Rachel Sussman is a contemporary artist based in Brooklyn. Her photographs and writing have been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Guardian, and NPR’s Picture Show. She has spoken on the TED main stage and at the Long Now Foundation, is a MacDowell Colony and NYFA Fellow and is a trained member of Al Gore’s Climate Reality Leadership Corps. Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries in the US and Europe, and acquired for museum, university, corporate, and private collections. She is fiscally sponsored by the Brooklyn Arts Council.

Ursula K. Heise is the Marcia H. Howard Professor in the Department of English and at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at UCLA, and a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow. She served as President of the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment in 2011. Her research and teaching focus on contemporary literature and environmental culture in the Americas, Western Europe and Japan, and on literature and science. Her books include Chronoschisms: Time, Narrative, and Postmodernism, Sense of Place and Sense of Planet: The Environmental Imagination of the Global, and Nach der Natur: Das Artensterben und die moderne Kultur (After Nature: Species Extinction and Modern Culture.) Her new book, Imagining Extinction: The Cultural Meanings of Endangered Species, is coming out from the University of Chicago Press in 2016.

Ingrid Betancourt was captured by guerillas belonging to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC) as she campaigned for the Columbian presidency on February 23, 2002. She was held hostage for six years in the Columbian jungle, and liberated in 2008. Her memoir about her time in captivity, Even Silence Has An End, was a New York Times and international bestseller. She currently works to draw attention to the plight of hostages and victims of terrorism around the world. She lives in London.

Alicia Partnoy is a survivor from the secret detention camps where about 30,000 people ‘disappeared’ in Argentina. Best known for The Little School: Tales of Disappearance and Survival, Partnoy also published the poetry collections Flowering Fires/Fuegos florales (recipient of the First Settlement House American Poetry Prize) and Little Low Flying/Volando bajito, both translated by Gail Wronsky. Her work has been translated into several languages, including Hebrew and Hindi. Alicia Partnoy is a founding member of Proyecto VOS-Voices of Survivors, an organization that brings survivors of state sponsored violence to lecture at U.S. universities. She teaches at Loyola Marymount University.

Elizabeth Alexander is a poet, essayist, playwright, and teacher. In 2009, she composed and delivered "Praise Song for the Day" for the inauguration of President Barack Obama. She has published six books of poems, two collections of essays, and a play. Her book of poems, American Sublime (2005), was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize and was one of the American Library Associations "Notable Books of the Year." Her play, Diva Studies (1996), was produced at the Yale School of Drama. Alexander is currently a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and the inaugural Frederick Iseman Professor of Poetry at Yale University. She is the former Chair of the African American Studies Department at Yale University. Her memoir, The Light of the World, was published in 2015.

Kevin Young is the author of nine previous books of poetry, including Book of Hours; Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels, winner of a 2012 American Book Award; and Jelly Roll: A Blues, a finalist for the National Book Award. He is also the editor of The Hungry Ear: Poems of Food & Drink, and seven other collections. His book, The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness won the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize, was a New York Times Notable Book and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism, and won the PEN Open Book Award. He is currently the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Creative Writing and English and curator of both Literary Collections and the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library at Emory University.

Luis J. Rodriguez is the Poet Laureate of Los Angeles with 15 books in poetry, children’s literature, fiction, and nonfiction. His memoir, Always Running, La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A., has sold around half a million copies; it’s one of the most checked-out books—and one of the most stolen—in L.A.-area libraries. He is the founding editor of Tia Chucha Press and cofounder of Tia Chucha’s Cultural Center & Bookstore in the San Fernando Valley. His latest book is It Calls You Back: An Odyssey Through Love, Addiction, Revolutions, and Healing, a finalist for a 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award.

Michael Meade is a renowned storyteller, author, and scholar of mythology, anthropology, and psychology. He combines hypnotic storytelling, street-savvy perceptiveness, and spellbinding interpretations of ancient myths with a deep knowledge of cross-cultural rituals. He is the author of many books, including Fate and Destiny: The Two Agreements of The Soul; Why the World Doesn’t End; and The Water of Life: Initiation and the Tempering of the Soul. Meade is the founder of Mosaic Multicultural Foundation, a Seattle-based nonprofit dedicated to education and cultural healing.

An original and founding member of the musical group The Doors, John Densmore co-wrote and produced numerous gold and platinum albums and toured the United States, Europe, and Japan. His autobiography, Riders on the Storm, was on the New York Times bestseller list. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. His second book, The Doors Unhinged: Jim Morrison’s Legacy Goes on Trial, is an underground bestseller. He co-produced the documentary, Road to Return, narrated by Tim Robbins, which won several prestigious national awards and was screened for Congress, resulting in the writing of a bill. He also Executive Produced Juvies, narrated by Mark Wahlberg, which aired on HBO.

Brian Seibert is a dance critic for The New York Times and a contributor to The New Yorker. Born and raised in Los Angeles, he lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter. This is his first book.

