Authors

RANDALL GRASS is a Philadelphia-based writer, musician, and record label executive who has been involved with reggae music since 1972. He has written for such publications as Spin, Musician, Downbeat, and many others. His book Great Spirits: Portraits of Life-Changing World Music Artists was published in 2010, and he was a contributor to The Rolling Stone Album Guide, Reggae International, and Roots, Rasta and Revolution. He has worked with such artists as Rita Marley, Culture, Third World, Fela Aníkúlápó Kútì, Lucky Dube, Alpha Blondy, and many more. His radio show, Roots Rock Reggae/World Beat Dance Party, ran from 1979-1992.

LAUREN GRODSTEIN is the author of We Must Not Think of Ourselves; The Explanation for Everything, a Washington Post Book of the Year;  and the The New York Times-bestselling A Friend of the Family, among other works. She is a professor of English at Rutgers University-Camden, where she directs the MFA program in creative writing.

DAVE HAGE oversaw environmental and health reporting at the Minneapolis Star Tribune for a dozen years, editing projects that won a Pulitzer Prize and an Edward R. Murrow Award, among other honors. His previous books include No Retreat, No Surrender: Labor’s War at Hormel and Reforming Welfare by Rewarding Work: One State’s Successful Experiment. A Minneapolis native, he lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, with his wife.

ADAM HASLETT is the author of the story collection You Are Not a Stranger Here and the novels Union Atlantic and Imagine Me Gone. He has twice been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, as well as a finalist for the National Book Award and a National Book Critics Circle Award, and a winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, the PEN/Malamud Award, the Berlin Prize, and the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He currently directs the MFA program at Hunter College in New York.

HELENA HAYWOODE HENRY is a mom of three and former attorney living in the Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, area. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and New York University School of Law. Last Chance Live! (Nancy Paulsen Books) is her first novel.

BRANDON HOBSON is the author of The Removed: A Novel; Where the Dead Sit Talking: A Novel, a finalist for the 2018 National Book Award for Fiction; as well as other books. He is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation tribe of Oklahoma.

BRUCE HOLSINGER is the author of the bestselling Oprah Book Club pick Culpability: A Novel (Spiegel & Grau), and four previous books of fiction, including The Displacements: A Novel and The Gifted School: A Novel, as well as many works of nonfiction, most recently On Parchment: Animals, Archives, and the Making of Culture from Herodotus to the Digital Age. His books have been recognized with the Colorado Book Award, the John Hurt Fisher Prize, the Philip Brett Award, the John Nicholas Brown Prize, the Modern Language Association’s Prize for a First Book, and others. His essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and many other publications. He teaches at the University of Virginia and is the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship.

JAMIE HOOD is the author of How to Be a Good Girl: A Miscellany, one of Vogue’s Best Books of 2020, and regards, marcel, a monthly newsletter on Proust and other miscellany. Her essays and criticism have appeared in The Baffler, Bookforum, The Nation, the Los Angeles Review of Books, The New Inquiry, The Drift, and elsewhere. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

LISA HOSTEIN is the executive editor of Hadassah Magazine, which is one of the largest-circulation Jewish publications in the United States. Her previous experience includes serving as editor-in-chief of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the global Jewish news agency. She has won numerous journalism awards throughout her career, including from the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, the Pennsylvania Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, and the American Jewish Press Association, which has also honored her with its Simon Rockower Award.

QUIARA ALEGRÍA HUDES is the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of Water by the Spoonful and the musical In the Heights, which won the Tony Award for best musical, and which she adapted for the screen. My Broken Language: A Memoir, was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal. Hudes' essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Cut, The Nation, and American Theater Magazine. She is co-founder with her cousin Sean Ortiz of the prison writing program Emancipated Stories.

ELIZABETH R. HYMAN is the granddaughter and great-granddaughter of Polish Jews who fled their homeland in 1939 and ultimately made their way, as refugees, to the United States. She earned dual master’s degrees in history and library and information science from the University of Maryland-College Park, and, since 2011, has written the history blog “HISTORICITY (was already taken).”

