February 14 — Elizabeth Strout — novelist. Ms. Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, a novel composed of a series of short stories, won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Ms. Strout is also author of the national bestseller Abide with Me and of Amy and Isabelle. Both won major prizes. A finalist for both the PEN/Faulkner Award and England’s Orange Prize, Ms. Strout’s short stories have been published in magazines from The New Yorker to O: The Oprah Magazine. She grew up in Maine, is currently is on the MFA faculty of Queens University in Charlotte, NC, and lives with her family in New York City.

February 28 — Michelle Goldberg — investigative journalist and author. The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power and the Future of the World joins Ms. Goldberg’s prior book, Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, which was a bestseller and a finalist for the New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism. She is a former senior writer at Salon.com and among the many who have published Ms. Goldberg’s work are The New Republic, The Nation, Glamour and Rolling Stone magazines in the U.S. and The Guardian in the U.K. and she has taught at New York University’s graduate school of journalism. Ms. Goldberg earned her graduate degree at the University of California - Berkeley.  She is a contributor to The Daily Beast.

Following:

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar — author & athlete. Building on the success of Final Steps, Kareem, Black Profiles in Courage and A Season on the Reservation, this legendary athlete resurrects the long neglected heroics of the 761st Tank Battalion in his book, Brothers in Arms. Mr. Abdul-Jabbar puts in context the important role blacks in the military played in America’s continuing struggle for justice, in addition to vividly recounting the 761st’s important but mostly forgotten role in achieving the Allied victory in Europe in World War II.

Mark Albion — author, entrepreneur, educator. A former Harvard Business School professor and real estate businessperson, Mr. Albion is author of the bestseller Making a Life, Making a Living and True to Yourself:  Leading a Values-Based Business in The Social Ventures Network (SVN) series of books. He is also a social entrepreneur, co-founder of 7 organizations including “Net Impact,” MBAs eager to create a better world. His monthly newsletter serves 87 countries.

Catherine Allgor — historian. Author of Parlor Politics and A Perfect Union:  Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation, Dr. Allgor is associate professor of history at the University of California-Riverside. She has received the Egleston Prize from Yale, the Lerner-Scott Prize from the Organization of American Histories and the Broussard First Book Prize from the Society of Historians of the American Republic. With an undergraduate degree from Mount Holyoke, her advanced degrees are from Yale. Before becoming a professional historian, Dr. Allgar was an actress.

Jonathan Alter — author and senior editor, “Newsweek” magazine. Author of The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope, Mr. Alter has written a political column on politics, history, media and society since 1991, appears daily on his magazine’s website, and often contributes to NBC News as an analyst and contributing correspondent. He and his family live in New Jersey.

Walter Anderson — “Parade” Magazine. After 20 years as editor of “Parade” Magazine, Mr. Anderson is now President and CEO of Parade Publications which reaches 36 million people in more than 350 newspapers in the United States. Mr. Anderson has now added his autobiography, Meant To Be to his five others books focused on communications, literacy and education.

Ken Auletta — media analyst. Ranked America’s premier media critic by the “Columbia Journalism Review,” Mr. Auletta has written the “Annals of Communications” column and profiles for “The New Yorker” magazine for more than a decade, having written for the magazine since 1977.  Among his numerous journalism honors, he won a National Magazine Award for his 2001 profile of Ted Turner, now expanded into Mr. Auletta’s 10th book called Media Man:  Ted Turner’s Improbable Empire. Four previous books were national bestsellers: Three Blind Mice, Greed and Glory on Wall Street, The Highwaymen and World War 3.0.

Edward Ayers — historian. Author of What Caused the Civil War?  Reflections on the South and Southern History, Dr. Ayers is Professor of History and dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Virginia. Among his publications is his award-winning book, In the Presence of Mine Enemies”  The Civil War in the Heart of America, 1859-1963. He led the Valley of the Shadow Project -- providing everyone direct access to primary-source material from 2 border counties during and after the Civil War -- which is available on the Internet and on CD-ROM.

Edward Ball — journalist. Winner of the National Book Award for Slaves in the Family, Mr. Ball de-mystifies DNA and the emerging science of genetics in The Genetic Strand, in which he explores his family’s history using long-lost locks of their hair discovered in an old antique. Born in Savannah, Georgia, a graduate of Brown University, and a visiting professor at Yale, Mr. Ball was a columnist for The Village Voice, and is also author of Peninsula of Lies and The Sweet Hell Inside.  He and his family live in Connecticut.

Edward Ball — writer. Building on discoveries revealed in his National Book Award winning Slaves in the Family, Mr. Ball, a European-American, is joined by his African-American relatives, Edwina Harlston Whitlock and her daughter Mae Whitlock Gentry. Together, they examine the experience Mr. Ball sets forth in The Sweet Hell Inside, recreating a family history of another part of the extended Ball family.

John Q. Barrett — prosecutor and law professor. Now professor of law at St. John's University in New York and a Fellow at the Robert H. Jackson Center in Jamestown, New York, Mr. Barrett is the editor of Justice Jackson's manuscript, now a book, called That Man:  An Insider’s Portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Mr. Barrett formerly served in the office of Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh investigating Iran-Contra, and in the U.S. Department of Justice. He discovered the manuscript for That Man while working on a biography of Justice Jackson.

Cynthia Barstow — healthy foods advocate. Author of The Eco-Foods Guide, Ms. Barstow is a sustainable agriculture marketing consultant and an advocate for consumers on behalf of an alterative, healthy, humane food system which also benefits the planet. Her clients have included the World Wildlife Fund "Protected Harvest" eco-label program and CISA: Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture. Teaching at the University of Massachusetts, Ms. Barstow is a soccer mom at home in Amherst.

Peter Benchley — shark advocate. The novel and movie Jaws brought Mr. Benchley celebrity in 1974. He followed it with The Deep, The Girl of the Sea of Cortez and others. In addition to screenplays, Mr. Benchley's articles and essays have appeared in National Geographic and The New York Times and he has written, narrated and appeared in dozens of TV documentaries. A member of the national council of Environmental Defense, Mr. Benchley is a spokesman for its Oceans Program. Shark Trouble is his latest book of stories about sharks and the sea.

Gregory Berns, M.D., Ph.D. — psychiatrist and brain scientist. Satisfaction: The Science of Finding True Fulfillment is Dr. Berns’ first book. He is an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University.  “O, The Oprah Magazine,” “Forbes” and “The New York Times” have featured him and his work, he has also appeared on CNN, NPR and the BBC.

Carl Bernstein — reporter. After sharing the Pulitzer Prize with Bob Woodward for their Watergate coverage in The Washington Post, the two wrote All the President’s Men and The Final Days. With Marco Politi, Mr. Bernstein wrote His Holiness: John Paul II and the History of Our Time. Mr. Bernstein revisited McCarthy-era Washington in his memoir Loyalties, focused on his parents. His is a writer for Time, USA Today, Rolling Stone, The New Republic and Vanity Fair magazines, as well as a contributing editor for Vanity Fair, and was a Washington bureau chief and correspondent for ABC News.  In 2007 Mr. Bernstein published to wide acclaim A Woman in Charge, a biography of Hillary Clinton.

Jason Berry — writer. Pioneering investigative reporting on the Catholic priesthood's sexual abuse scandals brought Mr. Berry wide recognition. He is also an historian of jazz. Now Mr. Berry adds a novel, Last of the Red Hot Poppas, to his many accomplishments, revealing his home state of Louisiana and his native New Orleans for what he says they are -- a microcosm of America.

David Blight — historian. Director of Yale University’s Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, Dr. Blight is a professor of American history. His many books include A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom which is built around two newly discovered emancipation narratives, and he has edited works of Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. DuBois. Dr. Blight’s Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory won the Frederick Douglass Prize, the Lincoln Prize, and the Bancroft Prize.

Fergus Bordewich — writer. Author of Bound for Canaan:  The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America, Mr. Bordewich has written for the “New York Times,” “Smithsonian,” “American Heritage,” the “Atlantic Monthly,” and “Reader's Digest.” He is also author of Killing the White Man’s Indian and My Mother’s Ghost.

Mark Bowden — reporter. Known internationally for Black Hawk Down, Mr. Bowden is a national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly and author of a number of other reportorial books. For 20 years, he reported for “The Philadelphia Inquirer.” His Guests of the Ayatollah documents “the first battle in America’s war with militant Islam,” the international crisis sparked in 1979 when the exiled Shah of Iran was admitted to the U.S., prompting idealistic students inspired by Ayatollah Khomeini to storm the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Many of the 66 Americans taken hostage were held for 444 days, with profound and ongoing consequences.

Barbara Boxer — United States Senator (D-CA) and novelist. Senator Barbara Boxer represented her Northern California district in the U.S. House for ten years before being elected to the Senate in 1992. She serves on three powerful Senate Committees: Foreign Relations; Commerce, Science and Transportation; and Environment and Public Works. A former journalist with further experience in the world of finance, her novel A Time To Run shines a light on the brutal realities of today’s political intrigue and the power of the media.

Kevin Boyle — historian. Arc of Justice:  A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age, written by Kevin Boyle, has reaped many awards, including the National Book Award and was widely cited as one of the best books of 2004. He also wrote The UAW and the Heyday of American Liberalism, Muddy Boots and Ragged Apron: Images of Working-Class Detroit, and edited Organized Labor and American Politics. He is professor of history at Ohio State University and grew up in Detroit. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Council of Learned Societies.

Barbara Taylor Bradford — novelist. All over the world, millions of women are attracted to the 20+ novels Ms. Bradford has written over two and a half decades. Inaugurated with A Woman of Substance and concluding with Just Reward, Ms. Bradford completes a second trilogy focused on the women in the “Emma Harte” dynasty. With a new and unrelated trilogy in the works, Ms. Bradford brings together her personal and professional lives in conversation.  A dual citizen of Great Britain and the United States, Ms. Bradford and her television producer husband live in New York City.

H.W. Brands — historian. Andrew Jackson stepped directly into George Washington’s role as the central figure of his age, reflecting the changes in a fledgling nation, according to Dr. Brand.  His biography, Andrew Jackson, is a single volume biography in the tradition of Joseph Ellis and David McCullough’s best-sellers. Dr. Brands is professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin, where he and his family live. He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Biography for his The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin and his other books include Lone Star Nation and The Age of Gold.

Douglas Brinkley — historian. On the centennial of Ford Motors, Dr. Brinkley has written Wheels for the World, a sweeping social history of the Thea century focused on Henry Ford and the company he founded in 1903 which brings the implications of the Fords' powerful influence into the present. Dr. Brinkley is professor of history and director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans. He is the award-winning author of 10 books and a frequent contributor on American studies for public radio.

Tom Brokaw — journalist and author. Sole anchor and managing editor of “NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw” from 1983 to 2004, Mr. Brokaw rose to prominence at NBC as anchor of the “Today” show from 1976 to 1981. All of his books have been bestsellers, from A Long Way Home and The Greatest Generation to Boom! Voices of the Sixties.  A native of South Dakota, Mr. Brokaw and his wife divide their time between homes in New York City and Montana.

Augusten Burroughs — memoirist. Magical Thinking joins Mr. Burroughs’ “New York Times” bestselling books, Running with Scissors and Dry.  He is also author of a novel called Sellevision. Before establishing himself firmly as a writer, Mr. Burroughs was highly successful in advertising. Mr. Burroughs’ formal education ended at the 4th grade. He and his family live in New York City and Western Massachusetts.

Thomas Cahill — historical and cultural observer. First acclaimed for How the Irish Saved Civilization, Mr. Cahill’s “Hinges of History” series includes The Gifts of the the Jews and Desire of the Everlasting Hills, to which he has now added Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea:  Why the Greeks Matter. Mr. Cahill specializes in bringing startling currency to his historical examinations, making the past deeply relevant to current events.

David Callahan — public policy advocate. Mr. Callahan is a senior fellow at Demos, a public policy center which he co-founded. He is the author of The Moral Center and The Cheating Culture and his articles appear in the "New York Times" and the "Washington Post". He is also editor of Moral.com and he is often a commentator on radio and television.

Stephen J. Cannell — television, film, best-selling novelist. The prolific Mr. Cannell has launched 40 television series in his wide ranging career, including “Rockford Files,” “The A-Team” and “The Commish.”  He has now added Hollywood Tough and Cold Hit to his growing list of best-selling novels, several of which are in various stages of film production. In addition to occasional acting stints, Mr. Cannell is also a savvy businessman who revolutionized the American television business in the late ‘70s. Dyslexic himself, Mr. Cannell is a leading spokesman on issues relating to dyslexia.

Stephen J. Cannell — television writer-producer, best-selling novelist, and actor. Mr. Cannell’s Shane Scully series of police thrillers continues with On The Grind. The prolific Mr. Cannell has launched 40 television series in his wide ranging career, including “Rockford Files,” “The A-Team” “21 Jump Street” and “The Commish.”  Several of Mr. Cannell’s best-selling novels are in various stages of film production. In addition to portraying characters, including himself, in primetime action dramas, he is also a savvy businessman who revolutionized the American television business in the late ‘70s. Mr. Cannell, who has maximized the positive attributes of his own dyslexia, is a leading spokesman on issues relating to it.

Tracy Chevalier — novelist. Author of a growing number of bestselling books, Ms. Chevalier’s Burning Bright focuses on the poet William Blake. Her earlier Girl with a Pearl Earring, imaging the life and times of the young woman in Vermeer’s famous painting, was translated into 39 languages and made into an Oscar®-nominated film. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ms. Chevalier earned her undergraduate degree at Oberlin College in Ohio and her MFA in London where she, her husband and son now live.

Deepak Chopra — physician and author. Trained as an endocrinologist, Dr. Chopra has added The Third Jesus: The Christ We Cannot Ignore to his more than 50 books of fiction and non-fiction, many of them bestsellers translated into over 35 languages. Widely-known for his advocacy of alternative medicine, Chopra’s Wellness Radio airs weekly on Sirius Satellite, focused on success, love, sexuality and relationships, well-being and spirituality. Dr. Chopra is founder and president of the Alliance for a New Humanity, Time magazine named him one of its top 100 heroes and icons of the century.

Gail Collins — editor and writer. The first woman editorial page editor for the “New York Times,” Ms. Collins has been a columnist for that paper, a columnist for its op-ed page, a member of its editorial board and a columnist for the “New York Daily News” and “New York Newsday.”  Her books include America’s Women, The Millennium Book, and Scorpion Tongues. Early in Ms. Collins’ career, she pursued a variety of roles in journalism, founding and operating the Connecticut State News Bureau which when sold was the largest news service of its kind.

Dalton Conley — cultural observer. In his memoir, Honky, Dalton Conley vividly recreates his childhood as the only white kid in a neighborhood of most black and Puerto Rican housing projects on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Lessons he learned about race, class, gender, and differences as a youngster growing up "different," now inform his professional observations about challenges America faces. Now a sociologist, Dr. Conley taught at Yale and is now at New York University.

Robin Cook — medical thriller writer. A physician by training, best-selling novelist Dr. Cook left his private practice to devote full time to alerting people to challenging medical issues in the guise of entertaining books which have also become movies. From Coma in 1976 to his 26th book, Seizure, Robin Cook has hundreds of millions of readers around the world. Dr. Cook is currently on leave from the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.

Raul Correa — novelist and teacher. After a life of considerable adversity, Mr. Correa has now published a widely praised novel called I Don't Know But I've Been Told, building on experiences as a paratrooper in the U.S. Army during the 1980's. With two degrees from Columbia University, he teaches creative writing both to high school students and to inmates in New York's Riker's Island prison.

Catherine Coulter — writer. A former speech-writer, Coulter has seen 29 of her almost four dozen historical novels and mysteries become national best-sellers.

Robert Cort — producer & novelist. A successful and prolific motion picture producer, Mr. Cort has 52 motion pictures to his credit, from "Outrageous Fortune," "Three Men and a Baby," and "Runaway Bride" to "Save the Last Dance," as well as experience in film advertising, publicity and promotion and successes in television. Prior to his 25+ year career in entertainment, Mr. Cort was a management consultant for McKinsey and Company specializing in consumer marketing and spent two year serving the C.I.A. With degrees in history, he has an MBA from the Wharton School.

Phil Cousineau — filmmaker, writer, mythologist. Co-writer and associate producer of the award-winning film and book, The Hero's Journey:  The Life and Work of Joseph Campbell and author/editor of 16 more books, including Once and Future Myths, Mr. Cousineau’s newest work includes a film focused on Native Americans in addition to The Olympic Odyssey and The Way Things Are:  Conversations with Huston Smith on the Spiritual Life.

Vickie Constantine Croke — nature writer. Pets and wildlife have been Ms. Croke's subject for more than a decade writing “Animal Beat” for “The Boston Globe.” In addition to her book, The Lady and the Panda, Ms. Croke is author of The Modern Ark: The Story of Zoos -- Past, Present and Future, and is widely published by magazines from “Time” to “Gourmet” and “Popular Science.” A former writer/producer for CNN, Ms. Croke was a contributing reporter for “Living on Earth” on NPR and consults on film and television projects including the recent A&E channel documentary on gorillas.

