Fiction & Poetry
Christine Adams
OLD?? Christine Adams has authored two collections of poetry: Setting the Table in the Age of Reason and Quatrains, the first of which was released by Propertius Press, Lynchburg Virginia in May, 2024. Currently Chris is in the final research stages for a piece of creative nonfiction, a local history from the perspective of a 235 year-old former mill. The volume has a working title of Homespun: A Biography of a Connecticut Cottage, which is how she perceives her poetry: handcrafted with intention and borne in the spirit of love.
Isabel Allende
Born in Peru and raised in Chile, Isabel Allende is the author of a number of bestselling and critically acclaimed books, including The Wind Knows My Name, Violeta, A Long Petal of the Sea, The House of the Spirits, Of Love and Shadows, Eva Luna, and Paula. Her books have been translated into more than forty-two languages and have sold more than seventy-four million copies worldwide. She lives in California. Photo © Lori Barra
Liz Alterman
Liz Alterman is the author of the memoir Sad Sacked, the young adult thriller He’ll Be Waiting, a finalist for the Dante Rossetti Young Adult Fiction award, and the domestic suspense novels The Perfect Neighborhood and The House on Cold Creek Lane. Her work has been published by The New York Times, The Washington Post, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, and numerous other outlets. She lives in New Jersey with her husband, three sons, and two cats, and spends most days microwaving the same cup of coffee and looking up synonyms. When she isn’t writing, she’s reading and attempting to join as many book clubs as time will allow. For more, visit lizalterman.com.
Alice Austen
Alice Austen’s debut novel is 33 Place Brugmann. Her debut film, Give Me Liberty, won the John Cassavetes Award. She is a past resident of the Royal Court Theatre and her internationally produced plays include Animal Farm (Steppenwolf Theatre), Water, Cherry Orchard Massacre, and Girls in the Boat (Dramatic Publishing). She studied creative writing under Seamus Heaney at Harvard, where she received her JD, after which she moved to Brussels and lived on Place Brugmann. Austen currently lives in Milwaukee and is working on a new film and her next novel. Photo © bravelux
Anne Berest
Anne Berest’s first novel to appear in English, The Postcard, was a national bestseller, a Library Journal, NPR, and TIME Best Book of the Year, and winner of the Choix Goncourt Prize, France's highest literary honor. It was described as “stunning” by Leslie Camhi in The New Yorker, as a “powerful literary work” by Julie Orringer in The New York Times Book Review, and as “intimate, profound, essential” in the pages of ELLE magazine. Photo © Martha Le More
Claire Berest
Claire Berest is the author of four novels including Rien n’est noir, winner of the ELLE Readers Grand Prize, and two works of nonfiction, Class Struggle: Why I Resigned from National Education, and Lost Children: An Investigation in the Minors Brigade. Her most recent novel is Artifices. Photo © Martha Le More
Sash Bischoff
Sash Bischoff is a writer and theater director. She has written plays that have been developed at theaters throughout the US. As a director, she has worked on Broadway and Off. Broadway/National Tours include Dear Evan Hansen, The Visit, On the Town, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and Shrek. Sash grew up as an actor and won the National Arts Award (NFAA) for Acting. She currently lives in New York with her husband and their many pets. Sweet Fury is her first novel. Photo © Beowulf Sheehan
Lily Braun-Arnold
Lily Braun-Arnold is the NYT bestselling author of The Last Bookstore on Earth and is currently an undergraduate at Smith College studying English. When she isn’t writing, she can be found working at her local independent bookstore, Watchung Booksellers, or daydreaming about living in outer space.
Angela Brown
Angela Brown is the author of Olivia Strauss is Running Out of Time. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Real Simple, and other publications. She holds an MFA from Fairleigh Dickinson University. Angela lives with her husband and two young children in New Jersey, where she is currently at work on her next novel. Photo © Sylvie Rosokoff
Elijah M. Brown
Elijah M. Brown is a seasoned writer, poet, spoken word artist, publisher and educator with a deep passion for storytelling and advocacy. As the author of five books; three poetry books and two children books, he uses his work to inspire, challenge perspectives, and uplift voices often unheard. Alongside his writing, he has a background in theater, performing in and creating thought-provoking stage productions as well called manUP The Play.
Anne Burt
Anne Burt’s debut novel, The Dig, was an American Booksellers Association Indie Next Pick, the Strand Book Store’s mystery selection for spring 2023, and Indie Next’s lead “Thrills & Chills” reading group title for summer 2024. Please Don’t Lie, co-authored with Christina Baker Kline, will be published by Thomas & Mercer in September 2025.
Maisy Card
OLD?? Maisy Card is the author of the novel These Ghosts Are Family, which won an American Book Award, the 2021 OCM Bocas Prize in fiction and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel, The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and the LA Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. Her writing has appeared in The Paris Review Daily, The New York Times, Guernica, and other publications. She is currently a public librarian and a fiction editor for The Brooklyn Rail. She lives in Newark, NJ. Photo © Tehsuan Glover
Zee Carlstrom
Zee Carlstrom grew up in Illinois and now works as a creative director. They live in Brooklyn.