AYMANN ISMAIL is an award-winning Slate magazine staff writer whose journalism focuses on identity and religion. He is the creator of the Slate video series "Who's Afraid of Aymann Ismail?" in which he offers an intimate portrayal of American Muslims. Ismail also hosts Man Up – a podcast exploring men, relationships, family, race, and sex – which seeks to provide a blueprint for navigating discussions of masculinity. In addition to Slate, Ismail’s work has been featured on CNN and NPR, and in The New York Times, GQ, The Atlantic, Columbia Journalism Review, and the Huffington Post. His writing has been nominated for the National Magazine Award in reporting and he has won a Writers Guild Award. He lives in Newark, New Jersey, with his family.

HONORÉE FANONNE JEFFERS is a fiction writer, poet, and essayist. She is the author of the acclaimed New York Times bestseller and Oprah's Book Club pick The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois: A Novel, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in fiction and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and was nominated for the National Book Award. Fanonne Jeffers is also the author of five poetry collections, including The Age of Phillis, which won the NAACP Image Award and was longlisted for the National Book Award.

GISH JEN is the author of six novels, two books of stories, and two works of nonfiction. Her honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, and the Fulbright Foundation, as well as the Lannan Literary Award for Fiction and the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her stories have been chosen for The Best American Short Stories five times, including The Best American Short Stories of the Century; she has also delivered the William E. Massey, Sr., Lectures in American Studies at Harvard University. She and her husband split their time between Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Vermont. Her most recent novel is Bad Bad Girl: A Novel (Knopf).

LANEY KATZ BECKER is an award-winning author and a writer and former literary agent. Her latest fiction work, In the Family Way: A Novel (Harper), was published in June 2025. Her other books include her debut novel, Dear Stranger, Dearest Friend and the nonfiction anthology Three Times Chai: 54 Rabbis Tell Their Favorite Stories. Born and raised in Ohio, Becker is a graduate of Northwestern University, a former resident of Chappaqua, New York. She lives in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, with her husband and their Havanese.

ALLISON KING is an Asian American writer and software engineer based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In technology, her work has ranged from semiconductors and platforms for community conversations to data privacy. A 2023 Reese’s Book Club LitUp fellow, her short stories have appeared in Fantasy Magazine, Diabolical Plots, and LeVar Burton Reads, among other publications. The Phoenix Pencil Company: A Novel (William Morrow) is her debut book of fiction.

EMMA KNIGHT is a Canadian writer. Her first novel, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus (Pamela Dorman Books), was both a No. 1 national and New York Times bestseller. She has also written two nationally bestselling cookbooks – The Greenhouse Cookbook and How to Eat with One Hand – and her essays have appeared in The Globe and Mail, The Walrus, British Vogue, and Literary Hub. Knight is also the co-founder of Greenhouse, an organic beverage company based in Toronto. She studied modern European languages at the University of Edinburgh, and journalism and international affairs at Sciences Po Paris.

MARK KRIEGEL, a former sports columnist for the New York Post and the New York Daily News, is a boxing analyst and essayist for ESPN. His previous books include Namath: A Biography, Pistol: The Life of Pete Maravich, and The Good Son: The Life of Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini.

HARI KUNZRU is the author of seven novels: Blue Ruin: A Novel, Red Pill: A Novel, White Tears: A Novel, Gods Without Men: A Novel, My Revolutions: A Novel, Transmission: A Novel, and The Impressionist: A Novel. The recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy in Berlin, and the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, he is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books and writes the “Easy Chair” column for Harper's Magazine. He lives in Brooklyn , New York, and teaches in the Creative Writing Program at New York University.

