Authors

ROWAN RICARDO PHILLIPS is the author of seven previous books of poetry, prose, and translation. He has been the recipient of a Whiting Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing, the Nicolás Guillén Outstanding Book Award, the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award, and the GLCA New Writers Award. Phillips has also been a finalist for the Griffin International Poetry Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry, and an NAACP Image Award, and has been longlisted for the National Book Award for Poetry. He is a professor of English at Stony Brook University in New York and the poetry editor of The New Republic. His book in progress, I Just Want Them to Remember Me: Black Baseball in America, will be published by FSG in 2025. He lives in New York City and Barcelona.

GEOFFREY PHILP, a Jamaican poet, novelist, and playwright, is the founder of respectgarvey.com. His works include Garvey's Ghost, Marcus and the Amazons, and the poetry collection Letter from Marcus Garvey. His work has garnered accolades, including the Marcus Garvey Award for Community Service from the Rootz Foundation and the Marcus Garvey Excellence Award in Education (2022) from the Consulate General of Jamaica in Miami. Through his writing and community engagement, Philp continues to honor and extend the legacy of Marcus Garvey, inspiring new generations to embrace Garvey's philosophies of empowerment and unity.

NADINE PINEDE is the daughter of Haitian exiles from the Duvalier dictatorship. She created her own interdisciplinary major at Harvard University, then continued on to the University of Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship. She also has an MFA in fiction and poetry and a Ph.D. from Indiana University.

ROBERT PINSKY is the author of several poetry books, including Gulf Music, Jersey Rain, The Want Bone, The Figured Wheel, and At the Foundling Hospital. His bestselling translation The Inferno of Dante set a modern standard. He was poet laureate of the United States from 1997 to 2000. Among his awards and honors are the William Carlos Williams Award, the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, the PEN/Voelcker Award, the Korean Manhae Prize, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the PEN American Center. His latest collection is Proverbs of Limbo: Poems (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).

CARLOS PINTADO, born in Cuba in 1974, received the Paz Prize for Poetry for his book Nine Coins/Nueve Monedas, the Sant Jordi International Prize for Poetry for Autorretrato en Azul, and was a finalist for the Adonais Prize for El azar y los tesoros. His latest collection is Music for Bamboo Strings: Música Para Cuerdas de Bambú (Sundial House) translated by Lawrence Schimel.

Attorney SEAN PITTMAN is an advocate, philanthropist, thought leader, and one of the “Top 100 Most Influential People in Florida Politics,” according to Influence Magazine. Florida Trend magazine named him “A Must Know Contact” in Florida’s capital as well as a “Top 500 Business Leader in Florida.” Pittman has managed, advised, and worked on dozens of local, statewide, and national campaigns. He hosts his own radio show and podcast series, “The Sean Pittman Show,” has appeared on MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News, and has been published in USA Today, the Tallahassee Democrat, the Miami Herald, and The Palm Beach Post.

Born in Southern California, LEONARD PITTS JR. is a Pulitzer Prize-winning retired columnist for the Miami Herald. Pitts has worked as a professor of journalism at several universities, including Princeton University, the University of Maryland, and Morgan State University. He is the author of a series of acclaimed works of African American history, including Before I Forget: A Novel (Agate Bolden), Freeman: A Novel (Agate Bolden), Grant Park: A Novel (Agate Bolden), and The Last Thing You Surrender: A Novel (Agate Bolden). The Washington Post dubbed him “a knowledgeable, compassionate and relentlessly truthful writer.” His latest book, 54 Miles: A Novel (Agate Bolden), was published in July 2024.

DANIEL R. PORTERFIELD is the president and CEO of the Aspen Institute and has been recognized as a visionary strategist, transformational leader, devoted educator, and passionate advocate for justice and opportunity. He previously served as the president of Franklin & Marshall College, where he led the school in tripling its percentage of incoming low-income students and doubling its population of domestic students of color. Porterfield has received numerous awards and recognitions for his work and holds bachelor’s degrees from Georgetown University and the University of Oxford. He earned his Ph.D. at the CUNY Graduate Center.

As a culture and music commentator in Miami for the biweekly Wave and daily Miami News, CHRIS POTASH participated in and helped spotlight the emerging alternative art and music scenes during the early days of the rebirth of South Beach. For his weekly Off the Record column in the Miami News, he interviewed performers native to and passing through South Florida, including Luther Campbell of 2 Live Crew, John “Stix” Galway of the Psycho Daisies and The Silos, King Felix, Frank Falestra, Dee Dee Ramone, LL Cool J, Chuck D, Flavor Flav, Jimmy Cliff, Alpha Blondy, Doro Pesch, Brenda K. Starr, and David Moss, along with performance artist Karen Finley and painter Purvis Young. Potash has compiled, edited, and contributed to two volumes: The Jimi Hendrix Companion: Three Decades of Commentary (Schirmer Books) and Reggae, Rasta, Revolution: Jamaican Music from Ska to Dub (Schirmer Books). He has also produced commercials, web videos, and short-form documentaries on art, industry, music, religion, and culture. Potash currently works as the marketing and public relations manager for the Allentown Art Museum in Pennsylvania.