Photo © Amy Lombard
Nat Cassidy
Nat Cassidy writes horror for the page, stage, and screen. His acclaimed novels, including Mary: An Awakening of Terror and Nestlings, have been featured in best-of lists from Esquire, Harper's Bazaar, NPR, the Chicago Review of Books, the NY Public Library, and more, and he was named one of the "writers shaping horror’s next golden age" by Esquire. His award-winning horror plays have been produced throughout New York City and across the United States. He won the NY Innovative Theatre Award for his one-man show about H. P. Lovecraft, another for his play about Caligula, and was commissioned by the Kennedy Center to write the libretto for a short opera (about the end of the world, of course). You've also likely seen Nat on your TV, playing various Bad Guys of the Week on shows such as Law & Order: SVU, Blue Bloods, Bull, Quantico, FBI, and many others ... but that's a topic for a different bio. He lives in New York City with his wife. Photo © Kent Meister
Brian Castleberry
Brian Castleberry’s first novel, Nine Shiny Objects, was a New York Times Editor’s Choice selection and was longlisted for the PEN/Faulkner Award. His other work has been published in the Southern Review, Narrative, LitHub, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere.
Daniel D'Addario
Daniel D’Addario is chief correspondent at Variety. He has won awards from the Los Angeles Press Club for profile writing and for political commentary and is among the moderators of Variety’s Actors on Actors video series. He was previously the television critic for Variety and for Time. A graduate of Columbia University, he lives with his husband and two daughters in Brooklyn. His debut novel The Talent is now available from Gallery Books. Photo © Beowulf Sheehan
Alice Elliott Dark
Alice Elliott Dark is the author of the novels Fellowship Point and Think of England, and two collections of short stories, In The Gloaming and Naked to the Waist. Her work has appeared in, among others, The New Yorker, Harper's, DoubleTake, Ploughshares, A Public Space, Best American Short Stories, Prize Stories: The O.Henry Awards, and has been translated into many languages. "In the Gloaming," a story, was chosen by John Updike for inclusion in The Best American Short Stories of The Century and was made into films by HBO and Trinity Playhouse. She is a recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Professor at Rutgers-Newark in the English department and the MFA program. Photo © Beowulf Sheehan
Marcy Dermansky
Marcy Dermansky is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Hurricane Girl, Very Nice, The Red Car, Bad Marie and Twins. Her new novel Hot Air was released in March 2024. Marcy's short fiction has been widely published and anthologized, appearing in McSweeney's, Guernica, The Indiana Review, Lenny Letter and elsewhere. Her essay "Maybe I Loved You" appeared in the best-selling anthology Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York. Marcy has received fellowships from MacDowell and The Edward Albee Foundation. She is the winner of the Smallmouth Press Andre Dubus Novella Award and Story Magazine Carson McCullers short story prize. Powell's Bookstore named Marcy a Writer to Watch Out For. Marcy received her Bachelor of Arts at Haverford College and her Master of Arts at the Center for Writers at the University of Southern, Mississippi. She lives in New Jersey with her daughter Nina. Photo © Michael Lionstar
Josh Duboff
Josh Duboff is a novelist, journalist, and playwright. A former senior writer for Vanity Fair, Josh has written cover stories on Taylor Swift, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Gigi Hadid, among others, and contributed to The New York Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, GQ, W Magazine, Town & Country, Bon Appétit, Air Mail, and more. A graduate of Yale University, he lives in New York City. Photo © Justin Bishop
Kim Coleman Foote
Kim Coleman Foote is the author of Coleman Hill, named a finalist for the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction and NAACP Image Award and long-listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, among others. Born and raised in New Jersey, Kim has received writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fine Arts Work Center at Provincetown, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and elsewhere. Photo © Sara Abbaspour
Lauren Francis-Sharma
Lauren Francis-Sharma is the author of Book of the Little Axe, a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and the critically acclaimed novel ’Til the Well Runs Dry. She was a MacDowell fellow and is the Assistant Director of Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference at Middlebury College. She resides near Washington, DC, with her family. Her most recent novel, Casualties of Truth, was published by Atlantic Monthly Books in February. Photo © Elliott O'Donovan
David Galef
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Daisy Garrison
Daisy Garrison, a proud MHS alum, graduated from Northwestern University and lives in Brooklyn. Her first novel, Six More Months of June, was an Indies Introduce Selection, an Indie Next Pick, and a USA TODAY Best Beach Read.
Garth Risk Hallberg
OLD?? Garth Risk Hallberg’s first novel, City on Fire, was a New York Times and international best seller and was selected as one of the best books of 2015 by The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, The Guardian, Vogue, and others. It was adapted into the Apple TV+ series of the same name. He is also the author of the novella A Field Guide to the North American Family. In 2017, Granta named him one of the Best of Young American Novelists. His work has been translated into seventeen languages. Photo © Michael Lionstar
Elizabeth Harris
Elizabeth Harris is an award-winning reporter at The New York Times, where she covers books and the publishing industry. How To Sleep At Night is her first novel. She lives in New York City with her wife and kids. Photo © Beowulf Sheehan
Alejandro Heredia
Alejandro Heredia is a writer from the Bronx. He has received fellowships from LAMBDA Literary, Dominican Studies Institute, UNLV’s Black Mountain Institute, and elsewhere. He received an MFA in fiction from Hunter College. Loca is his debut novel.
Patrick Hoffman
Patrick Hoffman is a writer and private investigator based in Brooklyn. His first novel, The White Van, was a finalist for the Crime Writers’ Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award and his books have been named Wall Street Journal, Buzzfeed, and San Francisco Chronicle Best Books of the Year. Photo © DeSean McClinton Holland
Violaine Huisman
Violaine Huisman is a French writer. Her debut novel, The Book of Mother, won the Prix Françoise Sagan and was long-listed for the International Booker Prize.
