Thelma Adams, a film critic and author of the novel Playdate, is at work on her second novel.
Monica Ali’s first book, Brick Lane, propelled her onto Granta’s 2003 list of the “Best of Young British Novelists.” She’s currently working on her fifth novel.
Katie Arnold-Ratliff, O, The Oprah Magazine’s articles editor, is the author of the novel Bright Before Us.
Christie Aschwanden is an award-winning journalist and essayist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Slate, Smithsonian, Discover, and Popular Science, among others. She blogs about science at Last Word On Nothing.
Dan Baker, Ph.D., is a medical psychologist specializing in stress and cardiovascular disease. His current focus is on advising family-owned businesses.
Celia Barbour, a writer, editor, and cook, lives with her family in a small town on the Hudson River. Her food writing has twice been nominated for a James Beard award.
Martha Beck is a life coach whose most recent book, The Martha Beck Collection: Essays for Creating Your Right Life, Volume 1, is an anthology of her work from O, The Oprah Magazine, where she’s been a columnist since 2001. Beck’s other books include Leaving the Saints, Finding Your Own North Star, The Joy Diet, Steering by Starlight, and Finding Your Way in a Wild New World.
Sister Wendy Beckett is a British hermit and art historian. After teaching for several years, she decided to pursue art. She has authored more than fifteen books on art history, including The Story of Painting and Sister Wendy’s American Masterpieces, and became internationally known for her series of art history documentaries for the BBC.
Amy Bloom, author of the recent novel Lucky Us, has written two novels and three collections of short stories, and has been a nominee for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. She’s written for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and The Atlantic Monthly, among many other publications. She is currently Wesleyan University’s Distinguished Writer in Residence.
Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston, is the author of the New York Times #1 bestsellers Daring Greatly and The Gifts of Imperfection.
Jessica Bruder teaches narrative writing at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and is the author of Burning Book: A Visual History of Burning Man.
Veronica Chambers is a prolific author best known for her memoir Mama’s Girl and the New York Times bestseller Yes, Chef, coauthored with chef Marcus Samuelsson.
Lisa Congdon is an artist and illustrator and the author of several books, including Art Inc; Whatever You Are, Be a Good One; 20 Ways to Draw a Tulip; and A Collection a Day.
Heather Greenwood Davis, an award-winning freelance writer, is based in Toronto. Her trip around the world with her husband and two sons earned them the title “Travelers of the Year” from National Geographic Traveler magazine in 2012. She is writing a book about the family’s experiences.
Pamela Erens is the author of the novels The Understory, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist, and The Virgins, named a Best Book of 2013 by The New Yorker, The New Republic, Library Journal, and Salon. Her writing has appeared in Vogue, Elle, Glamour, and The New York Times, among other publications. Reader’s Digest named Erens one of “23 Contemporary Writers You Should Have Read by Now.”
Hilene Flanzbaum directs the MFA program at Butler University, where she is a professor of American literature and creative writing. She has published literary criticism, nonfiction, and poetry in journals as varied as The Yale Journal of Criticism, Ploughshares, and Tikkun.
Sue Fliess is a freelance writer and author of eighteen children’s books, including Tons of Trucks; Shoes for Me!; and Robots, Robots Everywhere! Her articles have appeared in The Huffington Post, Writer’s Digest, and other publications.
Lise Funderburg is the author of Pig Candy: Taking My Father South, Taking My Father Home.
Roxane Gay lives and writes in the Midwest. She is the author of Ayiti, An Untamed State, Bad Feminist, and the forthcoming Hunger.
Elizabeth Gilbert is the author of six books of fiction and nonfiction. Her memoir Eat, Pray, Love sold more than ten million copies, and her latest novel, The Signature of All Things, was named a best book of the year by Time, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.
Marianne Gingher writes fiction and nonfiction and teaches creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her latest memoir, about the writing life, is Adventures in Pen Land.
Anne Glusker has swum in pool water, fresh water, and salt water, everywhere from Brooklyn to Morocco. She writes on food, health, education, cultural and gender issues, and whatever else enters her mind while she’s swimming.