MAURY POVICH is a retired American television personality, best known for hosting the tabloid talk show Maury, which aired from 1991 to 2022. Povich began his career as a radio reporter and in the late 1980s gained national fame as the host of the tabloid infotainment TV show A Current Affair, based at Fox's New York flagship station WNYW and later national syndication in 1988. In 1991 he co-produced his own show, The Maury Povich Show, which in 1998 was rebranded as Maury. Povich then headed to CBS-owned KNXT in Los Angeles – where in the late '70s he briefly co-anchored alongside his future wife, Connie Chung, whom he married in 1984.

NATE POWELL is the first cartoonist to win a National Book Award. His work includes the new graphic novel Fall Through; Save It For Later: Promises, Protest, and Parenthood; civil rights icon John Lewis' March trilogy and its follow-up, Run; the viral comics essay About Face; and the graphic novels Come Again, Two Dead, Any Empire, and Swallow Me Whole. He has published nonfiction comics and written for The Washington Post, The Nib, Popula, Booklist, CNN, and The Weather Channel. Powell’s work has received a Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, multiple Eisner and Ignatz Awards, ALA and YALSA distinctions, the Comic-Con International Inkpot Award, and the CXC Transformative Work Award. From 1992 to 2010, he performed and toured in multiple underground punk bands, including Soophie Nun Squad and Universe, and managed the DIY label Harlan Records. Lies My Teacher Told Me: A Graphic Adaptation (New Press) is Powell’s version of the indispensable American Book Award-winning and multimillion copy bestselling book by sociologist and civil rights champion James W. Loewen.

LISA PRATT-SANCHEZ is a vibrant individual, infused with the lively energy of the city and the islands. She is an accomplished speaker and facilitator, and author of “Working on a Project Called LIFE”. With a rich history of steering successful endeavors, Lisa brings a seasoned perspective to every project she undertakes, providing both efficiency and a contagious enthusiasm that naturally spreads to the teams she works with. Lisa continues to be a force in her assignments, living as a "purpose in progress." Her daily mission is to live fully, love more, and give generously.

RANDY PRESTON is an African Native American (Piscataway) composer, author, and performer, raised in the U.K., Zimbabwe, and Kenya. He started writing music at the age of 7 and never stopped. He taught English literature for 18 years before collaborating with Kwame Alexander, performing at numerous schools and venues around the world. Preston wrote original songs for several picture books and children’s shows and composed the score for the musical Acoustic Rooster’s Barnyard Boogie, starring Indigo Blume.

FRANCINE PROSE, author of 1974: A Personal History (Harper), has previously written 22 works of fiction, including The Vixen; Mister Monkey; the New York Times bestseller Lovers at the Chameleon Club; Paris 1932; A Changed Man, which won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize; and Blue Angel, a finalist for the National Book Award. Her nonfiction works include Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife, and Reading Like a Writer, a bestseller and classic. The recipient of numerous grants and honors, including a Guggenheim, Fulbright, and Director’s Fellow at the Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, Prose is a former president of PEN America Center and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is a Distinguished Writer in Residence at Bard College.

NATASHA PULLEY is the international bestselling author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, The Bedlam Stacks, The Lost Future of Pepperharrow, The Kingdoms, and The Half-Life of Valery K. She has won a Betty Trask Award; been shortlisted for, among others, the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award, the Royal Society of Literature's Encore Award, and the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize; and longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize. She lives in Bristol, England. The queer sci-fi story The Mars House: A Novel (Bloomsbury Publishing) is her latest work.

JAMIE QUATRO is the author of Two-Step Devil: A Novel (Grove Press), I Want to Show You More – named a New York Times notable book, finalist for the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award and the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize – and Fire Sermon, selected as a Book of the Year by The Economist, San Francisco Chronicle, LitHub, Bloomberg, and the Times Literary Supplement. Quatro’s fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, the New York Review of Books, and Ploughshares. She is the recipient of fellowships from MacDowell and Yaddo and teaches in the Sewanee School of Letters MFA program. Quatro lives with her family in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

OCTAVIO QUINTANILLA is the author of the poetry collections If I Go Missing (Slough Press, 2014), The Book of Wounded Sparrows (Texas Review Press, 2024) – which has been longlisted for the American Book Award – and Las Horas Imposibles/The Impossible Hours, winner of the 2024 Ambroggio Prize given by the Academy of American Poets, forthcoming from the University of Arizona Press.

BETTY QUINTERO (Venezuela, 1972). Promotora de lectura. Reside en Miami. Es licenciada en Letras por la Universidad Central de Venezuela. Trabajó como asistente editorial en la Fundación Rómulo Betancourt y como promotora de lectura en la Asociación Civil Crear y Organiz-Arte Comunitario en su país de origen; y en Miami trabajó en la distribuidora de libros en español Cinco Books. Actualmente forma parte del equipo de la Fundación Cuatrogatos y desde 2019 coordina el programa de acercamiento a la lectura ¿Te leo un libro? que la organización desarrolla con niños de prekínder en Homestead en colaboración con Le Jardin Community Center.

TITA RAMÍREZ grew up in Miami, the daughter of a Cuban exile and a Kentucky native. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Literary Hub, The Normal School, Black Warrior Review, and elsewhere. Ramírez lives in North Carolina with her husband and their two sons, and teaches creative writing at Elon University. Tell It to Me Singing: A Novel (S&S/Marysue Rucci Books) is her debut novel.

GABRIEL RAMIREZ, author of If Pit Bulls Had a God, It'd be a Pit Bull is a queer Afro-Caribbean writer and educator. A 2023 Gregory Djanikian Scholar in Poetry at Adroit Journal and a 2024-2025 CantoMundo Poetry Coalition Fellow. Gabriel has received support from The Conversation Literary Arts Festival, Miami Book Fair, The Watering Hole, and Callaloo. You can find their work in publications like Muzzle Magazine, Split This Rock’s The Quarry, Poetry Magazine, BOMB, Acentos Review, and others, as well as Latino Poetry: The Library of America Anthology (Library of America 2024).

VERA RAMONE KING (neé Boldis) is the former wife of the late Dee Dee Ramone (born Douglas Colvin), bassist and founding member of the iconic punk group The Ramones.

PAOLA RAMOS is an author and Emmy-winning journalist. She is a contributor to Telemundo News and MSNBC, where she is the host of Field Report with Paola Ramos. She is also a former correspondent for Vice News. Prior to her career in journalism, Ramos was the deputy director of Hispanic media for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign; a political appointee during former President Barack Obama’s administration; and served in Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign. She is also a former Hauser Leader in the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School, where she received her master’s degree in public policy, and recently joined the board of trustees of her alma mater, Barnard College. She is the author of Finding Latin-X: In Search of the Voices Redefining Latino Identity (Vintage). Ramos was born in Miami to Cuban and Mexican parents, grew up in Madrid, and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

JORGE RAMOS Periodista y escritor mexicano, presentador estelar de Univisión Noticias y el rostro masculino del Noticiero Univisión desde 1986. Ha publicado 11 libros, seis de los cuales han sido traducidos al inglés. Es uno de los latinos más influyentes en Estados Unidos de acuerdo con la revista Time, lo mismo que uno de los periodistas y las figuras políticas más importantes en el país, de acuerdo a Newsweek. Ha cubierto siete conflictos bélicos y los sucesos mundiales más importantes de los últimos 40 años. Es también un aguzado entrevistador de las figuras políticas y culturales más importantes de nuestros tiempos. Escribe una columna semanal sobre temas de actualidad que se reproduce en más de 40 diarios del hemisferio. Llega a la Feria con Así veo las cosas. Lo que nunca te conté (Planeta), donde reúne sus textos más personales y literarios escritos a lo largo de cuatro décadas de carrera: desde sus primeros artículos en México sobre desastres naturales o sobre la guerra en Centroamérica, hasta sus reflexiones semanales sobre cuestiones como la familia, la tecnología, el oficio de periodista, el lado humano de sus viajes como reportero, sus queridas mascotas, o incluso temas tan personales como su nariz.

ALICE RANDALL is a New York Times bestselling novelist, award-winning songwriter, and educator. She is widely recognized as one of the most significant voices in modern Black fiction and has emerged as an innovative food activist committed to reforms that support healthy bodies and communities. Randall lives in Nashville, Tennessee, where she writes country songs and is a professor of African American and diaspora studies, writer-in-residence at Vanderbilt University.

RUTHVIKA RAO was born in Warangal district, Telangana, and grew up in Hyderabad, India. She graduated from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she was a Truman Capote Fellow and recipient of the Henfield Prize in fiction. Her short fiction has appeared in The Georgia Review, The Southern Review, New Letters, StoryQuarterly, and elsewhere. The Fertile Earth: A Novel (Flatiron Books) is her debut work of fiction.

M.S. REDCHERRIES received an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a J.D. from Arizona State University’s College of Law. She is a citizen of the Northern Cheyenne Nation and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

ELLE REEVE is a CNN correspondent whose work has won numerous awards, including an Emmy and a Peabody. Her writing has appeared in Vice, The New Republic, New York Magazine, Elle, The Atlantic, and The Daily Beast. Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics (Atria Books) is her debut book.

RICHARD V. REEVES is the author of several books, including Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That is a Problem, and What to Do About It. He is also a regular contributor to The New York Times, The Atlantic, National Affairs, and other publications. He is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, focusing on policies related to economic inequality, racial justice, social mobility, and boys and men. In 2023, inspired by his own experiences as a father of three sons and policy expert, Reeves founded the American Institute for Boys and Men (AIBM) to bring awareness to the challenges they face today and to develop evidence-based solutions to overcome them. His most recent book is Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It (Brookings Institution Press).

ALEXANDRA LYTTON REGALADO is the author of Matria (Black Lawrence Press, 2017), which received the St. Lawrence Book Award. She received an MFA in poetry from Florida International University and an MFA in fiction from Pacific University, and today is a co-director of Editorial Kalina and editor of Puntos de fuga/Vanishing Points (Editorial Kalina, 2017), a bilingual anthology of contemporary Salvadoran prose. She lives in Miami and San Salvador, El Salvador.