Bridgette Davis — novelist/filmmaker. Director of the award-winning film “Naked Acts,” Ms. Davis has fulfilled a lifelong dream with the publication of her debut novel, Shifting Through Neutral which honors her father and celebrates both family and her childhood home, Detroit . she is an associate professor of English at Baruch College where she teaches creative writing and journalism. She earned degrees at Spelman College and Columbia University.

William C. Davis — Civil War historian. With more than 40 books to his credit, "Jack" Davis has now told the story of An Honorable Defeat, with special consideration to the role played by the youngest Vice-President the United States has ever had, John Breckenridge of Kentucky, the Confederacy's final Secretary of War.

William C. Davis — Civil War historian. With dozens books to his credit as author or editor, his latest, Look Away! is a political and social history of the Confederate States of America. Mr. Davis is the only three-time winner of the Jefferson Davis Prize for Confederate history. He is the Director of Programs at the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Nelson DeMille — novelist. With a dozen books to his credit, including “New York Times” #1 best-seller Plum Island, Mr. DeMille is widely admired for his clean prose, riveting stories and gift for the quick comeback. He departs from his usual approach to fiction -- creating universes he populates and controls -- when he brings fiction and fact together in Night Fall, a fictional treatment of what may or may not have happened when TWA Flight 800 crashed into the Long Island Sound the night of July 17, 1996.

Kalsang Dolma — Tibetan documentary “What Remains of Us” participant. A Tibetan born in India, Kalsang Dolma now makes her home in Montreal. Two Canadian filmmakers, Francois Prevost and Hugo Latulippe, followed her risky journey to her Tibetan homeland as she delivered a videotaped message from His Holiness the Dalai Lama to his people who had not seen him in 50 years. The Dalai Lama’s message of hope and non-violence permeates this film.  Eight years in the making, it won “Best Documentary” at the 2004 Hollywood Film Festival, multiple awards at the Atlantic Film Festival and Vancouver International Film Festival and up for a 2005 Academy Award.

Claudia Dreifus — journalist. Known for her interviews with international political figures and cultural icons, Ms. Dreifus has been a journalist since the 1960s. Her work has appeared in "The New York Times Magazine," Playboy," "Ms.," "The Progressive" and "Modern Maturity." A Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute of the New York School for Social Research, her latest book, Scientific Conversations, is a collection of interviews from "The New York Times."

Hubert L. Dreyfus — professor of philosophy, UC Berkeley. Dreyfus makes Western philosophy relevant to today's accelerating challenges, from pointing out What Computers (Still) Can't Do to Disclosing New Worlds.

Tananarive Due — novelist. Once a highly regarded Miami Herald columnist, Ms. Due is author The Black Rose, the fictionalized biography of Madame C.J. Walker based on research started by the late Alex Haley. Ms. Due's novels includes My Soul to Keep, and The Living Blood and she collaborated on the bestselling novel Naked Came the Manatee. Short fiction by Ms. Due was included in the Dark Matter anthology of Africa-American science fiction and fantasy.

Sarah Dunant — novelist. Completing her trilogy exploring the experience of women in the middle ages, Ms. Dunant adds Sacred Hearts to the bestselling The Birth of Venus and In the Company of the Courtesan, acclaimed in Europe and the U.K. as well as North America. Others know Ms. Dunant from her Hannah Wolfe crime thrillers and three additional ones. Ms. Dunant and her two daughters live in London and Florence.

Arielle Eckstut & David Henry Sterry — authors and book publishing advisors. Ms. Eckstut and Mr. Sterry are co-authors of the book, Putting Your Passion Into Print and seminars by the same name which they run at Stanford University. Ms. Eckstut is a literary agent and runs Levine Greenberg Literary Agency on the West Coast.  She is author of Pride and Promiscuity: The Lost Sex Scenes of Jane Austen and co-author of Satchel Sez with her husband, David Henry Sterry. A former actor, Mr. Sterry is also author of Chicken:  Self-Portrait of a Young Man for Rent.

Bob Edwards — biographer and NPR newsman. From 1979 until 2004, Mr. Edwards hosted NPR’s “Morning Edition”. He chronicles the life of broadcast journalism’s legendary standard bearer in Edward R. Murrow and the Birth of Broadcast Journalism. Mr. Edwards and “Morning Edition” together earned a Peabody Award, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting gave him their Edward R. Murrow Award. He is also author of Fridays with Red.

Barbara Ehrenreich — journalist. In Bait and Switch, Ms. Ehrenreich continues her undercover investigative reporting, examining the futility faced by many middle class Americans as her best-seller Nickel and Dimed delivered first-hand reports from within the American working class. Among Ms. Ehrenreich's 11 additional books, Fear of Falling was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award.  She is a frequent contributor to “Harper's” magazine and “The Nation,” she has been a columnist both for “Time” magazine and for “The New York Times.”

Mary Engelbreit — artist and entrepreneur. Licensing 3 greeting cards that featured her distinctive art in 1977, Mary Engelbreit Studios now has annual retail sales nearing $100 million, from cards, calendars and T-shirts, to rubber stamps and fabrics, sold worldwide. Mother Goose is the first of 3 companion books from HarperCollins, fulfilling her dream to illustrate children’s books. “Mary Engelbreit's HOME COMPANION,” the award-winning national consumer magazine she started in 1996, reaches 1.5 million people an issue. Ms. Engelbreit supports many charitable organizations and causes, particularly those committed to literacy.   St. Louis, MO, is home for both her business and family.

Karen Essex — author. And award-winning journalist and screenwriter, Ms. Essex won Italy’s prestigious 2007 Premio Roma for foreign fiction for her international best seller Leonardo’s Swans. In her novel Stealing Athena, Ms. Essex marries ancient Greece, Victorian England and the Ottoman empire in representing the story of the Elgin marbles now resident in the British Museum. In addition to her other novels. Ms. Essex’s experiences has also included being a fashion model in Paris, a television executive in Hollywood, and as a music journalist for a number of mass circulation magazines.

Anne Farrow — reporter. Complicity:  How the North Promoted, Prolonged and Profited from Slavery is the result of work by Ms. Farrow, Joel Lang and Jenifer Frank, three veteran journalists at “The Hartford Courante,” the country's oldest newspaper in continuous publication. The book has its origins in the special slavery issue published by the newspaper’s Sunday magazine “Northeast,” with Farrow and Lang as lead writers and Frank as editor.

Julian Fellowes — writer/actor/film director.   Debuting as a screenwriter with “Gosford Park” -- directed by Robert Altman in 2001 and winner of a host of distinguished awards including an “Oscar” for best original screenplay -- Mr. Fellowes is also an actor known for his roles on BBC Television series as well as films. He has written the book for a stage musical of “Mary Poppins,” the screenplay for “Vanity Fair” and now a novel, Snobs. He was educated at Cambridge University and the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art.

Ann Fessler — photographer and author. Professor of photography at Rhode Island School of Design and a specialist in installation art, Ms. Fessler’s book The Girls Who Went Away grew from an audio and video installation project for which she interviewed women who surrendered children for adoption from World War II into the 1970s. Her many prestigious grants include the Radcliffe Fellowship, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University; the National Endowment for the Arts; the Rhode Island Foundation; the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities; and Art Matters, NY.

Joseph Finder — novelist. Trained in intelligence gathering at Harvard, Mr. Finder puts his knowledge of espionage to work as a writer of widely read fiction. Killer Instinct joins best-sellers Company Man and Paranoia in exploring the corporate business world. Mr. Finder’s non-fiction includes his highly contested 1980s exposé of industrialist Armond Hammer, work which revealed hard truths about the role and sometimes questionable activities of businesses around the world.

Ernest J. Gaines — writer.  Author of The Diary of Miss Jane Pittman and A Lesson Before Dying, Mr. Gaines has now added Mozart and Leadbelly to his widely loved novels, stories and essays.  He has received a MacArthur “genius” award for his lifetime achievements and in 1996 was named a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, one of France’s highest decorations. He was born on a plantation in Pointe Coupee Parish near New Roads, LA, where his ancestors once worked as slaves and he now again lives. Educated at San Francisco State University, he studied with Wallace Stegner at Stanford and is writer-in-residence emeritus at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher — wine columnists/journalists. "Tastings" is the column Ms. Gaiter and Mr. Brecher write for "The Wall Street Journal." They are both life-long journalists. Ms. Gaiter is known for covering race in America, Mr. Brecher is the Journal's former Page One editor. In addition to their Guide to Wine. Ms. Gaiter and Mr. Brecher have co-written Love by the Glass, a memoir of their marriage, wines they have shared and the changing American social landscape of which they are a part.

