Robert Hass’s books of poetry include Time and Materials, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 and the National Book Award in 2008; Sun Under Wood: New Poems, for which he received the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1996, Human Wishes; Praise; and Field Guide. He has worked with Czeslaw Milosz to translate dozen volumes of Milosz’s poetry, including, most recently, A Second Space. His translations of Japanese haiku masters have been collected in The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson, and Issa. From 1995 to 1997 he served as Poet Laureate of the United States.

Carol Muske-Dukes is the author of poetry, novels, essay collections and co-editor of two anthologies. She teaches English/Creative Writing at the University of Southern California where she founded the PhD program in Creative Writing/Literature. She writes for the Huffington Post, NY Times and LA Times (former poetry columnist at the LATimes) and has been a National Book Award finalist, Guggenheim and NEA fellow. She recently finished her term as Poet Laureate of California

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.

Pankaj Mishra was born in northwest India and lives in London and Mashobra, India. The author of An End to Suffering and Temptations of the West, as well as a novel, The Romantics, he writes for The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Book Review, and The Guardian.

Nicholas Goldberg joined the Los Angeles Times in 2002 as editor of the op-ed page. He became deputy editor of the editorial pages in 2008 and a year later was named editor of the editorial pages, a position that gives him overall responsibility for The Times' opinion coverage. He is a former reporter and editor at Newsday, where he worked as Middle East bureau chief from 1995 to 1998. His writing has been widely published.

Attica Locke’s first novel, Black Water Rising, was shortlisted for the prestigious Orange Prize in the UK in 2010 and nominated for an Edgar Award as well as a Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Attica has spent many years working as a screenwriter, penning movie and television scripts for Paramount, Warner Bros, Disney, and Twentieth Century Fox, among others. She was a fellow at the Sundance Institute’s Feature Filmmakers Lab and is a member of the board of directors for the Library Foundation of Los Angeles. Most recently, she wrote the introduction for the UK publication of Ernest Gaines’s A Lesson Before Dying. Her second book is The Cutting Season.

Erica R. Edwards is Associate Professor of English at the University of California, Riverside and the author of Charisma and the Fictions of Black Leadership. Her work on African American literature, politics, and gender critique has appeared in journals such as Callaloo, American Quarterly, American Literary History, and Women and Performance; she is currently working on a book about African American literature and the War on Terror.

Eboo Patel is the founder and president of Interfaith Youth Core and the author of Acts of Faith. He was a member of President Obama’s inaugural faith council. He has spoken about his belief that religion is a bridge of cooperation rather than a barrier of division at places like the TED conference, the Clinton Global Initiative, and the Nobel Peace Prize Forum, as well as college and university campuses across the country. He writes about it regularly in The Washington Post, USA Today, and The Huffington Post.

Ed Bacon is rector of All Saints Church in Pasadena, California; a 4,000 member multi-ethnic urban Episcopal parish, with a reputation for energetic worship, progressive peace and justice work, and a radically inclusive spirit. Ed’s energies focus on peacemaking, interfaith relations, and articulating the Christian faith in non-bigoted ways. He has been honored several times for his peace and interfaith work, including recognition from the Islamic Center of Southern California, ACLU of Southern California and Pasadena, The Islamic Shura Council, and Pasadena NAACP. His new book is 8 Habits of Love: Open Your Heart, Open Your Mind.

Rubén Martínez, an Emmy-winning journalist and poet, is the author of several books, including Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail and The New Americans. His new book is Desert America: Boom and Bust in the New Old West. He lives in Los Angeles, where he holds the Fletcher Jones Chair in Literature and Writing at Loyola Marymount University.

Alison Hawthorne Deming is author for four books of poetry and four books of nonfiction with Zoologies: On Animals and the Human Spirit forthcoming. Her work has been widely anthologized including in The Norton Book of Nature Writing and Best American Science and Nature Writing. Long dedicated to conversations between art and science, between environmentalism and social justice, she is coeditor with Lauret E. Savoy of The Colors of Nature: Culture, Identity and the Natural World. Former director at the University of Arizona Poetry Center, Alison is currently a professor at UA.

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.

Natasha Trethewey is the author of four poetry collections, including Native Guard, for which she was awarded the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, and a book of creative non-fiction, Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. She holds the Phillis Wheatley Distinguished Chair in Poetry at Emory University. Ms. Trethewey was appointed United States Poet Laureate in June 2012, and begins her official duties in September. She is the also Poet Laureate of Mississippi.

Robert Casper is Head of the Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress. He previously worked as Programs Director for the Poetry Society of America and as Membership Director for the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, and served as Poetry Committee Chair for the Brooklyn Borough President's Literary Council. Casper is Founder of the literary magazine jubilat and Co-Founder of the jubilat/Jones Reading Series in Amherst, MA.

Anne Lamott is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Some Assembly Required; Grace (Eventually); Plan B, Traveling Mercies; and Operating Instructions, as well two other works of nonfiction and seven novels, including the trilogy composed of Imperfect Birds, Rosie, and Crooked Little Heart. Lamott is the past recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, an inductee to the California Hall of Fame, and a former columnist for Salon. Her new book is, Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers.

Father Gregory Boyle is an ordained Jesuit priest, and has been the pastor of the Dolores Mission in Boyle Heights for over 25 years. In 1988, Father Gregory founded Homeboy Industries, which has served members of more than half of the gangs in Los Angeles. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the California Peace Prize, the Irvine Leadership Award, and an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Occidental College. His bestselling memoir, Tattoos on the Heart, has been honored by PEN USA as the 2011 Best Creative Nonfiction Book of the Year.

Dana Spiotta’s most recent novel is Stone Arabia, a National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Her previous novels are Eat the Document, which was a National Book Award Finalist, and Lighting Field, which was a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the West. Spiotta is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, and she received the 2008 Rome Prize from The American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Janet Fitch is the author of the Los Angeles novels Paint It Black and White Oleander. Her short stories have appeared in such anthologies and journals as Black Clock, Room of One's Own, and Los Angeles Noir. She teaches creative writing in the Master of Professional Writing program at USC, and at the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. A contributing editor to the Los Angeles Review of Books, Fitch is currently working on a novel set during the Russian Revolution.

Carolyn Kellogg is an award-winning staff writer at the Los Angeles Times, where she writes book reviews and covers the publishing world. Her writing has appeared in Black Clock, the anthology The Devil’s Punchbowl and Skateboarding Magazine. She recently wrote the Poets & Writers guide to literary Los Angeles and is the former editor of LAist.com. Carolyn is a board member of the National Book Critics Circle.