Georgia Hunter
When Georgia Hunter was fifteen years old, she discovered that she came from a family of Holocaust survivors. Years later, she embarked on a journey of intensive research, determined to unearth and record her family’s remarkable story. The result is the New York Times best seller, We Were the Lucky Ones, which has been published in over 20 languages and adapted for television by Hulu as a highly acclaimed limited series. One Good Thing is Georgia’s second novel. She lives in Connecticut with her husband and their two sons. Photo © Andrea Carson
Nancy Johnson
A native of Chicago’s South Side, Nancy Johnson worked for more than a decade as an Emmy-nominated, award-winning television journalist at CBS and ABC affiliates nationwide. A graduate of Northwestern University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she lives in downtown Chicago and manages brand communications for a large nonprofit. Her first book, The Kindest Lie, was a Book of the Month Club selection and a Target Book Club pick.
John Kenney
John Kenney is the author of three novels and four books of poetry. His first novel, Truth In Advertising, won the Thurber Prize for American Humor. He is also the author of Talk to Me, which received a starred Kirkus review, and the New York Times bestseller Love Poems for Married People. He is a long-time contributor to The New Yorker. Photo © Beowulf Sheehan
Crystal Hana Kim
Crystal Hana Kim is the author of If You Leave Me, which was named a best book of 2018 by over a dozen publications. Kim is the recipient of the 2022 National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 Award and is a 2017 PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize winner. Currently, she is the Visiting Assistant Professor at Queens College and a contributing editor at Apogee Journal. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her family. Photo © Nina Subin
Jean Hanff Korelitz
Jean Hanff Korelitz is the author of nine novels, including The Sequel, The Latecomer and The Plot (the latter two in development for limited series), You Should Have Known (adapted as HBO’s 2020 limited series, The Undoing, by David E. Kelley and starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant) and Admission (basis for the 2013 film starring Tina Fey). The Plot was featured on The Tonight Show as the Fallon Summer Reads 2021 pick. Korelitz lives in New York City. Photo © Michael Avedon
Denise La Neve
Denise La Neve is the author of a new poetry collection entitled Half-Lives of the Radium Girls (2024), published by the Poets Press (www.poetspress.org/). She was a contributor and editor for a trilogy of “Poets of the Palisades” anthologies: Beyond the Rift (2010), META-LAND (2016), and On the Verge (2020). Her work has also appeared in journals, most recently The Stillwater Review (Spring 2025). Denise co-hosts The High Mountain Meadow Poetry Series in Wayne, New Jersey.
Judith Lindbergh
OLD and TEXT NEEDS FIXING??Judith Lindbergh’s new novel, Akmaral, about a nomad woman warrior on the ancient Central Asian steppes, is forthcoming from Regal House Publishing on May 7, 2024. Her debut novel, The Thrall’s Tale, about three women in the first Viking Age settlement in Greenland, was an IndieBound Pick, a Borders Original Voices Selection, and praised by Pulitzer Prize winners Geraldine Brooks and Robert Olen Butler. Her work has appeared in numerous publications including in Newsweek, Zibby Magazine, Next Avenue, Writer’s Digest, Edible Jersey, Literary Mama, Archaeology Magazine, Other Voices, and UP HERE: The North at the Center of the World published by University of Washington Press. She also contributed to the Smithsonian Institution’s exhibition Vikings: The Norse Atlantic Saga and provided expert commentary on two documentary series for The History Channel. Judith received a 2024 Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. She is the Founder/Director of The Writers Circle, a New Jersey-based creative writing center where she teaches aspiring and accomplished writers from ages 8-80.
Rachel Lyon
Rachel Lyon is the author of Self-Portrait with Boy, a finalist for the Center for Fiction's 2018 First Novel Prize, and Fruit of the Dead, an Oprah Magazine best book of 2024 which the NY Times called “superb” and “refreshing.” Rachel’s short stories have appeared in One Story, The Rumpus, Electric Literature, and other publications; she has taught most recently at Bennington College and the American University of Paris, where she was the 2024 Paris Writer in Residence. Originally from Brooklyn, NY, she lives with her family in Western Massachusetts. Photo © Pieter M, van Hattem
Colum McCann
Colum McCann is the internationally bestselling author of the novels Apeirogon, TransAtlantic, Let the Great World Spin, Zoli, Dancer, This Side of Brightness, and Songdogs, as well as three critically acclaimed story collections and two nonfiction books, Letters to a Young Writer and American Mother. His fiction has been published in more than forty languages. He has received many honors, including the National Book Award, the International Dublin Literary Award, a Guggenheim fellowship, and an Oscar nomination for his short film Everything in This Country Must. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as the Irish association of artists Aosdana, and he has also received a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres award from the French government. In addition, he has won major awards in Italy, Germany and China. A contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic, and The Paris Review, he is the co-founder of the global nonprofit story exchange organization Narrative 4. He lives with his family in New York. Photo credit © Bertrand Gaudillere
Cleyvis Natera
Cleyvis Natera is the author of the acclaimed debut novel Neruda on the Park which was a New York Times Editor’s choice and won an International Latino Book Award for best first book of fiction. Her second novel The Grand Paloma Resort will be published August 2025. Natera teaches fiction and Latino studies at Montclair State University. Photo © Beowulf Sheehan
Henry Neff
Henry H. Neff is the author & illustrator of seven award-winning fantasy novels, including the 5-volume "Tapestry" series, Impyrium, and his latest book, The Witchstone, which received the 2025 YALSA Alex Award and was short-listed for "Best Fantasy" novel by the American Library Association. A former teacher, Henry lives right here in Montclair with his wife, two sons, and a pair of rescue pups.