Lara Kristin Herndon has written about topics ranging from battle cries to baby bottles, and is currently working on a novel. She lives in Connecticut.
Roger Housden is the author of more than twenty books, including the bestselling Ten Poems series. He lives in the Bay Area and runs live and online classes that use writing as a tool to explore the life of the soul.
Joyce Johnson’s books include Minor Characters: A Beat Memoir; Missing Men: A Memoir; and The Voice Is All: The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac.
Lila Keary is a New York City-based freelance journalist.
Andrea Lee, an American writer and journalist, lives in Turin, Italy. Her first book, Russian Journal, was published in 1981 after portions of it appeared in The New Yorker; subsequent books include the novels Sarah Phillips and Lost Hearts in Italy. Her work has been published in The New Yorker, Vogue, W, Time, Town & Country, and The New York Times, and can be found on her blog, Woman Between the Worlds.
Beth Levine is an award-winning freelance writer who lives in Stamford, Connecticut.
Mark Leyner and his wife divide their time between New York and Los Angeles. His new novel, Gone with the Mind, will be published by Little, Brown in 2016.
Valerie Monroe, O, The Oprah Magazine’s beauty director, is the author of the memoir In the Weather of the Heart.
Catherine Newman is the author of the book Waiting for Birdy and the blog Ben & Birdy. She lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Mary Oliver has written over twenty books of poetry and five collections of essays. Her work has received many awards, including the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. She lives in Hobe Sound, Florida.
Meghan O’Rourke is the author of the poetry collections Once and Halflife, which was a finalist for both the Patterson Poetry Prize and Britain’s Forward Best First Collection prize. Her essays, criticism, and poems have appeared in Slate, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, The Nation, Vogue, Poetry, The Kenyon Review, and Best American Poetry. She is currently working on a book about chronic illness.
Catherine Price is the author of two works of nonfiction, Vitamania: Our Obsessive Quest for Nutritional Perfection and 101 Places Not to See Before You Die. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications, including Best American Science Writing, The New York Times, Popular Science, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Post Magazine, and Outside.
Victoria Redel has published three collections of poetry and four books of fiction. Her work has been widely anthologized and translated into six languages.
Gretchen Reynolds is an award-winning journalist who writes the “Phys Ed” column for The New York Times and contributes regularly to The New York Times Magazine and other publications.
Robin Romm is the author of a story collection, The Mother Garden, and a memoir, The Mercy Papers, and is the editor of Double Bind: Women on Ambition. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
Jane Smiley’s novel A Thousand Acres won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1992. Her novel Horse Heaven was short-listed for the Orange Prize in 2002, and her novel Private Life was chosen as one of the best books of 2010 by The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and The Washington Post. She has written several works of nonfiction, including Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel and The Man Who Invented the Computer. Her new novel is Some Luck, the first volume of a trilogy entitled The Last Hundred Years.
Kathryn Sullivan is a former NASA astronaut and was the first American woman to walk in space. In 2004 Sullivan was inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame and currently serves as the Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association Administrator.
Abigail Thomas has written seven books, including, most recently, What Comes Next and How to Like It. She teaches writing and lives in Woodstock, New York.
Neil de Grasse Tyson is an award-winning astrophysicist and head of New York City’s Hayden Planetarium. His books include The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist; Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution; Death by Black Hole and Other Cosmic Quandaries; and Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier. Tyson was the executive editor and host of Cosmos: A Space Time Odyssey, the twenty-first-century reboot of Carl Sagan’s landmark television series.
Justine van der Leun is the author of Marcus of Umbria: What an Italian Dog Taught an American Girl about Love and has written for publications including The New York Observer, Marie Claire, Harper’s Magazine, and The Bark.
Patricia Volk is a Guggenheim Fellow and the author of two novels, two memoirs, and two collections of short stories. Her most recent book is Shocked: My Mother, Schiaparelli, and Me.
Lauren Winner, an Episcopal priest, is the author of numerous books, including Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis and Wearing God. She teaches at Duke Divinity School and lives in Durham, North Carolina.
Jessica Winter is a senior editor at Slate.