William Gibson — novelist. Given credit for having coined and popularized the term “cyberspace,” Mr. Gibson is the widely heralded author of Neuromancer, which foreshadowed the Internet long years it arrived. He has also written 6 other critically acclaimed science fiction novels, in addition to his newest work, the best-seller Pattern Recognition, his first book set entirely in the present. A native of the American South, Mr. Gibson and his family make their home in Vancouver, B.C.

Brad Gooch — writer and seeker. Mr. Gooch spent five years exploring Americans' current resurgence of religion, on which he reports in Godtalk: Travels in Spiritual America. He is author of three novels, as well as City Poet and Finding the Boyfriend Within. A graduate of Columbia Universtiy, Mr. Gooch is professor of English at William Paterson University in New Jersey and writes for Travel + Leisure, Harper's Bazaar, The New Republic and Vanity Fair.

Ellen Goodman — syndicated columnist. With columns appearing nationally in more than 400 newspapers, Ms. Goodman, a Pulitzer Prize winner, writes for the “Boston Globe” and the Washington Post Writers Group. Paper Trail is her first collection of columns in 10 years, and joins other books including the “New York Times” bestseller, I Know Just What You Mean, which Ms. Goodman coauthored with her friend, Pat O’Brien.

Grandmaster Flash (Joseph Saddler) — musician. One of the hip-hop revolution’s pioneers, Grandmaster Flash and his group the Furious Five were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007. In The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash: My Life, My Beats, written with acclaimed music writer David Ritz, “Flash” chronicles how his insatiable hunger for rhythm turned little Joseph Saddler into the legendary DJ whose innovations have influenced both music and popular culture around the world, including the terrible dark passages through which he passed along the way.

Brian Greene — physicist. Columbia University professor of physics, Brian Greene is author of The Elegant Universe which he also brought to the television audience. Now he shares his discipline’s growing knowledge of our physical universe in The Fabric of the Cosmos.  He lives with his growing family in New York City.

Losang Gyatso — artist. Mr. Gyatso is a widely admired painter, one of 50 international artists in a worldwide exhibition based on the ideas of the Dalai Lama and founder of the web-based “Mechak Center for Contemporary Tibetan Art” to raise worldwide awareness of Tibetan art.  Born in Tibet, Mr. Gyatso grew up in Britain, studied tradtional Tibetan painting in India, moved to the U.S. in ‘74 to study at San Francisco’s Academy of Art, then on to New York City where he was an award-winning art director while continuing to paint. He has also founded two Tibetan restaurants, acted in Martin Scorsese’s “Kundun,” designed several books on Tibet and created many logos for Tibetan organizations.

Richard Hack — investigative writer. Ted Turner, Rupert Murdoch and their global media reach are the subjects of Mr. Hack's Clash of the Titans. He has written biographies of businessman Ron Perelman, pop star Michael Jackson, Howard Hughes and his alter ego Robert Maheu, and others.  Having covered Hollywood and the media for more than twenty years, Mr. Hack is now completing Puppet Master: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover.

Edward Hallowell, MD — psychiatrist and author. An instructor at Harvard Medical School for twenty years, Dr. Hallowell now directs the Hallowell Center for Cognitive and Emotional Health in Sudbury, Massachusetts. With a growing number of books to his credit, his CrazyBusy: Overstretched, Overbooked and about to Snap offers what Dr. Hallowell describes as strategies for coping in a world gone ADD. For a quarter of a century, Dr. Hallowell has specialized in Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and dyslexia, with first-hand knowledge of both.

Neil Hanson — narrative historian. A prolific writer, Mr. Hanson’s The Unknown Soldier uses the stories of individual soldiers whose remains were never found to revive important lessons from World War One. In addition to The Custom of the Sea, The Great Fire of London and The Confident Hope of a Miracle, Mr. Hanson has also contributed to the works of others.  He and his family live in Yorkshire Dales, England.

William Hartmann — planetary scientist. Dr. Hartmann is a member of the imaging team of NASA's Mars Global Surveyor mission and a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute. A Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he is also a painter and the author of textbooks, novels and popular science books.

Brad Hirschfield — rabbi. Eager for people to find faith without the fanaticism he had experienced, Rabbi Hirschfield is author of You Don’t Have To Be Wrong For Me To Be Right. He is president of the National jewish Center for Learning and leadership, cohost of the weekly radio show “Hirschfield and Kula” and creator/host of “Building Bridges: Abrahamic Perspectives on the World Today,” produced for television. His public commentary on religion and society has led to acclaim by Newsweek, Beliefnet.com and others.

Deborah Insel — educator & Ann Kruger — developmental psychologist. Ms. Insel is the founder and executive director of Helping Teens Succeed, Inc., which has curricula and programs which empower students in disadvantaged schools to get to college and succeed when they get there. Dr. Kruger's innovative research is demonstrating the power and effectiveness of taking the arts into disadvantaged youngsters' classrooms.

Walter Isaacson, journalist and biographer. CEO of the Aspen Institute, Mr. Isaacson’s books include Einstein: His Life and Universe, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life and Kissinger; A Biography. He is CEO of the Aspen Institute, has been managing editor of “Time” magazine and was formerly chair of CNN.

Eloisa James — historical romance novelist. As best-selling author Eloisa James, Mary Bly is known to millions of women and men readers for her steadily growing number of historical novels set in England’s ever-popular Regency period. Also a Shakespearean scholar and university professor, Eloisa/Mary reflects both of her persona’s fascination with marriage, the influence of gender in relationships, and a steadfast commitment to historical accuracy. In addition to a two-career work-life, Eloisa/Mary has a husband and two children. Her father is poet laureate Robert Bly.

Ha Jin — literary writer. Winner of the National Book Award for Waiting, an international best-seller, Ha Jin is a native of China who came to the United States in 1985 to attend Brandeis University, when events in his homeland precluded his return. War Trash gives Chinese prisoners of war in the Korean War a place in history. Like Conrad and Nabakov, Ha Jin is internationally known for his works written in his second language, English. Recipient of many of literature’s highest awards for his fiction, Ha Jin is also a poet and a professor of English at Boston University.

Michael Johnston — educator and author. Fresh out of Yale, Mr. Johnston went to teach high school in the Mississippi Delta, and recounts both challenges and missteps in his book, In the Deep Heart's Core. He has subsequently earned a masters from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he co-founded New Leaders for New Schools, an educational non-profit focused on at-risk urban school principals. He is completing a law degree at Yale, in anticipation of a career in education reform.

Robert E. Johnston — research scientist. Alphavirus vaccines and vaccine vectors are the focus of Dr. Johnston's work as a professor at the University of North Carolina and C.E.O. of Alphavax, Inc., a biotech firm working to develop new technologies with which to deliver vaccines.

Lita Judge — author/illustrator of children’s books. One Thousand Tracings : Healing the Wounds of World War II, which Ms. Judge both wrote and illustrated, has received well over a dozen major Awards, ranging from the American Library Association and International Reading Association to the Jane Addams Peace Association Children’s Book Honor which is presented at the United Nations. Once a “fine arts” oil painter, Ms. Judge now focuses her art on creating watercolor illustrations for children’s “picture books”. Her growing number of books include D is for Dinosaur, S is for S’mores, and Ugly.  Pennies for Elephants and several others quite literally are on the drawing board. She does school visits and presents workshops on illustrating across the U.S.

Robert D. Kaplan — reporter. A correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, Mr. Kaplan’s growing number of books include Imperial Grunts:  The American Military on the Ground, the first in a series he is writing on the American military. Other books Mr. Kaplan has written on foreign affairs and travel include Balkan Ghosts, Eastward to Tartary, Warrior Politics and The Ends of the Earth which have been translated into a number of languages.

Garrison Keillor — writer. Host and creator of his radio show A Prairie Home Companion, which was began broadcasting in 1974, Mr. Keillor has written 15 books, including Liberty, one of his Lake Wobegon novels, Platoon, Homegrown Democrat and three children’s books. In addition to Mr. Keillor’s radio feature “The Writers’ Almanac”, he wrote and appeared in the movie, A Prairie Home Companion, directed by Robert Altman. His weekly column, “The Old Scout”, is syndicated to newspapers across the county and on Salon.com. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Mark Kemp — music writer. Formerly music editor of “Rolling Stone” and vice president of music editorial for MTV Networks, Mark Kemp has been writing about popular music and culture since the 1980s. He received a Grammy nomination for his liner notes to “Farewells & Fantasies,” the music of '60s protest singer Phil Ochs. Mr. Kemp uses his skills as a music critic in Dixie Lullaby, weaving his experience growing up in the South together with a serious consideration of “Southern” Rock'n'Roll. Mr. Kemp has returned to the South and is entertainment editor at “The Charlotte Observer.”