Sarah Reich (Performer, Choreographer, Instructor) has emerged as one of the new leaders in the Art Form of Tap Dance. At the young age of 15, this Los Angeles native was featured in Dance Spirit Magazine’s article, "20 Hot Tappers Under 20," and was named one of the "25 To Watch" in the 2009 Dance Magazine article. Ever since, Sarah has been sought after to perform, choreograph, and teach in over fifteen countries outside of the United States, including France, Spain, China, Brazil, Costa Rica, Argentina, Honduras, Belgium, Canada, Sweden, Croatia, Taiwan, Italy, Mexico, and Australia. Sarah is currently touring with Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox. She recently premiered a full-length show with her own band, Tap Music Project, at The Vancouver International Tap Dance Festival. Sarah has had the honor to perform at prestigious venues such as The Hollywood Bowl, the Greek Theater with Mexican Pop Star, Cristian Castro, and the Kodak Theater with the great Herbie Hancock.

Saxophonist & composer Danny Janklow was recognized while still in high school by Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra as the first-ever triple instrument “Outstanding Soloist” on tenor saxophone, flute, and clarinet. He has performed and/or recorded with the likes of Wynton and Branford Marsalis, Benny Golson, Wallace Roney, Wycliffe Gordon, Karryn Allison, Eric Reed, John Beasley, Ben Williams, Jason Moran, Savion Glover, Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, Monk’estra, Bill Holman Big Band, Gordon Goodwin, Barbara Morrison and Jimmy Heath.

Sasha Anawalt is the director of USC Annenberg Arts Journalism Programs, including the Master's degree in Specialized Journalism (The Arts) program. She also directs the USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Program and the NEA Arts Journalism Institute in Theater and Musical Theater. In October 2009, she co-directed and co-produced with Douglas McLennan the first-ever National Summit on Arts Journalism. Anawalt wrote the best-selling cultural biography The Joffrey Ballet: Robert Joffrey and the Making of an American Dance Company. She was chief dance critic for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, LA Weekly, and on KCRW, 89.9 FM. Her reviews and features have been published widely.

Michael Cunningham is the author of seven novels, including A Home at the End of the World, Flesh and Blood, The Hours (winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Pulitzer Prize), Specimen Days, and By Nightfall, as well as Land’s End: A Walk in Provincetown. He lives in New York.

Aimee Bender is author of The Girl in the Flammable Skirt (NY Times Notable Book), An Invisible Sign of My Own (LA Times Pick of the Year), Willful Creatures (The Believer’s “Best Books of the Year”), The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake (SCIBA Award, Alex Award), and The Color Master (NY Times Notable Book). Her short fiction has been published in Granta, GQ, Harper’s, Tin House, McSweeney’s, The Paris Review, and has been heard on PRI’s “This American Life” and “Selected Shorts.” She has received two Pushcart Prizes as well as nominations for the TipTree Award and the Shirley Jackson Award. She lives in Los Angeles, where she teaches creative writing at USC.

Simon Winchester is the acclaimed author of many books, including The Professor and the Madman, The Men Who United the States, Atlantic, The Man Who Loved China, A Crack in the Edge of the World, and Krakatoa, all of which were New York Times bestsellers and appeared on numerous best and notable lists. In 2006, Mr. Winchester was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Her Majesty the Queen. He resides in western Massachusetts.

Tom Lutz is the founding editor-in-chief of Los Angeles Review of Books and the author of Crying, Doing Nothing, and the forthcoming Wanderlust: Around the World in 80 Anecdotes.

Stacy Schiff is the author of Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov), winner of the Pulitzer Prize; Saint-Exupéry, Pulitzer Prize finalist; A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America, winner of the George Washington Book Prize; and Cleopatra: A Life. Schiff has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities and an award in literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Named a 2011 Library Lion by the New York Public Library, she lives in New York City.

Jon Wiener is a contributing editor to The Nation magazine and a professor of history at the University of California – Irvine, where he specializes in recent American history. His books include: Historians in Trouble: Plagiarism, Fraud and Politics in the Ivory Tower, Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files; Professors, Politics and Pop; and Come Together: John Lennon in His Time. Wiener hosts an afternoon drive-time radio program on KPFK-90.7 FM featuring interviews on politics and culture.

Sandra Cisneros is the author of two highly celebrated novels, a story collection, two books of poetry, and, most recently, Have You Seen Marie? She is the recipient of numerous awards, including National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, the Lannan Literary Award, the American Book Award, the Thomas Wolfe Prize, and a MacArthur Fellowship. Her work has been translated into more than 20 languages. Cisneros is the founder of the Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral and Macondo Foundations, which serve creative writers.

Reyna Grande is an award-winning author of the novels Across a Hundred Mountains, Dancing with Butterflies, and most recently, the memoir, The Distance Between Us, which was a National Book Circle Critics Award finalist. Born in Guerrero, Mexico, Reyna entered the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant at age 10, and later went on to become the first person in her family to graduate from college. Grande currently teaches creative writing at UCLA Extension and is at work on her next novel. She is the recipient of many awards, including an American Book Award, the El Premio Aztlán Literary Award, and the Latino Book Award.

Roberta Kaplan is a partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and is litigating the case against Mississippi’s gay marriage ban. She lives in New York with her wife and son.

Lillian Faderman is an internationally known scholar of lesbian history and literature, as well as ethnic history and literature. Among her many honors are six Lambda Literary Awards, two American Library Association Awards, and several lifetime achievement awards for scholarship. She is the author of The Gay Revolution and the New York Times Notable Books, Surpassing the Love of Men and Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers.