Author spotlight
Alan Jacobson
Alan Jacobson is the national bestselling author of the critically acclaimed thriller, The 7th Victim, which was named to Library Journal's "Best Books of the Year" list for 2008. Alan's years of research with law enforcement, particularly the FBI, influenced him both personally and professionally, and have helped shape the stories he tells and the diverse characters that populate his novels. Both The 7th Victim and one of Alan's forthcoming thrillers, Hard Target, are currently under development as major feature films with an A-list Hollywood producer.
Click here to watch the trailer for Alan Jacobson's Crush.
Click here to watch the trailer for Alan Jacobson's The 7th Victim.
Alan Kennedy-Shaffer
Alan Kennedy-Shaffer served as a regional field director for Barack Obama and the Democratic Party in Virginia. Educated at Yale University and William & Mary Law School, Kennedy-Shaffer is the author of Denial and Deception: A Study of The Bush Administration's Rhetorical Case for Invading Iraq. His writings have also appeared in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, the Washington Post, the Patriot-News, the Virginia Gazette, and Scoop08. He lives in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.
Amy Stiller
Amy Stiller is an actress and performer who has worked in theatre, film, and television, performs her own comedy, hangs out with gay men, and is ready for love. Notable film credits among many include The Day Trippers and Chump Change, where she plays a jealous ex-girlfriend who bitches out Tracy Lords in a bowling alley in Milwaukee, directed by Steve Burrows. TV: King Of Queens, playing Judy Davis as The Bride Of Frankenstein on The Ben Stiller Show, and a short film called Amy Stiller's Breast, among others. Regional theatre includes lead roles in: The Guys, The Heidi Chronicles, The Vagina Monologues, Fully Committed, I Ought To Be In Pictures, Beau Jest, among other plays. New York theatre credits include her proud Off-Broadway debut in Down The Garden Paths, written by her mother Anne Meara. www.amystiller.com. It's coming.
Aris Winger, PhD
Aris Winger, PhD is an assistant math professor at Emory and Henry College in southwestern Virginia. He grew up in Washington, DC, was valedictorian of his high school class, entered Howard University when he was 16, and received his PhD from Carnegie-Mellon University at the age of 26.
Aris considers math a thing of beauty and he’s passionate about putting it into the service of social justice. He speaks frequently about the vital role of math literacy in the fight against racial profiling, unfair hiring practices, and negative perceptions of African-Americans. Aris tackles these and other hot-button issues on his weekly radio show “The Flagship,” broadcast on Emory and Henry College’s radio station, WEHC 90.7 FM. Online, Aris teams up with his friend Big Easy on DCSouth.com, a gathering place for their interests in music, art, politics, racial issues, wedding videography, and professional football.
Barbara Guggenheim
Barbara Guggenheim is a partner in the national firm of art consultants, Guggenheim, Asher Associates, which has advised corporations, including Coca-Cola and Sony, and individuals, such as Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg. She holds a doctorate in Art History, has taught on the university level, and was head lecturer at the Whitney Museum. Barbara has been the subject of numerous magazine profiles, including two in Vanity Fair, and she regularly writes humor for W and Elle.
Beverly Barton
An avid reader since childhood, Beverly Barton wrote her first book at the age of nine. Since then, she has gone on to write well over seventy novels and is a New York Times bestselling author. Beverly lives in Alabama.
Bruce Weber
Bruce Weber, a reporter for the New York Times, began his career in publishing as a fiction editor at Esquire. His first piece for the Times was a profile of Raymond Carver for the Sunday magazine in 1983, and he has been on staff at the newspaper since 1986 as an editor, metro reporter, national cultural correspondent, theater columnist and theater critic, among other things. His writing about baseball includes three cover stories for the Times Magazine (for which he has also profiled E. L. Doctorow, Martin Cruz Smith, the Harvard Admissions Department, the New York Public Library and Cher) and he has regularly contributed first-person essays and participatory features to the paper. These include accounts of several bicycle journeys (from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City and from San Francisco to New York City, among them); of a walk the length of Broadway, from Yonkers to the Battery; of canoeing down the Hudson; of skating on all of New York City's skating rinks and of batting in all of New York City's batting cages. He has written for Sports Illustrated, Sport, Esquire, Manhattan Inc., Vogue, Mademoiselle, Redbook, Harpers' Bazaar, the Hartford Courant, and the St. Petersburg Times. He is the author, with the dancer Savion Glover, of Savion! My Life in Tap (William Morrow, 2000), and the editor of Look Who's Talking: An Anthology of Voices in the Modern American Short Story.