EBONY LADELLE is the author of Love Radio, which was featured on the Today show and named a People’s best book of the summer, a 2023 Audie Award Finalist, 2023 Michigan Notable Book, Apple Books’ best book of 2022, and an Amazon's Editor Pick. A Baldwin fellow, she’s also the author of the young adult romance This Could Be Forever (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers) and editor of You've Got a Place Here, Too: An Anthology of Black Love Stories Set at HBCUs (Delacorte Press). Prior to becoming an author, LaDelle was a brand marketing director in book publishing and worked at Penguin Random House and HarperCollins, among others. She can be found online at www.ebonyladelle.com and followed on social media at @ebonyladelle.

ANDREW LAM fled Vietnam with his family during the fall of Saigon in April 1975 when he was 11 years old. He attended the University of California, Berkeley, majoring in biochemistry before switching to creative writing at San Francisco State University. He is a journalist and short story writer, currently serving as the web editor of New America Media. His previous books include Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora, East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres, and Birds of Paradise Lost. His most recent book is the collection Stories from the Edge of the Sea (Red Hen Press).

Born in Havana, IVONNE LAMAZARES left Cuba at the age of 13 and settled in Florida. Her long fiction debut, The Sugar Island: A Novel, was translated into seven languages. Her short fiction and nonfiction work have appeared in Latina, The Southern Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Florida Review, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship and three Florida Individual Artist fellowships. She lives in Miami and teaches writing at Miami Dade College.

LIHI LAPID is an author and journalist whose books deal with contemporary women’s issues. She is the author of the bestselling novel Secrets from Within and On Her Own; a cookbook entitled Lihi Lapid’s Favorite Recipes, and a bestselling children’s book, The Magic Whisper. Prior to becoming a writer, Lapid was a professional photographer. Educated at the prestigious Camera Obscura School of Art and Tel Aviv University, she served in the Israel Defense Forces as a photographer for its Bamahane magazine. She lives in Tel Aviv with her husband, Yair Lapid, the former prime minister of Israel, and their two children.

AMY LAROCCA is an award-winning American journalist. She spent 20 years working at New York Magazine as both fashion director and editor-at-large. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Vogue, Town & Country, and the London Review of Books, among other publications. She lives with her family in New York and North London.

AE HEE LEE, who holds an MFA from the University of Notre Dame and a Ph.D. in literature and creative writing from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, is the author of the poetry chapbooks: Bedtime || Riverbed, Dear Bear, and Connotary, which was selected as the winner of the 2021 Frost Place Chapbook Competition.

DARIA LAVELLE is an American fiction writer born in Kyiv, Ukraine, and raised in the New York metro area. She holds degrees in writing from Princeton University and Sarah Lawrence College, and her work explores themes of identity and belonging through magic and the uncanny. Her short fiction has appeared in Dark Matter, The Deadlands, Dread Machine, and elsewhere.

Born in London to a secular father and a Jewish mother, TOBY LLOYD studied English at Oxford University before moving to America to pursue an MFA in creative writing at New York University. His short stories and essays have appeared in Carve Magazine and the Los Angeles Review of Books.

E. LOCKHART is The New York Times bestselling author of the Liars novels: We Were Liars, adapted into an original series on Amazon Prime Video; Family of Liars; and We Fell Apart (Delacorte Press). Her other books include Again Again, Genuine Fraud, and The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks. She has been a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the National Book Award, and an honoree for the Printz Award.

Born and raised in Kolkata, India, New York Times bestselling author MEGHA MAJUMDAR is a 2022 Whiting Award winner. Her novel A Burning was nominated for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize, and the American Library Association's Andrew Carnegie Medal. It was also named one of the best books of the year by various media outlets, including The Washington Post, The New York Times, NPR, The Atlantic, Vogue, and Time. She holds degrees in anthropology from Harvard and Johns Hopkins.

THOMAS MALLON is the author of 11 novels, including Henry and Clara: A Novel, Dewey Defeats Truman: A Novel, Fellow Travelers: A Novel, Watergate: A Novel, Landfall: A Novel, and Up With the Sun. He is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, and other publications. In 2011 he received the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award for prose style. Mallon has been the literary editor of GQ and the deputy chairperson of the National Endowment for the Humanities. He lives in Washington, D.C.