Randall Kennedy, Esq. — Harvard law professor and author. Mr. Kennedy’s provocative books have titles including Sellout:  The Politics of Racial Betrayal, Interracial Intimacies and Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word. He won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for Race, Crime, and the Law.  Professor Kennedy is a member of the bar in the District of Columbia and of the Supreme Court of the United States.  He is also a member of the American Philosophical Association and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

C.S. Kiang — Founding Dean, College of Environmental Sciences, Peking University. Dr. Kiang is responsible for bringing to China many of the world's leading experts on sustainable development, both to educate the next generation of leaders and to develop a working case study in the south of China. An internationally recognized expert on air quality, Dr. Kiang retired from the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) as an Institute Professor (one of six) where he was responsible for its environment science, engineering and policy program, one of the top 5 in the USA.

Melvin Konner — anthropologist and M.D. Widely known for his authoritative consideration of the human animal in The Tangled Wing:  The Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit, Dr. Konner’s many other books focus on childhood and health care in the United States. His book Unsettled is an anthropology of the Jews. Dr. Konner is widely published in the popular press and has held a number of prestigious fellowships. He is professor of anthropology at Emory University, where he also teaches in the human biology and Jewish studies programs.

Marvin Krislov — President, Oberlin College. Inaugurated Oberlin’s 14th president in 2007, President Krislov was previously vice president and general counsel for the University of Michigan, where he devised the legal strategy with which the University successfully defended its affirmative action policies before the U.S. Supreme Court. He carries on the teaching he has done since 1991 at Oberlin, having also worked for the U.S. Departments of Labor and Justice, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C., and the Office of the Counsel to U.S. President Clinton. With undergraduate and law degrees from Yale, President Krislov earned his master’s in history from Oxford University’s Magdalen College.

Harold S. Kushner — Rabbi. Best known for his 1981 book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, Rabbi Kushner has seven others on coping with life's challenges, including best-sellers. He is Rabbi Laureate of Temple Israel in Natick, Massachusetts, where he lives with his family. Rabbi Kushner has been honored by the Christophers as one of the fifty people who have made the world a better place.

Mark Kurlansky — writer. Author of 1968:  The Year that Rocked the World, Mr. Kurlansky is also the James A. Beard Award-winning author of Salt:  A World History which was a New York Times bestseller; The Basque History of the World; Cod; A Chosen Few; A Continent of Islands; editor of Choice Cuts: A Savory Selection of Food Writing; author of a collecton of stories, a children’s book and a novel. A college student in 1968, Mr. Kurlansky is a New Englander by birth, lived in Paris for a decade and now calls New York City home.

Jones Kyazze — UNESCO representative to the United Nations.  Dr. Kyazze joined UNESCO in 1972 in the Education Sector, later as Field Programmer Officer in the Operational Programmes Division at UNESCO’s Paris Headquarters. With experience all over the world, he transferred back to Headquarters in Paris in 1996 as Chief of the Section for Science and Technology Education. Since April, 2001, he has represented UNESCO to the UN and its Funds, Programmes and Funding Institutions based in New York and Washington.

Thomas Laird(2) — journalist/author/photographer. Updating our earlier conversation in light of current realities in Tibet and in China, Mr. Laird expands on The Story of Tibet: Conversations with the Dalai Lama, the result of 60 hours of intense conversation between this veteran journalist and Tibet’s spiritual and temporal leader. Key to this remarkable story is the importance of understanding the past while working to find solutions for the future. Mr. Laird was based in Katmandu for thirty years, the Nepal correspondent for Asiaweek for a decade, a regular contributor to Time and Newsweek, author of three additional books his photography having appeared in two books and his work has appeared in more than fifty magazines.

Wally Lamb — writer, and Robin Cullen — former prisoner. Giving voice to seldom-heard women prisoners, Mr. Lamb and a dozen present and former inmates, including Ms. Cullen, tell their stories in Couldn't Keep it to Myself. Mr. Lamb, the volunteer facilitator of a writing workshop at York Correctional Institution in Connecticut, is also a widely regarded novelist who has twice topped the New York Times bestseller list.

Edward J. Larson — Pulitzer Prize winning author, historian of science and lawyer. Dr. Larson won the Pulitzer Prize for Summer for the Gods:  The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate over Science and Religion. Among his books, he has written Evolution:  The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory for the prestigious Modern Library series. Dr. Larson's articles have appeared in dozens of journals, including “The Atlantic Monthly,” “Nature” and “Scientific American.” He is both Professor of History and Law at the University of Georgia.

Jeffrey Laurenti — international policy expert. Executive Director of Policy Studies for the United Nations Association of the United States (UNUSA), the nation's largest grass roots policy organization. His areas of expertise include the U.N. and multilateral diplomacy, US foreign policy and public opinion, collective security policy, UN Financing and the UN and human rights. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, he has degrees from Harvard and Princeton Universities and in addition to English, speaks Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese.

Hermione Lee — biographer, critic, scholar and President, Wolfson College, Oxford University. Professor Lee has added an acclaimed biography of Edith Wharton to her prize-winning biography of Virginia Woolf. The first woman Goldsmiths’ Professor of English Literature at Oxford University and Fellow of New College, as of Fall, 2008, she is President of Oxford’s largest graduate school, Wolfson College. Professor Lee’s many additional books include studies of Anglo-Irish novelist Elizabeth Bowen, American writers Willa Cather and Philip Roth, and a collection of essays on "life-writing". Professor Lee is a highly respected critic; served as Chair of Judges for the 2006 Man Booker Prize for Fiction; is widely known to UK Channel 4 viewers and radio listeners; and in 2003, was made a Companion of the British Empire for Services to Literature

Tonya Lewis Lee & Crystal McCrary Anthony — writers. Two former attorneys, Ms. Lee and Ms. Anthony co-authored Gotham Diaries, a novel starring New York City, featuring the City’s affluent African-American community. Ms. Lee is also a children’s television producer and co-authored the successful children’s book Please Baby Please with her husband, Spike Lee. Ms. Anthony also writes for magazines and is co-author of the Blackboard best-selling novel, Homecourt Advantage.  Both women have two children, all live in Manhattan.

David Levering Lewis — historian. Dr. Lewis spent 15 years writing the first comprehensive biography of Dr. W.E.B. DuBois. Volume One won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography and both it and Volume Two are National Book Award nominees. A University Professor in the history department at Rutgers, Dr. Lewis was educated at Fisk, Columbia and the London School of Economics and Political Science. His acclaimed books include King: A Biography, When Harlem Was in Vogue, and The Race to Fashoda. He lives in Manhattan.

Paul Rogat Loeb — activist. Author of Soul of a Citizen, Mr. Loeb is a veteran of more than 3 decades of urging and empowering people to exercise their democratic rights and responsibilities. Mr. Loeb is editor of The Impossible Will Take A Little While:  A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, with selections ranging from poet Seamus Heaney to Nobel Peace Prize winner Bishop?esmond Tutu. Mr. Loeb speaks and is published and broadcast widely and is an Affiliate Scholar at Seattle's Center for Ethical Leadership.

Gregory Maguire — writer. With his novel _Wicked:  The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West_ coming to Broadway as a musical, Mr. Maguire has added Mirror, Mirror to his growing list of best-seller fables-for-adults including Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister and Lost.  His also author of a collection of books for children.  With a doctorate from Tufts University, he has served as artist-in-residence at the Blue Mountain and Hambidge Centers and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.  He and his growing family live near Boston.

David Maraniss — Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, author and Washington Post associate editor. In Mr. Maraniss' biography, Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero, Mr. Maraniss moves beyond the “elements” of baseball on which fans and sports casters alike dwell to distinguish a singular and genuine hero. Clemente joins Mr. Maranniss' other acclaimed bestsellers They Marched into Sunlight, When Pride Still Mattered, and First in His Class.

Bill Mason — thief. Perhaps America’s most successful “cat burgler” ever, Bill Mason’s Confessions of a Master Jewel Thief reveals much about how he combined real estate and investing with his more exotic enterprises. He also tells a wealth of stories about high and low society, America’s system of justice and its drug culture.

Mary Ann Mason — University of California-Berkeley’s first woman appointed Dean of the Graduate School, historian and lawyer. With her daughter, Eve Mason Ekman, Dr. Mason has written Mothers on the Fast Track:  How a New Generation Can Balance Family and Careers based in part on Dr. Mason’s own first-hand experience struggling to balance family responsibilities and a fast-track career. She is a national expert on child custody issues, her books including the highly esteemed The Equality Trap, From Father’s Property to Children’s Rights and The Custody Wars. She is married to psychologist Paul Ekman.

