was born in Dover, New Hampshire, and raised in the nearby town of Lee. He has lived in Northampton and Amherst, Massachusetts; Brattleboro, Vermont; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Paris, France; and currently lives in...
- poet, editor, critic, and journalist; author of Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks
Mary Gordon- novelist and memoirist; author of Circling My Mother, Pearl, and Reading Jesus
Lani Guinier
Lani Guinier
Lani Guinier is an American lawyer, scholar and civil rights activist. The first African-American woman tenured professor at Harvard Law School, Guinier's work includes professional responsibilities of public lawyers, the relationship between democracy and the law, the role of race and gender in...
- lawyer, scholar, and civil rights activist; author of The Miner's Canary: Rethinking Race and Power
Jennifer Haigh
Jennifer Haigh
Jennifer Haigh is an American novelist and short story writer.She was born in Barnesboro, a Western Pennsylvania coal town 85 miles northeast of Pittsburgh in Cambria County. She attended Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Iowa Writers'...
- short story writer and author of Mrs. Kimble, Baker Towers, and The Condition
John Hodgman
John Hodgman
John Kellogg Hodgman is an American author, actor, and humorist. In addition to his published written works, such as The Areas of My Expertise, More Information Than You Require, and That Is All, he is known for his personification of a PC in contrast to Justin Long's personification of a Mac in...
- actor, humorist, and author of The Areas of My Expertise and More Information Than You Require
Walter Isaacson
Walter Isaacson
Walter Isaacson is a writer and biographer. He is the President and CEO of the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C. He has been the Chairman and CEO of CNN and the Managing Editor of TIME...
- former managing editor of TIME and former CEO of CNN; biographer and author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
Calestous Juma
Calestous Juma
Calestous Juma is an internationally recognized authority in the application of science and technology to sustainable development worldwide. He is Professor of the Practice of International Development and Director of the Science, Technology and Globalization Project at Harvard Kennedy School...
- expert in science and technology, particularly pertaining to sustainable development
Tim Kring
Tim Kring
Richard Timothy "Tim" Kring is an American screenwriter and television producer, best known for his creation of the television series Strange World, Crossing Jordan, and Heroes.Kring is Jewish...
- television producer and screenwriter; creator of Heroes and Crossing Jordan
Corby Kummer
Corby Kummer
Corby Kummer is a journalist who writes primarily about food. He is a senior editor at The Atlantic magazine, where he writes a monthly food column, restaurant critic for Boston Magazine, and curator of The Atlantic Food Channel, a blog devoted to food. He has been called "a dean among food writers...
- senior editor at The Atlantic and food critic for Boston Magazine; author of The Pleasures of Slow Food
Dennis Lehane
Dennis Lehane
Dennis Lehane is an American author. He has written several award-winning novels, including A Drink Before the War and the New York Times bestseller Mystic River, which was later made into an Academy Award-winning film. Another novel, Gone, Baby, Gone, was also adapted into an Academy...
- award-winning author of novels such as Mystic River, Gone Baby, Gone, Shutter Island, and The Given Day
Jill Lepore
Jill Lepore
Jill Lepore is a professor of American history at Harvard University and chair of Harvard's History and Literature Program. She is a contributing writer at The New Yorker, and her essays and reviews have also appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The American Scholar, and in...
- history professor, contributor to The New Yorker, and novelist of Blindspot with Jane Kamensky
Jane Kamensky
Jane Kamensky is an American historian, and Harry S. Truman Professor of American Civilization at Brandeis University.She graduated from Yale University, with a B.A. and Ph.D. in History.She was a Radcliffe Institute Fellow in 2006–2007....
Brian Lies
Brian Lies
Brian Lies is an American author and illustrator of children's books. His works include the Flatfoot Fox series by Eth Clifford and his own NY Times bestselling bat series, Bats at the Beach , Bats at the Library, and Bats at the Ballgame...
- author and illustrator of children's books such as Bats at the Beach and Bats at the Library
Elinor Lipman
Elinor Lipman
Elinor Lipman is an American novelist and short story writer.-Biography:Born and raised in Lowell, Massachusetts, Lipman graduated from Simmons College where she studied journalism. She lives in western Massachusetts and Manhattan, and received the New England Book award for fiction in 2001...
- short story author and novelist of The Family Man and Then She Found Me
Michael Patrick MacDonald
Michael Patrick MacDonald
Michael Patrick MacDonald is an Irish-American activist against crime and violence and author of his memoir, All Souls: A Family Story From Southie. Since being involved in activism, he helped to start Boston's gun-buyback program, founded the South Boston Vigil Group, which works with survivor...
- anti-violence activist and memoirist of All Souls: A Family Story From Southie
Jackie MacMullan
Jackie MacMullan
Jackie "Mac" MacMullan is an American freelance newspaper sportswriter and NBA columnist for the sports website ESPN.com. A graduate of the University of New Hampshire, where she played Division I basketball for the Wildcats, MacMullan was a columnist and associate editor of the Boston Globe...
- sportswriter for ESPN.com; former senior writer for Sports Illustrated and columnist for The Boston Globe
Megan Marshall
Megan Marshall
Megan Marshall is an American writer and scholar. She is best known as the author of The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism, which was published in 2005. The book earned her a place as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in biography in 2006.-Biography:Marshall was born in...
- scholar and Pulitzer Prize-finalist for The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism
Kim McLarin
Kim McLarin
Kim McLarin is an African American novelist. Kim Mclarin is a former staff writer for The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Greensboro News & Record and the Associated Press...
- author of the novels Jump at the Sun, Meeting of the Waters, and Taming it Down
Ben Mezrich
Ben Mezrich
Ben Mezrich is an American author from Princeton, New Jersey. He graduated magna-cum-laude with a degree in Social Studies from Harvard University in 1991. Some of his books have been written under the pseudonym Holden Scott. Mezrich attended Princeton Day School, in Princeton, New Jersey...
- bestselling author of Bringing Down the House and The Accidental Billionaires
Nicholas Negroponte
Nicholas Negroponte
Nicholas Negroponte is an American architect best known as the founder and Chairman Emeritus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, and also known as the founder of the One Laptop per Child Association ....
- architect and founder of MIT's Media Lab and One Laptop per Child
Orhan Pamuk
Orhan Pamuk
Ferit Orhan Pamuk , generally known simply as Orhan Pamuk, is a Turkish novelist. He is also the Robert Yik-Fong Tam Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, where he teaches comparative literature and writing....
- winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature; author of Istanbul: Memories of a City, Snow, and The Museum of Innocence
Tom Perrotta
Tom Perrotta
Thomas R. Perrotta is an Albanian-American/ Italian-American novelist and screenwriter best known for his novels Election and Little Children , both of which were made into critically acclaimed, Academy Award-nominated films...
- screenwriter and novelist of Election, Little Children, and The Abstinence Teacher
Robert Pinsky
Robert Pinsky
Robert Pinsky is an American poet, essayist, literary critic, and translator. From 1997 to 2000, he served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Pinsky is the author of nineteen books, most of which are collections of his own poetry...
- Former U.S. Poet Laureate; poetry editor for Slate; poet of Gulf Music: Poems, Samurai Song, and Jersey Rain
David Pogue
David Pogue
David Welch Pogue is an American technology writer, technology columnist and commentator. He is a personal technology columnist for the New York Times, an Emmy-winning tech correspondent for CBS News Sunday Morning, weekly tech correspondent for CNBC, and a columnist for Scientific American...
- technology writer and commentator, columnist for The New York Times; author of The World According to Twitter
Richard Russo
Richard Russo
Richard Russo is an American novelist, short story writer, screenwriter, and teacher.-Early life and education:Russo was born in Johnstown, New York, and raised in nearby Gloversville...
- screenwriter and author of That Old Cape Magic, Bridge of Sighs, and Empire Falls
Hank Phillippi Ryan
Hank Phillippi Ryan
Born Harriet Ann Sablosky, Hank Phillippi Ryan is an American investigative reporter for Channel 7 News on WHDH-TV, the NBC-affiliate station for Boston, Massachusetts. She is also an author of mystery novels.Ryan is a native of Indianapolis, Indiana...
- investigative reporter and author of crime novels Prime Time, Face Time, and Air Time
Anita Shreve
Anita Shreve
Anita Shreve is an American writer. The daughter of an airline pilot and a homemaker, she graduated from Dedham High School, attended Tufts University and began writing while working as a high school teacher in Reading MA. One of her first published stories, Past the Island, Drifting, was awarded...
- author of novels such as Changes in Altitude, The Weight of Water, and The Pilot's Wife (Oprah Book Club pick)
Alicia Silverstone
Alicia Silverstone
Alicia Silverstone is an American actress, author, and former fashion model. She first came to widespread attention in music videos for Aerosmith, and is perhaps best known for her roles in Hollywood films such as Clueless and her portrayal of Batgirl in Batman & Robin .-Early life:Silverstone...
- actress, fashion model, and author of The Kind Diet
Jessica Stern
Jessica Stern
Jessica Stern is an American policy consultant on terrorism. Stern is a lecturer at Harvard University and a faculty affiliate of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. She serves on the Hoover Institution Task Force on National Security and Law. In 2001, she was featured in Time...
- policy consultant on terrorism, author of Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill, The Ultimate Terrorists, and the new memoir, Denial
Scout Tufankjian
Scout Tufankjian
Scout Tufankjian is a photojournalist based in Brooklyn, New York. She covered Senator Barack Obama's campaign for President of the United States, and was the only independent journalist to follow him from the run up to his announcing his candidacy through his victory on election night. Tufankjian...
- photojournalist of Yes We Can: Barack Obama's History-Making Presidential Campaign
Larry Tye
Larry Tye
Larry Tye is an American non-fiction author and journalist best known for his 2009 New York Times bestselling biography , the story of Negro Leagues pitcher Satchel Paige....
- journalist and non-fiction author of Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend
Chris Van Allsburg
Chris Van Allsburg
Chris Van Allsburg is an American author and illustrator of children's books. He twice won the Caldecott Medal, for Jumanji and The Polar Express , both of which he wrote and illustrated, and both of which were later adapted into successful motion pictures...
- Caldecott Award-winning author and illustrator of the children's books Jumanji and The Polar Express
Cornel West
Cornel West
Cornel Ronald West is an American philosopher, author, critic, actor, civil rights activist and prominent member of the Democratic Socialists of America....
- philosopher, activist, actor, and author of Race Matters and Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud