Authors

SIMON WINCHESTER is the acclaimed author of many books, including The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary; The Men Who United the States: America's Explorers, Inventors, Eccentrics, and Mavericks, and the Creation of One Nation, Indivisible; The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology; The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom; A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906; and Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883, all of which were New York Times bestsellers and appeared on numerous best and notable lists. His latest book is Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic (Harper). In 2006, Winchester was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Her Majesty the Queen. He resides in western Massachusetts.

An Emmy-award winning actor, author, comedian, producer, and director, HENRY WINKLER discovered fame as a star of the popular television show Happy Days and since then has endeared himself to new generations with roles in Arrested Development, Parks and Recreation, and Barry, where he’s revealed himself as an actor with immense depth and pathos. Filled with profound heart, charm, and self-deprecating humor, his new book Being Henry is a memoir about so much more than a life in Hollywood and the curse of stardom. It is a meaningful testament to the power of sharing truth and kindness and of finding fulfillment within yourself.

ALICE WINN grew up in Paris and was educated in the United Kingdom. She has a degree in English literature from Oxford University and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT is a staff writer for The New Yorker, a playwright, and a screenwriter. He is the bestselling author of The End of October: A Novel and 10 books of nonfiction, including Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief; God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State; and The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, which won the Pulitzer Prize. He and his wife are longtime residents of Austin, Texas.

JENNY XIE is a writer and editor living in Brooklyn, New York. Originally from Shanghai, China, she graduated from the University of California Berkeley and earned her MFA at Johns Hopkins University. Her work has appeared in AGNI, Ninth Letter, Joyland, Narrative, and the Best of the Net Anthology. Xie is the recipient of a Bread Loaf scholarship and fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Loghaven. She is a contributing writer for Architectural Digest, Apartment Therapy, and Dwell, where she was also the executive editor.

OCTAVIA YEARWOOD is a native New Yorker who has found success as an award-winning conceptual artist, producer, and life coach. Over the last 15 years, she has produced and curated for The Institute of Contemporary Art, HistoryMiami Museum, The Bass Museum, the city of Miami Beach, Soho House, AppleTV, and OUTtv. She's made her mark in various art mediums in film, art curation, and book publishing. Named “Best Author in Miami” by Miami New Times, she also was recognized as an Emerging Arts Leader by Americans for the Arts and among the 40 under 40 Black Leaders by Legacy Magazine. Yearwood was the recipient of an Ellie award from Oolite Arts and was named Knights Arts Champion by Knight Foundation. Her debut docuseries The Tranz Form was recently picked up by Apple TV and OUTtv. Her book, How The Hell Did You Do That?! (The New O Publishing) is in 50 Miami Dade College libraries, and her publishing house’s recent release, Gracias Madre, by emerging author Tara Benmeleh, is available at the Pérez Art Museum Miami. Yearwood's passion is empowering others to win, no matter what that looks like to them. She is known for creating opportunities for self-actualization and for others to matter in the community. Her motto: Create dope things while elevating unheard voices.

MONICA YOUN is the author of From From: Poems (Graywolf Press), Blackacre: Poems, Ignatz, and Barter: Poems. She has been a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Kingsley Tufts Award and the PEN Open Book Award. A former constitutional lawyer, Youn grew up in Houston as the daughter of Korean immigrants, and now splits her time between Brooklyn, New York, and Southern California, where she is an associate professor of English at the University of California, Irvine.

LUCRECIA ZAPPI, nacida en Buenos Aires en 1972, es una escritora, periodista y traductora brasileña. Ya con su primer libro, Mil-folhas (São Paulo, 2009), un viaje gastronómico por la historia de los dulces, obtuvo el prestigioso premio Bologna Ragazzi en 2011. Es autora de tres novelas: Jaguar Negro (2013), Acre (2017) y Deshielo (La Huerta Grande, 2023), que presenta este año en la Feria. Estas novelas fueron traducidas al español y están centradas en la experiencia del viaje y la aproximación al otro, reflejo de la propia identidad múltiple y viajera de la autora. Acre fue finalista en la categoría “novela” del premio Jabuti, el más prestigioso de Brasil. Su infancia transcurrió entre São Paulo y Ciudad de México. Estudió artes visuales en la Academia Rietveld, en Ámsterdam. De regreso a Brasil, estudió periodismo y trabajó para el periódico “Folha de S. Paulo” durante años, cubriendo principalmente temas de artes visuales, antes de ingresar en la Universidad de Nueva York, donde hizo una maestría en Escritura Creativa. Vive en Nueva York y trabaja en su cuarta novela.

C PAM ZHANG is the author of How Much of These Hills Is Gold: A Novel and Land of Milk and Honey: A Novel. She is a winner of an Academy of Arts and Letters Rosenthal Family Foundation Award and the Asian/Pacific Award for Literature; was nominated for the Booker Prize; and was a finalist for a PEN/Hemingway Award and Lambda Literary Award. Zhang’s writing has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The Cut, McSweeney’s Quarterly, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. She is also a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Honoree.

AMÉLIE WEN ZHAO was born in Paris and grew up in Beijing, where she spent her days reenacting tales of legendary heroes, ancient kingdoms, and lost magic at her grandmother’s courtyard house. She attended college in the United States and now resides in New York City, working as a finance professional by day and fantasy author by night. In her spare time, she loves to travel and spend time with her family in China, where she’s determined to walk the rivers and lakes of old just like the practitioners in her novels do. Zhao is the author of the Blood Heir trilogy – Blood Heir, Red Tigress, and Crimson Reign – as well as Song of Silver, Flame Like Night.

EMILY ZHOU was born in Michigan and lives in New York City. Girlfriends (Littlepuss Press) is her first book.

DAVID ZUCKER, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker, the trio that co-wrote and directed the 1980 comedy hit film Airplane!, knew one another growing up in Shorewood, Wisconsin. While attending the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the trio founded a small acting company known as The Kentucky Fried Theater in 1971. They moved to Los Angeles in 1972, which led to their first film, The Kentucky Fried Movie, in 1977. Their next film was the 1980 breakout hit Airplane!, which today stands among the most iconic comedic films ever produced.

MIKHAIL VIKTOROVICH ZYGAR is a Russian-born journalist, writer, and filmmaker, and the founding editor-in-chief of the Russian news TV channel Dozhd (2010–2015), which halted operations in March 2022. Under Zygar's leadership, Dozhd provided an alternative to Kremlin-controlled federal TV channels by focusing on news content and giving a platform to opposition voices. The channel's coverage of politically sensitive issues, like the Moscow street protests in 2011 and 2012, as well as the conflict in Ukraine, has been dramatically different from the official coverage by Russia's national TV stations. Zygar is also the author of the book All the Kremlin's Men (2017), a history of Vladimir Putin's Russia based on interviews with Russian politicians from his inner circle.