paulA Neves
paulA neves, a native of Newark, New Jersey, whose work explores, among other themes, first generation American and immigrant experience, artists’ communities, and the confluence of urban and natural environments, is the author of the full-length poetry collection PASSAIC (Get Fresh Books 2025) and of the chapbook capricornucopia: the dream of the goats (Finishing Line Press 2018). paulA is the co-founder of Parkway North Productions, which produced the award-winning documentary The Remedy (2021) about two New Jersey-based hip hop artists/musicians. paulA’s visual art has appeared at the Montclair Art Museum, The Newark Museum, the Newark Arts Festival, Rutgers University, and elsewhere. Honors include fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, the City of Newark, the New York Foundation for the Arts Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program, and CantoMundo. paulA holds an MFA in poetry from Rutgers-Newark and teaches English Composition there. For more please visit @itinerantmuse on Instagram or visit paulAneves.net.
Helena Rho
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Cece Robson
Cecy Robson is an international and award-winning author of more than thirty books. As an immigrant of El Salvador with proud Nahua Pipil indigenous heritage, Cecy became the first college graduate in her family and worked as a registered nurse for twenty-three years. In her free time, Cecy creates magical worlds, heart-stopping romance, and young adult adventure. Her novels have been translated into multiple languages and are featured in CHAPTERS Interactive Story app., as well as HOOKED where Cecy writes as Rosalina San Tiago. Cecy is thrilled to be a recipient of multiple awards including Comic-Con International’s Inkpot Award, the Maggie Award, and the Award of Excellence. In addition to receiving two RITA® nominations, Cecy was also a finalist for the National Reader’s Choice Award and the National Excellence in Story TellingAward. You can find Cecy laughing, crying, and cheering on her characters as she pens her next story. To learn more, please visit her website www.cecyrobson.com Photo © Alden Wright/Barn Light Photography
Lisa Williamson Rosenberg
Lisa Williamson Rosenberg is the author of Embers on the Wind and Mirror Me. She is a former ballet dancer and psychotherapist specializing in depression, developmental trauma, and multiracial identity. Her essays have appeared in Literary Hub, Longreads, Narratively, Mamalode, and The Common. Her fiction has been published in the Piltdown Review and in Literary Mama, where Lisa received a Pushcart nomination. A born-and-raised New Yorker and mother of two college students, Lisa now lives in Montclair, New Jersey, with her husband and dog. For more information, visit www.lisawrosenberg.com.
Frank Rubino
Frank Rubino spent his early years behind the counter of his father’s Newark luncheonette, spooning sugar into coffee cups, slicing rolls toward his own hands, and mopping the wooden floor of the walk-in fridge. He read myths from borrowed library books while eggs and sausage cooked on the flattop. His mother sorted saints’ medals in a Passaic religious shop; his father, a Korean War vet, laughed at Hawkeye Pierce and squirrels in the backyard. Rubino grew up where neighborhood noise mixed with factory hum—church songs, AM radio, kitchen talk. Now a father, he writes with a clarity that feels spoken rather than composed—gathering the dailiness, the strangeness, and the flicker of memory without ornament. He has been published in The Platform Review, DQM, Thimble, Chaleur, The World, and Vending Machine, and was the featured poet in The Red Wheelbarrow 14. His book, Frank’s Lunch Service, is forthcoming from Lithic Press. He co-hosts the Red Wheelbarrow Poets workshop every Tuesday night and co-edits the group’s yearly anthology. He works in technology and lives in New Jersey with his wife. Photo © Bill Shaw
Anastasia Rubis
Anastasia Stacy Rubis is the author of Oriana: A Novel of Oriana Fallaci, historical fiction about the legendary Italian journalist and her great love. Stacy is at work on a second historical novel set on a Greek island. Her writing has been published in the New York Times, Huffington Post, New York Observer, and literary journals. She holds a B.A. magna cum laude from Brown University and an M.A. from Montclair State University where she was an adjunct professor of English.
Lindy Ryan
Lindy Ryan is an award-winning author, anthologist, and short-film director whose books and anthologies have received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Library Journal. Several of her projects have been adapted for screen. Ryan is the current author-in-residence at Rue Morgue. Declared a “champion for women’s voices in horror” by Shelf Awareness, Ryan was named a Publishers Weekly Star Watch Honoree in 2020, and in 2022, was named one of horror's most masterful anthology curators.? Born and raised in Southeast Texas, Ryan currently resides on the East Coast. She is a professor at Rutgers University.
