Aleksandar Hemon is the author of The Lazarus Project, which was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and author of three books of short stories: The Question of Bruno; Nowhere Man, which was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Love and Obstacles. He was the recipient of a 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship and a "genius grant" from the MacArthur Foundation. His new memoir is The Book of My Lives.

Louise Steinman is the curator of the award-winning ALOUD series and Co-Director of the Los Angeles Institute for Humanities at USC. She is the author of three books: The Souvenir: A Daughter Discovers Her Father’s War; The Knowing Body: The Artist as Storyteller in Contemporary Performance; and The Crooked Mirror: A Memoir of Jewish-Polish Reconciliation (forthcoming, fall, 2013). Her work appears, most recently, in The Los Angeles Review of Books and on her Crooked Mirror blog.

Tom Wolfe is the author of more than a dozen books, among them The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, The Right Stuff, The Bonfire of the Vanities, A Man in Full, and I Am Charlotte Simmons. A native of Richmond, Virginia, he earned his B.A. at Washington and Lee University and a Ph.D. in American studies at Yale. He received the National Book Foundation’s 2010 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in New York City.

Howard A. Rodman is a professor of screenwriting at USC's School of Cinematic Arts, Vice President of the Writers Guild of America, West, and has served as Artistic Director of the Sundance Screenwriting Labs. He wrote Savage Grace, August, and Joe Gould’s Secret. Rodman is on the executive committee of the Writers Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences and is a Fellow of the Los Angeles Institute of the Humanities.

Tom Wolfe’s words are performed by René Auberjonois, the esteemed Tony-winning actor whose career has spanned film, television, Broadway, and regional stages, as well as many audio recordings and broadcasts. Audiences best know him from his years on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Boston Legal, and innumerable film and television appearances.

Diego Luna is a renowned film, television, and stage actor who has participated in over 30 films, including the award-winning Y Tu Mamá También. Luna has been a professional actor since he was seven years old and recently made his directorial debut with the documentary J.C. Chávez, followed by the fictional film Abel. His latest feature as a director is Chavez, based on the life of legendary farm worker and union leader, Cesar E. Chavez.

NPR correspondent Mandalit del Barco has reported and produced radio stories and photographed everything from street gangs to Hollywood, police and prisons, marijuana, immigration, natural disasters, arts, and urban street culture (including hip hop dance, music, and art). Every year, she covers the Oscars and the Grammy awards for NPR. Her news reports, feature stories, and photos filed from Los Angeles and abroad can be heard on All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Weekend Edition, alt.latino and npr.org

Nick Flynn is the author of three memoirs, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, The Ticking Is The Bomb, and most recently, The Reenactments. Flynn has worked as a ship’s captain, electrician, and caseworker for the working poor. His film credits include work as a field poet and artistic collaborator on Darwin’s Nightmare, which was nominated for an Academy Award, and executive producer/collaborator on Being Flynn. Each spring, he teaches poetry, nonfiction, and collaboration at the University of Houston, and the rest of the year, he is in, or near, Brooklyn.

Elvis Mitchell is the host of the pop culture radio show The Treatment on KCRW 89.9 FM and film curator of the Film Independent at LACMA film series. Previously, he hosted the TCM interview program Under the Influence and was also the chief film critic for “Movieline” and a visiting lecturer at Harvard in Visual and Environmental Studies and African American Studies. Prior to this, Mitchell served as the film critic at the New York Times and was the entertainment critic for NPR’s Weekend Edition. He produced and co-created The Black List, Volume One, a documentary focusing on achievement in the African American community, and was nominated by the WGA for his work on The AFI Lifetime Achievement Award on Sidney Poitier.

Bernard Cooper is an author of The Bill From My Father, and the recipient of many awards, including the PEN/USA Ernest Hemingway Award, O. Henry Prize, a Guggenheim grant, and a National Endowment of the Arts fellowship in literature.  His work has appeared in several anthologies, magazines, and literary reviews, including five volumes of The Best American Essays, Harper's Magazine, The Paris Review, Story, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, and The New York Times Magazine. He has contributed to National Public Radio's "This American Life", and Los Angeles Magazine. Mr. Cooper currently teaches in writing programs at Bennington College and USC.

George Saunders, a MacArthur Genius Grant fellow, is the acclaimed author of several collections of short stories, including Pastoralia and CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, as well as a collection of essays and a book for children. He teaches in the creative writing program at Syracuse University. His most recent work is a collection of short stories, Tenth of December.