John McCain — Senator. After a career in the U.S. Navy which included 7 years in as prisoner of war during the Vietnam era, John McCain was elected to two terms in the U.S. House as a Republican from Arizona.  He went to the U.S. Senate in 1986, where he continues to serve. Senator McCain is author of Faith of My Fathers and Worth the Fighting For, in collaboration with his long-time administrative assistant, Mark Salter.

William McDonough — architect and environmental designer. Mr. McDonough created some of the first "green" buildings in the early `80s. Hailed by Time Magazine as a "hero of the planet," now Mr. McDonough and his chemist partner, Michael Braungart, are showing the world how to remake the way we make things, both in their work and their book, Cradle to Cradle.

Bruce McEver/Thomas Lux — poets. Bruce McEver is an investment banker, Chairman of Berkshire Capital Securities LLC, which he founded in 1983, a graduate of Georgia Institute of Technology with an MBA from Harvard Business School. His book of poetry, Full Horizon, joins poems he has published in Ploughshares, Westview, The Berkshire Review, The Cortland Review, The Connecticut River Review, The Chattahoochee Review and The Atlanta Review. He starting writing in workshops in New York City, has taken writing seminars at Sarah Lawrence College and a summer residency at Warren Wilson College. Thomas Lux, acclaimed poet and teacher of poetry, is director of Poetry at Tech, where he holds the Margaret and Henry Bourne Chair in Poetry at Georgia Tech, where he also is responsible for the McEver Chair in Poetry, which brings poets to campus and the larger community throughout the year.

Jon Meacham — “Newsweek” managing editor. Mr. Meacham’s interest in world affairs includes a fascination with history. He has written about Roosevelt and Churchill in Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship, and earlier was editor of Voices in Our Blood:  America’s Best on the Civil Rights Movement.

Robert A.G. Monks — shareholder activist. Corpocracy: How CEOs and the Business Roundtable Hijacked the World’s Greatest Wealth Machine -- and How to Get It Back is Mr. Monks’ clear articulation of urgently need reforms to the existing capitalist system needs, grounded in laws and regulations already in place. He is the world’s most respected (or feared) shareholder activist. Continuing our focus on the pressing issues Mr. Monks raises and solutions he champions, six additional in-depth hours of Conversations with Mr. Monks will soon be available, expanding on the two earlier Paula Gordon Show conversations already available on this website,

Sy Montgomery — nature writer. Adventure, science, endangered species and ancient wisdom come together in Ms. Montgomery’s growing number of books for both adults and children. Search for the Golden Moon Bear joins Journey of the Pink Dolphins , Spell of the Tiger and others.  A commentator for National Public Radio’s “Living on Earth” series, Ms. Montgomery was a finalist for England's Thomas Cook Travel Book Award.  She lives in New Hampshire with her husband, writer Howard Mansfield, and beloved individuals of many species, when not traveling the world doing research.

Marc Morial — President, National Urban League. Former mayor of New Orleans, LA, Mr. Morial leads this national organization focused on generating good information on which to base public policy at all levels, also eager to put that public policy to work.

Edmund Morris — biographer. Winning the Pulitzer Prize & American Book Award in 1980 for The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Mr. Morris' second volume is called Theodore Rex. Mr. Morris's authorized biography of Ronald Reagan, Dutch, was a national best-seller. Mr. Morris was born and educated in Kenya, went to college in South Africa, then immigrated to the United States in 1968. He has written extensively on travel and the arts for The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Harper's Magazine.

Nami Mun — writer and former run-away. In her novel, Miles from Nowhere, Ms. Mun expands beyond her own experiences as a 13-year-old run-away, capturing the essence of street life for youngsters in New York City in the 1980s, stories reflecting the experiences of the millions who go missing every year. Born in Seoul, South Korea, Ms. Mun grew up there and in the Bronx, New York, is a graduate of UC Berkeley and received her MFA from the University of Michigan. She now teaches creative writing at Columbia College in Chicago. She received the Pushcart Prize and scholarships from The Corporation of Yaddo and The MacDowell Colongy. She has been published in the 2007 Pushcart Prize Anthology, The Iowa Review, Tin House, Evergreen Review and Witness.

Nina Munk — reporter. The AOL/Time-Warner financial disaster is chronicled in Ms. Munk’s book, Fools Rush In: Steve Case, Jerry Levin, and the Unmaking of AOL Time Warner.  She is a contributing editor at “Vanity Fair,” a former senior writer for “Fortune.”  In addition, Ms. Munk’s work has appeared in the “New York Times Magazine,” “The New Yorker,” and “Forbes.”

Jim Musselman — founder, Appleseed Recordings. Dedicated to sowing the seeds of social justice through music, Mr. Musselman founded Appleseed in 1997. Artists from Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne and Tom Paxton to Joan Baez, Roger McGuinn, Judy Collins and Odetta have contributed to the label's success. Notable in Appleseed's growing catalog of CDs is a trilogy that pays homage to the legendary singer-songwriter, Pete Seeger.

Joyce Carol Oates — writer. Recipient of the National book Award and PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, Joyce Carol Oates has three dozen novels to her credit and additional fiction long and short published using other pen names as well as poetry. Adding The Gravedigger’s Daughter to her national bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys, The Falls and Blonde, which was nominated for the National Book Award, she received the 2005 Prix Femina. Ms. Oates is a highly regarded critic, essayist and teacher, a distinguished professor of the Humanities at Princeton University and a longtime member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Mark Obmascik — writer. A Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, Mr. Obmascik departed from prize-winning coverage that he provided for “The Denver Post,” including coverage of Columbine High School’s troubles, to write The Big Year:  A Tale of Man, Nature and Fowl Obsession. He is himself an avid “birder.”  Native to Illinois, Mr. Obmascik lives in Colorado with his wife and three sons.

Paul Orfalea — Kinko's Founder. In 1970, Mr. Orfalea founded Kinko's and retired in 2000 from what had become FedEx Kinko’s.  He and his co-author, Ann Marsh, tell his story in Copy This!  Lessons from a hyperactive dyslexic who turned a bright idea into one of America’s best companies. Mr. Orfalea regularly teaches at the University of California at Santa Barbara and at his alma mater, the University of Southern California, and talks to businesses and educational groups, nationwide. Through the Orfalea Family Foundation, he supports a broad range of educational initiatives. Co-author Ann Marsh first met and wrote about Paul Orfalea for “Forbes” magazine.

Jay Parini — biographer, novelist, poet & critic. One Matchless Time:  A Life of William Faulkner joins Dr. Parini’s biographies of John Steinbeck and Robert Frost, his books of poetry, fiction and criticism and a textbook inviting people to read and appreciate poetry. With a Ph.D. from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, he has taught at Dartmouth College, Oxford University and Middlebury College where he is Axinn Professor of English. Dr. Parini has edited numerous works, including The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature.

Mark Pendergrast — independent scholar. Author of Uncommon Grounds, For God, Country and Coca-Cola and Victims of Memory, Mr. Pendergrast now explores the history of the human love affair with reflection in Mirror Mirror.  He has published articles and reviews in publications ranging from “The New York Times,” “Wall Street Journal” and “The Skeptic” to “The Sunday Times” (London).

Sidney Perkowitz — physicist and playwright. Dr. Perkowitz is Candler Professor of Physics at Emory University, author of a growing number of books that bring science to the general reading public, including Digital People: From Bionic Humans to Androids, Empire of Light and Universal Foam: From Cappuccino to the Cosmos. He has presented and written about science, technology, and culture for CNN, NPR, “The Sciences,” “Technology Review,” Encyclopedia Britannica, “American Prospect,” “The Washington Post” and other outlets. He has staged several original plays and has direct personal experience with the life-giving possibilities of increasingly sophisticated medical technology.

Nathaniel Philbrick, historical author.  Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War joins Mr. Philbrick’s long list of books, including best-seller In the Heart of the Sea which won the National Book Award, and Sea of Glory:  The Epic South Seas Expedition, 1838-1842 which won the Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt Naval History Prize. Mr. Philbrick has lived on Nantucket Island since 1986.

Christopher Phillips — writer. Mr. Phillips created and he and his wife, Cecilia, have inspired Socrates’ Cafes and Philosophers’ Clubs (for children) all over the world. He is eager for every day people to engage in fundamental questions explored by the world’s philosophical traditions, having taken his own inspiration from Socrates. Mr. Phillips has written about his and others’ experiences in The Socrates Cafe and Six Questions of Socrates.