Lisa Russ Spaar
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Lynn Steger Strong
Lynn Steger Strong is the author of the novels Flight, Want, and Hold Still. Her nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, Time, Harper’s Bazaar, Los Angeles Times, The Paris Review, The Cut, New York Magazine, and elsewhere. She teaches writing at Princeton and Columbia University. Photo © Nina Subin
John J. Trause
John J. Trause, Director of Oradell Public Library, is the author of six books of poetry, including Why Sing? (Sensitive Skin Press, 2017), Picture This: For Your Eyes and Ears (Dos Madres Press, 2016), and Exercises in High Treason (great weather for MEDIA, 2016) and one of parody, Latter-Day Litany (Éditions élastiques, 1996), the latter staged Off Broadway. His work spans traditional and experimental poetry, prose, scholarship, translations, and visual art. Trause's writing has been featured in numerous journals and anthologies worldwide, and his visual poetry and art are published by Marymark Press. Notably, he has performed alongside prominent figures such as Steven Van Zandt and Anne Waldman. His art has been exhibited at The Museum of Modern Art Staff Show and the Museum of Menstruation. Trause is a co-founder of the William Carlos Williams Poetry Cooperative (the Red Wheelbarrow) in Rutherford, NJ, and has performed in the Montclair Literary Festival since 2018, serving as co-moderator of the Poetry Café since 2019. He is fond of cunning acrostics and color-coded chiasmus.
Boo Trundle
Boo Trundle is a writer, artist, and performer whose work has appeared across various platforms and publications, including The Brooklyn Rail, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and NPR’s The Moth. She has released three albums of original music with Big Deal Records. She lives in New Jersey. The Daughter Ship is her first novel. Photo © Nina Subin
Scott Turow
Scott Turow, a writer and former practicing lawyer, is the author of thirteen bestselling works of fiction. His books have been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than thirty million copies worldwide, and have been adapted for movies and television. Mr. Turow has also published two nonfiction books, including One L, about his experience as a law student. Photo © Audrey Snow Evan
Lisa Unger
Lisa Unger is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author. Her books are published in 32 languages, with millions of copies sold worldwide. In 2019, she received two Edgar Award nominations, an honor held by only a few writers including Agatha Christie. Her work has been named on "Best Book" lists from TODAY, People, Good Morning America, Entertainment Weekly, Amazon, IndieBound and many others. She has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, and Travel+Leisure. She lives in Florida with her family. Photo © Brian James
Anton Yakovlev
Anton Yakovlev’s poetry collection One Night We Will No Longer Bear the Ocean came out in June 2024 from Redacted Books, an imprint of ELJ Editions. His most recent poetry chapbook Chronos Dines Alone (SurVision Books, 2018) won the James Tate Prize. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry Daily, The Hopkins Review, Crab Orchard Review, Plume, and elsewhere. The Last Poet of the Village: Selected Poems by Sergei Yesenin Translated by Anton Yakovlev was published by Sensitive Skin Books in 2019. Born in Moscow, Russia, Anton is a graduate of Harvard University and a former education director at Bowery Poetry Club. He co-hosts the Carmine Street Metrics reading series in Manhattan, the Rutherford Red Wheelbarrow reading series in Rutherford, New Jersey, and the Out of the Box reading series at Bowery Poetry Club.
Non-Fiction
Camille Adams
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Christian Allaire
Christian Allaire is currently Senior Fashion and Style Writer at Vogue, where he covers celebrity style, red carpet fashion, trends, emerging designers and specializes in coverage of Indigenous fashion across North America. He is First Nations (Ojibwe), Italian and French and grew up on the Nipissing First Nation reserve in Northern Ontario with dreams of working in the fashion industry. Allaire writes with feeling about the struggle to find his place—and community—in the highly exclusive world of fashion. Full of joy, honesty, adversity, and great clothes, From the Rez to the Runway: Forging My Path In Fashion is a gripping memoir about how to achieve your dreams—and elevate others—while always remaining true to yourself.
Elissa Altman
Elissa Altman is the award-winning author of the memoirs Motherland, Treyf, and Poor Man’s Feast, and the bestselling essay substack of the same name. A longtime editor, she has been a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, Connecticut Book Award, Maine Literary Award, and the Frank McCourt Memoir Prize, and her work has appeared in publications including Orion, The Bitter Southerner, On Being, O: The Oprah Magazine, LitHub, the Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, and the Washington Post, where her column, “Feeding My Mother,” ran for a year. Altman writes and speaks widely on the intersection of permission, storytelling, and creativity, and has appeared live on the TEDx stage and at the Public Theater in New York. She teaches the craft of memoir at Fine Arts Work Center, Maine Writers & Publishers, Kripalu, Truro Center for the Arts, Rutgers Community Writing Workshop, and beyond, and lives in Connecticut with her wife, book designer Susan Turner.
Ray Brescia
Ray Brescia is the Associate Dean for Research & Intellectual Life and the Hon. Harold R. Tyler Professor in Law & Technology at Albany Law School. He is the author of Lawyer Nation: The Past, Present, and Future of the American Legal Profession and The Future of Change: How Technology Shapes Social Revolutions; and editor of Crisis Lawyering: Effective Legal Advocacy in Emergency Situations; and How Cities Will Save the World: Urban Innovation in the Face of Population Flows, Climate Change, and Economic Inequality.
Connie Chung
A trailblazing journalist for NBC, CBS, ABC, Connie Chung shattered glass ceilings, paving the way for many women and Asians alike. In 1969, at the age of 23, the once-shy daughter of Chinese parents took her first job at a local TV station in her hometown of DC and soon thereafter began working at CBS News as a correspondent. Chung was tenacious in her pursuit of stories – battling rival reporters to get scoops that ranged from interviewing Magic Johnson to covering the Watergate scandal – and quickly became a household name. She made history when she became the first woman to co-anchor the CBS Evening News and the first Asian to anchor any news program in the country. An entire generation of Asian women were named after her. In Connie: A Memoir, Chung pulls no punches as she shares a behind-the-scenes tour of her life and career, from showdowns with powerful men in and out of the newsroom where overt sexism was a way of life to the stories behind some of her career-defining reporting. Photo © Coco Aramaki
Paul Elie
Paul Elie is the author of The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage (2003) and Reinventing Bach: The Search for Transcendence in Sound (2012), both National Book Critics Circle Award finalists. He is a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and a regular contributor to The New Yorker. He lives in Brooklyn. Photo © Holger Thoss
David Enrich
David Enrich is the Business Investigations Editor at the New York Times and the bestselling author of Dark Towers and Servants of the Damned. The winner of numerous journalism awards, he previously was an editor and reporter at the Wall Street Journal. His first book, The Spider Network: How a Math Genius and Gang of Scheming Bankers Pulled Off One of the Greatest Scams in History, was short-listed for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year award. Enrich grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts, and graduated from Claremont McKenna College in California. He currently lives in New York with his wife and two sons. Photo © Peter Eavis
Dionne Ford
Dionne Ford is author of the Go Back and Get It, a 2024 finalist for the Hurston Wright Foundation Legacy Award and co-editor of the anthology Slavery's Descendants: Shared Legacies of Race and Reconciliation. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Virginia Quarterly Review, LitHub, The Boston Globe, New Jersey Monthly, Rumpus and Ebony among other publications and won awards from the the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Association of Black Journalists and the Newswomen's Club of New York. She teaches creative writing at Fordham University and is editor of Lynchings in the North, an initiative of the Arthur L. Carter Institute of Journalism at New York University.
Edwin Frank
Edwin Frank is the editorial director of New York Review Books and the founder of the NYRB Classics series. Born in Boulder, Colorado, and educated at Harvard College and Columbia University, he has been a Wallace Stegner Fellow and a Lannan Fellow and is a member of the New York Institute for the Humanities. He has taught in the Columbia Writing Program and served on the jury of the 2015 Booker International Prize. A Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and a recipient of a lifetime award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters for distinguished service to the arts, he is the author of Snake Train: Poems 1984–2013, and Stranger Than Fiction: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel, which was published in November 2024. Photo © Jonathan Becker
Ian Frazier
Ian Frazier's books, all published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, include Paradise Bronx, Great Plains, Travels in Siberia, Dating Your Mom, and many other classic works of nonfiction and humor. A frequent contributor to The New Yorker, he lives in Montclair, New Jersey. Photo © Sara Barrett
Rebecca Brenner Graham
Dr. Rebecca Brenner Graham is a postdoctoral research associate at Brown University. Previously, she taught at the Madeira School and American University. She has a PhD in history and an MA in public history from American University, as well as a BA in history and philosophy from Mount Holyoke College. In 2023, she was awarded a Cokie Roberts Fellowship from the National Archives Foundation and a Rubenstein Center Research Fellowship from the White House Historical Association. Her writing has been published in the Washington Post, Time, Slate, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. Photo © Andrew Lehto Photography
David Greenberg
David Greenberg is a professor of history at Rutgers University. His latest book, John Lewis: A Life (Simon & Schuster, 2024), has been called “panoramic and richly insightful” (Brent Staples, The New York Times). Greenberg is the author or editor of several books of American history including Nixon’s Shadow: The History of an Image and Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency, he now writes for Politico, Liberties, The New York Times Book Review, and many other scholarly and popular publications.
Fred Guterl
Fred Guterl is a writer, editor and author. As past editor of Scientific American, he led the magazine to numerous editorial awards, including its first (and only) for General Excellence from the American Society of Magazine Editors. His work has also appeared in the New York Times, National Geographic, Newsweek, Slate, Discover and many other publications. His most impressive accomplishment, according to his kids, was appearing on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart to flog Fate of the Species (Bloomsbury 2012). In the book, he predicted the onset of the pandemic—along with Bill Gates and thousands of scientists and journalists who also saw it coming.
David Hadju
David Hajdu is the author of seven books, including Adrianne Geffel: A Fiction, and a three-time National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. A musician and composer, he is the music critic for the Nation and a journalism professor at Columbia University. He lives in New York City. Photo © Madison Rosenfield
Cindy Schweich Handler
Cindy Handler is a native of St. Louis, Missouri whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Redbook, Huffington Post and a host of other national publications; she has written about subject matter contained in A German Jew’s Triumph: Fritz Oppenheimer and the Denazification of Germany in The Washington Post and Northjersey.com. She is currently a writer for The USA Today Network in northern New Jersey whose features have appeared regularly in The Record newspaper, online at Northjersey.com and in Gannett-owned newspapers throughout the country. Formerly, she was editor-in-chief of multiple USAT Network local magazines. She is a graduate of Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism. Handler has three grown children and lives in Montclair, New Jersey with her husband Harry and Leo, their senior goldendoodle.
Harry Handler
Is harry on the panel bc he is not mentioned in the event description?
Harry Handler is a native of Urbana, Illinois, and a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison History Department with degrees in History and Political Science. Harry has lectured on 9/11, World Wars I, II and the rise of Nazism at universities, historical societies and corporations throughout the United States. He serves on the University of Wisconsin-Madison History Department Board of Visitors. Though he has worked in the finance industry for many years, his first love is history. Harry lives with his wife Cindy Schweich Handler in Montclair, New Jersey. Their adult children have flown the coop.
Lee Hawkins
Lee Hawkins is the author of I Am Nobody’s Slave: How Uncovering My Family’s History Set Me Free (2025). He was a 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist as a lead reporter on a series about the Tulsa Massacre of 1921 at the Wall Street Journal, where he worked for nineteen years. He has received several fellowships, including The Carter Center’s Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism, the Alicia Patterson Foundation Journalism Fellowship, the O’Brien Fellowship for Public Service Journalism, the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism National Fellowship for reporting on child well-being. Hawkins is a five-time winner of the National Association of Black Journalists’ “Salute to Excellence” Award. He is the creator and host of the podcast “What Happened in Alabama?” and lives in the New York City area. Photo © Lee Hawkins
Eric Heinze
Eric Heinze is currently the Professor of Law & Humanities at Queen Mary University of London. After earning his JD degree cum laude from Harvard Law School, Eric published his first monograph, entitled Sexual Orientation: A Human Right. He has published and appeared in more than 200 articles and media pieces. His most recent book is Coming Clean: The Rise of Critical Theory and the Future of the Left, published by The M.I.T. Press. Other recent books include The Most Human Right: Why Free Speech is Everything, also with The M.I.T. Press, and Hate Speech and Democratic Citizenship with Oxford University Press.
Alexandra Jacobs
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Abbott Kahler
Abbott Kahler, formerly writing as Karen Abbott, is the New York Times bestselling author of a novel, Where You End, and five works of narrative nonfiction: Sin in the Second City; American Rose; Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy; The Ghosts of Eden Park (an Edgar Award finalist for Best Fact Crime); and, most recently, Eden Undone: A True Story of Sex, Murder, and Utopia at the Dawn of World War II. She has written for newyorker.com, the Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, Air Mail Weekly, Smithsonian Magazine, and other publications. A native of Philadelphia, she lives in New York City.
Gary Krist
Gary Krist is the author of Trespassers at the Golden Gate and four previous narrative nonfiction books: The White Cascade, City of Scoundrels, Empire of Sin, and The Mirage Factory. He has also written three novels and two short story collections. A widely published journalist and book reviewer, Krist has been the recipient of the Stephen Crane Award, the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Lowell Thomas gold medal for travel journalism, a fiction fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Public Scholar grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
D.T. Max
D. T. Max is a staff writer for The New Yorker. He is the author of Finale: Late Conversations with Stephen Sondheim, The Family That Couldn’t Sleep: A Medical Mystery, and Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace, a national best-seller.
Omo Moses
Omo Moses is an activist, an educator, and a mediamaker. He is the Founder/CEO of MathTalk, an education technology company that creates products that inspire adults and kids everywhere, particularly those in economically distressed communities, to enjoy math. Moses is a member of the MSNBC Grio 100, a Huffington Post Person of the Day, and a Barr Foundation Fellow. Photo © Early Futures
Timothy O'Brien
OLD??? Timothy L. O’Brien is a senior columnist with Bloomberg Opinion and also a political analyst with MSNBC. Tim writes extensively about a wide range of topics, including business, technology, media, national politics, white-collar crime, the U.S. presidency, Russia, gambling, and Hollywood. He is the author of three books, including a biography of Donald Trump – TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald. Trump sued O'Brien for libel and lost the case in 2011. Previously Tim was the executive editor of The HuffPost where he received a Pulitzer Prize for a series about wounded war veterans. Tim is the recipient of several other awards including a Loeb and recognition from SABEW, the Society of Professional Journalists, and the Deadline Club. Tim has also been a reporter and writer for the Wall Street Journal, Talk Magazine, the Village Voice, and National Geographic.
Michael Paris
Michael Paris is Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Political Science and Global Affairs, the College of Staten Island (CSI), City University of New York (CUNY). He teaches courses in constitutional law, civil liberties, and law and public policy. Professor Paris received the CSI's 2011 Dolphin Award for Outstanding Teaching by a Member of the Full-Time Faculty. He is the author of Framing Equal Opportunity: Law and the Politics of School Finance Reform (Stanford University Press, 2010), which received an honorable mention for the 2011 C. Herman Pritchett Award, given annually by the American Political Science Association’s Law and Courts Section for the best book in the field published by a political scientist during the previous year. He holds a Ph.D. in Politics from Brandeis University (1998) and a J.D. from the Columbia University School of Law (1986).
Joe Pompeo
Joe Pompeo is the critically-acclaimed author of Blood & Ink: The Scandalous Jazz Age Double Murder That Hooked America on True Crime. He was a senior correspondent at Vanity Fair and previously worked at publications including Politico and The New York Observer. The recipient of two Mirror Awards from the Newhouse School at Syracuse University and an Author Award from the New Jersey Studies Academic Alliance, he's also written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, New York, Town & Country, Air Mail, Bloomberg Businessweek, and many other outlets. He lives in Montclair with his family. Photo © New Moon Photography
Fred Ritchin
Fred Ritchin is a writer, educator, and critic. Currently the Dean Emeritus of the International Center of Photography (ICP) School, he was previously professor of photography and imaging at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. He has worked as the picture editor of The New York Times Magazine (1978-1982) and created the first multimedia version of the New York Times newspaper (1994-1995). He was nominated by the Times for a Pulitzer Prize in public service in 1997 for Bosnia: Uncertain Paths to Peace, a non-linear online photo essay that he conceived and edited. Ritchin's previous books include In Our Own Image: The Coming Revolution in Photography (1990), After Photography (2009), and Bending The Frame: Photojournalism, Documentary, and the Citizen (2013). He continues to teach and lecture widely. His newest book is The Synthetic Eye: Photography Transformed in the Age of AI. Photo © Joshua Irwandi
Mark Rotella
Mark Rotella is the director of the Coccia Institute for the Italian Experience at Montclair State University, where he is also a professor of creative writing. He is a former senior editor at Publishers Weekly, where he covered cookbooks and books on food and drink. He has written two books, both published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux: Stolen Figs: And Other Adventures in Calabria and Amore: The Story of Italian American Song.
Russell Shorto
Russell Shorto, author of the bestsellers Smalltime, Revolution Song, Amsterdam, and The Island at the Center of the World, is the director of the New Amsterdam Project at the New York Historical. He lives in Maryland. Photo © Sizzy Watson
Guy Trebay
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Benjamin Wallace
Benjamin Wallace is The New York Times bestselling author of The Billionaire’s Vinegar. He has been a features writer at New York magazine and a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. Photo © Kenny Creed
Irvin Weathersby, Jr
Irvin Weathersby, Jr. is a Brooklyn-based writer and professor from New Orleans. His work has been featured on ABC News Live Prime, WNYC, WWNO, at the Brooklyn Museum and Apollo Theater, and in the Los Angeles Times, Elle, LitHub, Guernica, Esquire, The Atlantic, EBONY, and elsewhere. He has earned an MFA from The New School, an MA from Morgan State University, and a BA from Morehouse College. He has received fellowships and awards from the Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation, the Research Foundation of CUNY, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Mellon Foundation. In Open Contempt is his first book.
Alissa Wilkinson
Alissa Wilkinson is a film critic at the New York Times and was formerly a senior correspondent and critic at Vox. Her previous book, Salty: Lessons on Eating, Drinking, and Living from Revolutionary Women, was published in 2022. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Michael Wolraich
Michael Wolraich is the critically acclaimed author of The Bishop and the Butterfly (2024 Edgar Award Nominee), Unreasonable Men (2014), and Blowing Smoke (2010). His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, TIME Magazine, The Daily Beast, New York Magazine, Reuters, and other publications. Wolraich grew up in Iowa City and graduated from Williams College in Massachusetts before falling in love with New York City, where he has lived since 2000.
Lina Zeldovich
Lina Zeldovich grew up in a dissident family of Soviet scientists, listening to bedtime stories about volcanoes and black holes, and learned English as a second language in her twenties as an immigrant New Yorker. Now an award-winning author and speaker she has written for Popular Science, The New York Times, Smithsonian, National Geographic, Reader’s Digest, Scientific American and more. Her first book, The Other Dark Matter: The Science and Business of Turning Waste into Wealth and Health, has been optioned for a TV series. Her new book, The Living Medicine: How a Lifesaving Cure Was Nearly Lost—and Why It Will Rescue Us When Antibiotics Fail was published by St. Martin’s Press in October 2024, followed by a UK edition from Bonnier Books, to rave reviews, and was longlisted for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. A thriller-like narrative, it unveils a century-old, nearly forgotten antibiotic-free cure for drug-resistant infections that may be our best defense against the next pandemic. It tells the historical drama of the renegade scientists who discovered the medicine and why we should know about it now—as our antibiotic shield is collapsing—to make well-informed health choices.
Carl Zimmer
Carl Zimmer writes the "Origins" column for the New York Times and has frequently contributed to the Atlantic, National Geographic, Time, and Scientific American. His journalism has earned numerous awards, including ones from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Academies of Science, Medicine, and Engineering. Zimmer is professor adjunct at Yale, where he teaches writing. He is the author of of fourteen books about science, including Life's Edge. Photo © Mistina Hanscom
Other Speakers
Ivan Amato
Ivan Amato is a longtime science and technology writer and editor. His work has appeared in many newspapers and magazines, among them Time, Fortune, Washington Post, Technology Review, Discover and Scientific American. He has been a staff writer and editor on several magazine mastheads, a founder of science cafes on both coasts, a science correspondent for NPR and a technology podcast producer for a government agency. He has written books on topics ranging from the materials in our constructed landscape to the history of space technology. He currently works as the science communications manager for Columbia University's Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute.
Wilhelm Kuhn
Wilhelm Kuhn is a filmmaker and educator who was born and raised in Paris. He is a graduate of the London Film School where he made thesis film, "The Porter Brothers": a western acquired by Amazon Prime. His latest film “Julius” screened in competition at Torino Film Festival and tells the story of a war orphan at the end of the American Civil War. As a producer, he runs the production company Sunhour Films between Paris and New York, which focuses on international co-productions, with films often directed by expatriate filmmakers across the world. He is also the host and creator of the in-person multimedia lecture series "Ten Films That Changed America".
Sarah Lyall
Sarah Lyall is a writer at large at The New York Times, where she writes news, features and reviews, and has a monthly column on thrillers.
Leslie-Ann Murray
Doesn't have a book so I moved her here
Elaina Patton
Elaina Patton is a New York-based freelance entertainment and culture writer. She regularly contributes features to Vogue, IndieWire, and NBC Out, as well as occasionally writing about film and TV for brands like TODAY and Salon. In the past, she’s held staff positions at NBC News Digital, The New Yorker, and Vanity Fair International.
Kate Tuttle
Kate Tuttle is a book critic, essayist, and editor. A past president of the National Book Critics Circle and judge for the National Book Award, she edits the books pages of the Boston Globe. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and elsewhere. A Kansas native, she now lives in New Jersey after stints in Boston and Atlanta.
Mary Alice Williams
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