Sarah Shun-lien Bynum is the author of two novels, Ms. Hempel Chronicles, a finalist for the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award, and Madeleine Is Sleeping, a finalist for the 2004 National Book Award. Her fiction has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including the New Yorker, Tin House, the Georgia Review, and the Best American Short Stories 2004 and 2009. The recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award and an NEA Fellowship, she was named one of the "20 Under 40" fiction writers by the New Yorker. She teaches in the Graduate Writing Program at Otis College of Art and Design.

Salman Rushdie is the author of eleven novels— Grimus, Midnight’s Children (for which he won the Booker Prize and the Best of the Booker), Shame, The Satanic Verses, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, The Moor’s Last Sigh, The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Fury, Shalimar the Clown, The Enchantress of Florence, and Luka and the Fire of Life —and one collection of short stories: East, West. He has also published three works of nonfiction: The Jaguar Smile, Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981–1991, and Step Across This Line, and coedited two anthologies, Mirrorwork and Best American Short Stories 2008. He is a former president of American PEN.

Louise Steinman is curator of the award-winning ALOUD series and Co-Director of the Los Angeles Institute for Humanities at USC. She is the author of three books: The Souvenir: A Daughter Discovers Her Father’s War; The Knowing Body: The Artist as Storyteller in Contemporary Performance; and The Crooked Mirror: My Conversation With Poland (forthcoming). Her work appears, most recently, in The Los Angeles Review of Books, and on her Crooked Mirror blog.

Bettye LaVette is an American soul singer-songwriter who made her first record at sixteen but achieved only intermittent fame until 2005, with her album, I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise. She sang at the 2008 Kennedy Center Honors and at President Obama’s pre-inaugural concert at the Lincoln Memorial. Her eclectic musical style combines elements of soul, blues, rock and roll, funk, gospel, and country music. She marks her 50th anniversary in the music world with the upcoming release of her album Thankful N’ Thoughtful, and her memoir, A Woman Like Me, co-written with David Ritz.

David Ritz has collaborated on autobiographies with, among others, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, BB King, Smokey Robinson, Etta James, Buddy Guy, Don Rickles, and Cornel West. He has written biographies of Marvin Gaye and Jimmy Scott and is the author of two novels. He co-composed the song “Sexual Healing” with Marvin Gaye. Ritz has been nominated for five Grammys and has won one. He is a two-time winner of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award and the only four-time winner of the Ralph Gleason/ Rolling Stone Book Award. His current book is A Woman Like Me, written with R&B singer Bettye LaVette.

Daniel Mendelsohn is an award-winning author, critic, essayist, and translator, and author of seven books. His book The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, the 2006 account of his search for information about six relatives who perished in the Holocaust, was a New York Times- and international bestseller and won the National Books Critics Circle Award, among many other honors. In 2009 he published an acclaimed translation, with commentary, of the complete works of C. P. Cavafy. His most recent book is a collection of essays, Waiting for the Barbarians: Essays from the Classics to Pop Culture. Mendelsohn teaches at Bard College.

Jonathan Lethem is the critically acclaimed author of eight novels, including Motherless Brooklyn and his latest, Chronic City. His recent book of essays, The Ecstasy of Influence: Nonfictions, Etc. is just out in paperback. His essays have appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Harper's, and elsewhere.

Joy Harjo is an internationally known performer and writer of the Mvskoke/Creek Nation. She has written seven books of poetry, including She Had Some Horses and How We Became Human, and lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Keren Taylor is the founder and Executive Director of WriteGirl, a creative writing and mentoring organization for teen girls, and has served as publisher and editor for all of WriteGirl's award-winning books. Keren is a Community Champion with the Annenberg Alchemy Program, co-facilitating seminars for nonprofit executives. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the President’s Volunteer Call to Service Award, Soroptomist International’s Woman of Distinction Award and others. Keren is a poet, singer/songwriter and mosaic artist.

Daniel Alarcón, co-founder of Radio Ambulante, is the author of War by Candlelight, a finalist for the 2005 PEN-Hemingway Award, and Lost City Radio, winner of the 2009 International Literature Prize. He is Associate Editor of Etiqueta Negra, an award-winning quarterly published in his native Lima, Peru, and Contributing Editor to Granta. He was recently named one of The New Yorker’s 20 under Forty. His fiction, journalism and translations have appeared in A Public Space, El País, McSweeney’s, n+1, and Harper’s. Alarcón is a Visiting Scholar at the UC Berkeley Center for Latin American Studies.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez has been a reporter with Southern California Public Radio, KPCC 89.3FM since 2000. He’s reported on education, politics, culture, and the occasional fire. His work has been recognized with the regional Edward R. Murrow, L.A. Press Club Radio Journalist of the Year, and the Ruben Salazar awards. In 1994 he co-founded the performance group The Taco Shop Poets. Adolfo writes the Movie Miento blog every week for KCET.org.