William Pollack — clinical psychologist. Dr. Pollack's concern for boys and men is expressed in his work as assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He is director of the Center for Men at McLean Hospital and is a founding member and fellow of the American Psychological Association's Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinity. He is author of Real Boys and Real Boys' Voices.

Peter Potterfield — adventurer and journalist. Mr. Potterfield is the award-winning author of In the Zone, High Himalaya and Classic Hikes of the World.  A former newspaper reporter, he was a pioneer in web-journalism and is editor of GreatOutdoors.com, as well as the former editor and publisher of MountainZone.com. He has written for “National Geographic Adventure,” “Condé Nast Traveler,” “Outside,” “Backpacker” and “Reader’s Digest.”

Elizabeth Brown Pryor — historian. Ms. Pryor is author of Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee through His Private Letters. Her other scholarly biography, Clara Barton, Professional Angel, is considered authoritative on the founder of the American Red Cross. Formerly a senior diplomat with the American Foreign Service including on-the-ground experience in the Balkans, most recently Ms. Pryor was senior adviser to the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe of the United States Congress.

Arnold Rampersad, Ph.D. — teacher and biographer.  Professor in the Humanities and a member of the Department of English at Stanford, Dr. Rampersad is author of the acclaimed literary biography, Ralph Ellison, in which Dr. Ampersad revisits the works and revitalizes the memory of a seminally important American writer. Dr. Rampersad has also written biographies of Jackie Robinson and Langston Hughes and collaborated with Arthur Ashe on his memoir, Days of Grace. Dr. Rampersad has written for The New York Times Book Review, The New Republic and The Washington Post. Both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society have elected him to membership. He now makes his home in California.

Dan Rasmus — Director of Information Work Vision, Microsoft(r) Information Worker Group. Overseeing the Center for Information Work and managing the Industry Innovations and Future of Information Work programs, Mr. Rasmus analyzes trends across technology and society to develop products for tomorrow's work force and coordinates an Advisory Panel of "Millennial" college-age students. Prior to Microsoft, he was: an inventor at Forrester Research; implementation specialist at Hughes Space and Communications; a technology writer and on the staff of "PC AI" and "Manufacturing Stystems" magazines; a columnist, author of nearly 200 trade journal articles and three books including Rethinking Smart Objects. He is also a published poet.

Anne Rice — writer. After almost 30 years writing about vampires, ghosts, good and evil, Ms. Rice brings together her long-time interest in the supernatural with her strong personal religious faith in her book, Christ the Lord, the first in a series exploring the childhood years of Jesus. With her usual commitment to accuracy and research, Ms. Rice establishes in vivid detail the historical context of the years and times of Jesus' life, imaginitively filling in voids left in the canonical Gospels of the Christian Bible about Jesus' early life.  The author of 26 books, Ms. Rice lives in La Jolla, California.

Dr. Joseph L. Roberts, Jr. — pastor of the Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, GA. For 30 years (1975-2005) Dr. Roberts was senior minister to the congregation that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. also served. Ebenezer’s expansive community outreach program which Dr. Roberts launched and his congregations’ new Horizon Sanctuary serve people throughout metropolitan Atlanta and visitors from around the world. Dr. Roberts’ master’s degrees are from Union Theological Seminary in NYC and Princeton Theological Seminary . He formerly held administrative positions in the Presbyterian Church, U.S., and led two New Jersey congregations. His many civic, social and religious honors include 5 honorary doctorates of divinity.

Ardath H. Rodale — Chairman, Rodale, Inc.  "Ardie" is known to millions through her monthly "Reflections" column in Rodale's Prevention magazine, the world's largest-circulation health magazaine. Pulling articles and family photos together, she adds Reflections to her other books, Climbing Toward the Light and Gifts of the Spirit. Working Woman magazine chose Mrs. Rodale as one of the top 50 women business owners in the US and The Star Group named her one of the 50 leading women entrepreneurs in the world. The mother of 5 and grandmother of 10, "Ardie" lives on her family's organic farm.

Ardath H. Rodale — executive and author. Mrs. Rodale is known to millions through her monthly “Reflections” column for Prevention magazine (America's largest health magazine with a circulation of 11 million) and is the author of Everyday Miracles: Meditations on Living a Meaningful Life. “Ardie” was for many years Chair of Rodale, Inc.; she is now its Chief Inspiration Officer. She continues her work with Rodale Institute, which has been championing organic agriculture since 1947. The mother of five adult children, the grandmother of eleven, Mrs. Rodale has received countless honors from across the nation and around the world.

Curtis Roosevelt — author and the eldest grandson of Franklin D. and Eleanor Roosevelt. Curtis Roosevelt (neé Dall) remembers his childhood years spent in the White House in Too Close to the Sun: Growing Up in the Shadow of My Grandparents, Franklin and Eleanor. (Subsequent experiences with his grandmother, including being present with her at the creation of Universal Declaration of Human Rights, are in process.) After a long career in the United Nations Secretariat and in university administration, he writes from his home in France, where he and his wife have retired.

Dave "Mudcat" Saunders — veteran political campaigner. With Steve Jarding, who teaches at Harvard, Mr. Saunders is author of Foxes in the Henhouse: How the Republicans Stole the Heartland and What the Democrats Must Do to Run 'em Out. Both have long experience in rural and Southern politics, supporting candidates from Senators Tom Daschle and Bob Kerrey to their debut working together in Governor Mark Warner's upset victory in Virginia in 2001. Mr. Saunders is a native of Southwest Virginia, resides in Roanoke and is well known among NASCAR and bluegrass music fans.

Bob Schieffer — journalist. CBS News' Chief Washington correspondent, Mr. Schieffer has been the anchor and moderator of Face the Nation since 1991. His many honors include six Emmys, being named Broadcaster of the Year by the National Press Foundation and being elected to the Broadcasting Hall of Fame. He revisits his 40-plus years in the news business in This Just In.

Anita Sharpe and Kevin Salwen — magazine entrepreneurs.  Co-editors and founders of “WORTHWHILE” magazine, focused on “putting purpose and passion on the same plane as profit.” Ms. Sharpe and Mr. Salwen have between them 40 years in financial journalism, both are veterans of “The Wall Street Journal.” Ms. Sharpe won a Pulitzer Prize in 1997 for her coverage of AIDS.

Gail Sheehy — author. Known in 28 languages for Passages, her ground breaking reporting on humankind’s developmental transitions, Ms. Sheehy is a bestselling author, contribution editor to “Vanity Fair” since 1984, and an observer of culture. Sex and the Seasoned Woman: Pursuing the Passionate Life is her 15th book. Among her awards, she received the “Washington Journalism Review” Award for Best Magazine Writer in America.

Susan Richards Shreve — writer. With a dozen highly acclaimed novels including A Student of Living Things to her credit, Ms. Shreve has also written more than 2 dozen children’s books and co-edited 5 anthologies. She is a professor at George Mason University, has received prestigious grants from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, is a co-founder of the PEN/Faulkner Awards, and has been a visiting professor at both Princeton and Columbia Universities.

Daniel Silva — international thriller novelist. Favorably compared to John le Carré and Graham Greene, Mr. Silva has swept best seller lists with Moscow Rules, exploring possibilities for abuses in a modern world where Russia is again a powerful force, weapons deals an international hazard scourge. Mr. Silva’s prior books, also best-sellers, include The Messenger, which exposed the powerful connections between Saudi Arabia’s rulers and the U.S. government, oil and money, terror and puritanical fundamentalists. Mr. Silva’s carefully researched stories have been translated into more than 25 languages and published around the world. He’s a former reporter trained and experienced in international relations, and is well connected to the power elite in Washington, D.C., where he lives.

Simon Singh — science writer. Author of general audience books about technology, mathematics and science, Simon Singh's The Code Book, Fermat's Enigma and Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe are available far beyond the English-speaking world, including Italy, Japan and France, Brazil, Sweden, Germany, Greece and Israel. After completing his PhD in particle physics at Cambridge University and CERN, Geneva, Mr. Singh went to the BBC in 1991, where he was an award-winning BBC television producer, working also on the “Nova” series. Mr. Singh was born in Somerset, England in 1964 and lives in London when not lecturing in other parts of the world.

Jane Smiley — novelist. The Pulitzer Prize was awarded to Ms. Smiley for her novel A Thousand Acres, a modern rendering of the King Lear tragedy. Known for her versatility as a novelist, Ms. Smiley has written ten other novels including Good Faith, Horse Heaven and The Greenlanders. To her three previous non-fiction books, Ms. Smiley now adds Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel. In 2001, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.   She lives in California where she raises horses.

Jason Sokol — scholar. A teacher at Cornell University and native of Springfield, Massachusetts, Jason Sokol is author of There Goes My Everything, a study of white people in America's civil rights era. He attended Oberlin College and earned his PhD in American History at University of California, Berkeley.

Bishop John Shelby Spong — Bishop (Ret.) Bestselling author of Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, Why Christianity Must Change or Die, A New Christianity for a New World and other revealing books that offer everyone a fresh appreciation of long-buried possibilities within his Christian faith, Bishop Spong brings his faith, scholarship and progressive ideas to The Sins of Scripture:  Exposing the Bible's Texts of Hate to Reveal the God of Love. Formerly the Episcopal Bishop of Newark, he continues to lecture widely and is a columnist for Waterfront Media.  His wife, Christine Mary Spong, is his partner.

Charles R. Stith — former U.S. Ambassador, Director of the African Presidential Archives and Research Center. Editor of For Such a Time as This: African Leadership Challenge and faculty at Boston University’s Department of International Relations, Ambassador Stith served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Republic of Tanzania. He earned degrees from Baker University, Interdenominational Theological Center’s Gammon Theological Seminary and Harvard Divinity School.  He is founder and former national president of the Organization for a New Equality (O.N.E.); and served on the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) Regulatory Agency Working Group. Former Senior Minister of the historic Union United Methodist Church in Boston, he serves on a number of national advisory boards.

Stephan Talty — critic and journalist. Author of Mulatto America, Mr. Talty has written a social history of America "at the crossroads of Black and White Culture." He has contributed a multitude of pieces on race and American culture to publications including the New York Times Magazine, Vibe, George, Chicago Review, the Irish Times, and Playboy.

Hon. Ken Taylor — former Canadian Ambassador to Iran. Amb. Taylor became internationally recognizable in 1979 when he and the Canadian government, working with the American CIA, arranged a clandestine escape from Teheran for the 6 the American diplomats who avoided being part of the year-long hostage crisis, a singular event that has implications to the present day. Amb. Taylor has retired from his life as a career diplomat, now supporting clients as a consultant on how to evaluate, weigh and factor in risks in settings around the world.

Reg Theriault — longshoreman. Mr. Theriault writes eloquently and authentically about his childhood in a family of fruit tramps, his adult life spent working as an active California longshoreman and the lives of America’s blue collar workers. His books include The Unmaking of the American Working Class and How To Tell When You’re Tired:  A Brief Examination of Work.

Robert Thurman — Buddhist scholar. A professor of Buddhist Studies at Columbia University, Dr. Thurman’s books include Why the Dalai Lama Matters. Dr. Thurman was the first American ordained as a Tibetan monk. As a scholar, he has written and translated key works of Tibetan literature and analysis. The cofounder of Tibet House US, Dr. Thurman has dedicated his life to the study and preservation of Tibet’s spiritual and cultural heritage, inspired in part by his 45 year friendship with His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Peter Turchi — teacher & writer. Author of Maps of the Imagination:  The Writer as Cartographer, Peter Turchi directs the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina, US. He wrote the novel The Girls Next Door and Magician, a collection of stories. He is co-editor with Andrea Barrett of The Story Behind the Story:  26 Stories by Contemporary Writers and How They Work and with Charles Baxter, Bringing the Devil to His Knees:  The Craft of Fiction and the Writing Life.

Tom Vanderbilt — reporter. Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) delivers on the promise of its title. Mr. Vanderbilt is also author of Survival City: Adventures Among the Ruins of Atomic America. He writes about design, technology, science and culture of Wired, “Slate, The New York Times and others. He lives in Brooklyn and is considering buying a bicycle.

Susan Vreeland — novelist. With a passion for getting readers into art and art into books, award-winning author Vreeland’s novels showcase art, artists and the artistic life. Among her works are Girl in Hyacinth Blue (Vermeer), Luncheon of the Boating Party (Auguste Renoir), The Forest Lover (Emily Carr) and The Passions of Artemisia (Gentileschi). Life Studies is a collection of her short stories with other short fiction appearing in The Missouri Review, New England Review, Ploughshares and other journals.

Mathis Wackernagel — Redefining Progress. Co/author of Our Ecological Footprint, Winners and Losers in the Global Competition and Sharing Nature's Interest, Mr. Wackernagel is Sustainability Program Director for Redefining Progress and coordinator of the Centro de Estudios para la Sustentabilidad at the Universidad Anahuac de Xalapa in Mexico.  His Ph.D. in community and regional planning is from the University of British Columbia and his mechanical engineering degree is from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

Phil Walden — Founder and President of Capricorn Records. Mr. Walden's first client was soul singer Otis Redding. In 1969, working with his mentor and the music legend Jerry Wexler, Mr. Walden founded Capricorn in Macon Georgia, which enjoyed multi-platinum success with flagship artists, the Marshall Tucker Band and The Allman Brothers Band. In addition to being a participant in the glory days of R&B and rock and roll, Mr. Walden has been active in civic affairs, historic preservation, charity, politics and the arts.

Robert James Waller — novelist. The Bridges of Madison County was the publishing phenomenon that vaulted Mr. Waller from a lifetime consulting with large organizations about economic issues to telling stories set in the theatre of everyday lives. An author of both fiction and non-fiction, High Plains Tango is a stand-alone novel with echoes from Bridges.  Mr. Waller and his wife and dogs live quietly in the Texas hill country.

Eric Weiner — financial journalist. A former reporter for the Dow Jones News Service, Mr. Weiner's stories have appeared widely, from the “Wall Street Journal” to the “Village Voice.” He has written a sweeping history of finance in the United States which he calls, What Goes Up:  the uncensored history of modern Wall Street as told by the bankers, brokers, CEOs and scoundrels who made it happen.  He lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Andrew Weil, M.D. — Integrative Physician. Healthy Aging:  A Lifelong Guide to Your Physical and Spiritual Well-Being is Dr. Weil’s 11th book, others having addressed subjects from The Healthy Kitchen (with Rosie Daley) to natural medicine, spontaneous healing and a revolutionary approach to the drug program. Dr. Weil is clinical professor of medicine and director of the Program in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona. He writes “Self Healing,” a monthly newsletter, makes his ideas available at DrWeil.com and supplements his ideas about aging at www.healthyaging.com. He graduated from Harvard Medical School.

Donnie Williams and Wayne Greenhaw — living history. Mr. Williams' family rescued the bus (now in the Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI) made famous in 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on it. Mrs. Parks became the symbol for the thousands who joined together, making a success of the year long Montgomery (AL) Bus Boycott, a key moment in America's Civil Rights Movement. Since then, Mr. Williams has interviewed scores of others critical to the boycott’s success, including many who participated in and witnessed it. Along with Mr. Williams, Mr. Greenhaw is co-author of The Thunder of Angels:  The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the People Who Broke the Back of Jim Crow.  He brought to bear his lifetime of experience as a widely experienced reporter and author of 17 other books.

William Julius Wilson — scholar of society. Dr. Wilson is among America’s most esteemed sociologists, long associated with the University of Chicago, now Geyser University Professor at Harvard. Author of many highly respect books, Dr. Wilson now adds There Goes The Neighborhood:  Racial, Ethnic and Class Tensions in Four Chicago Neighborhoods and Their Meaning for America, written with Richard Taub. It is a singularly important book at a critical time in America when the effects of current government economic and social policies have devastated large numbers of people. Dr. Wilson’s other books include Power, Racism, and Privilege; The Truly Disadvantaged; and The Bridge over the Racial Divide.

Steven M. Wise — animal rights attorney. We diminish ourselves by denying basic legal rights to our animal cousins, Mr. Wise argues. In his book, Rattling the Cage, he presents compelling legal and moral arguments that at least Chimpanzees and Bonobos should have basic protections under the law, instead of being our slaves. He also gives a road map for how to accomplish this.

Susan F. Wood, PhD — former Assistant Commissioner for Women's Health, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Formerly an experimental biologist and a 15-year veteran of the FDA, Dr. Wood directed its Office of Women's Health. Her August, 2005 resignation from her position there, in a principled response to the politicization of science at the FDA, was widely reported. She now advocates for restoring the importance of science-based decision-making to this and other government agencies, and on behalf of the health of women and their families.

Sandra Worth — writer and biographer of Richard III. A“Richardian,” Ms. Worth is among a growing number of people who appreciate Richard III as a champion of the common man and a key figure in the creation of modern democratic freedoms, not the character created and vilified by many including William Shakespeare. The last Plantagenet king of England (who ruled England from 1154 and Henry II until Richard III's death in 1485,) Ms. Worth tells the story of Richard III in her historical fiction trilogy, The Rose of York.

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