Byron Katie
Byron Katie experienced what she calls “waking up to reality” in 1986, and since then she has introduced The Work to hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world. In addition to her public events, she has introduced The Work into business settings, universities, schools, churches, prisons, and hospitals.
C.S. Forester
C.S. Forester was an English novelist who rose to fame with tales of adventure and military crusades. His most notable works were the 11-book Horatio Hornblower series, about naval warfare during the Napoleonic era, and The African Queen (1935; filmed in 1951 by John Huston). His novels A Ship of the Line and Flying Colours were jointly awarded the 1938 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction.
Carol Leifer
Carol Leifer is an accomplished stand-up comedian and an Emmy-nominated writer and producer for her work on such television shows as Seinfeld, The Larry Sanders Show, Saturday Night Live, and the Academy Awards. She has starred in several of her own comedy specials, which have aired on HBO, Showtime, and Comedy Central. Her “big break” came when David Letterman unexpectedly showed up one night at the Comic Strip in New York City and caught Carol’s show. His visit led to her making twenty-five guest appearances on Late Night with David Letterman. Carol has also been seen on The Tonight Show, Real Time with Bill Maher, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and The Oprah Winfrey Show. She starred in and created the WB sitcom Alright Already. She lives in Santa Monica with her partner, their son, and their seven rescue dogs.
Carole Mallory
Carole Mallory is an actress, model, and writer. Her film credits include The Stepford Wives and Looking for Mr. Goodbar. As one of the original supermodels, she appeared on the covers of many magazines including Vogue, Cosmopolitan, New York Magazine, Newsweek, G.Q., and Esquire. In addition to her novel, Flash, Mallory has written journalistic pieces on figures such as Kurt Vonnegut, Erica Jong, Warren Beatty, and Gore Vidal for publications such as Elle, LA Magazine, Esquire, Penthouse, and Playboy.
Charles Bowden
Charles Bowden is the author of 22 books, notably including Down by the River and Blood Orchid. A contributing editor of GQ and Mother Jones magazine, he also writes for publications including Harper's Magazine, New York Times Book Review, Esquire, and Aperture. He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and is a winner of the Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction and the Sidney Hillman Foundation Award.
Dan Chaon
Dan Chaon is the author of Fitting Ends and Among the Missing, a finalist for the National Book Award, which was also listed as one of the ten best books of the year by the American Library Association, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, The Christian Science Monitor, and Entertainment Weekly, among other publications, as well as being cited as a New York Times Notable Book. Dan's fiction has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, and The O. Henry Prize Stories. He has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award in Fiction, and he was the recipient of the 2006 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Dan lives in Cleveland, Ohio, and teaches at Oberlin College, where he is the Pauline M. Delaney Professor of Creative Writing.
The New York Times has selected Await Your Reply as a Notable Book of 2009.
New York Times reviewer Janet Maslin chose Await Your Reply as one of her Top 10 Books of 2009.
Publishers Weekly named Await Your Reply as one of the Top Ten Books of 2009.
Amazon named Await Your Reply one of their Best Books of 2009.
eMusic named Await Your Reply one of the Best Audiobooks of 2009.
NPR named Await Your Reply one of the Top Picks from Indie Booksellers for 2009.
The Washington Post selected Await Your Reply has one of the Best Books of 2009.
Click here to watch the trailer for Await Your Reply.
Click here to read an interview with Dan Chaon.
Daniel Kehlmann
Daniel Kehlmann was born in Munich and now lives in Vienna. He has received major awards for his work, most recently the 2005 Candide Award. He was the writer-in-residence at New York University's Deutsches Haus in 2006.
David Foster
David Foster is a 15-time Grammy Award winning composer, songwriter, arranger, and record producer whose career began in the early 1970s with the group Skylark. He then went on to become one of the most sought-after session players in the business, working alongside such musical legends as Barbra Streisand, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Diana Ross, Rod Stewart, and many more. In 1990, Foster met Celine Dion in Quebec, singing under a tent in the rain, and shortly thereafter he introduced her to American audiences. A few years later, he was recruited by Atlantic Records, paving the way for the creation of his own successful label, 143 Records, and in the years since he has discovered a roster of diverse and exceptional talents, including, most recently, Josh Groban and Michael Buble. In addition to his work in the music business, Foster spends much of his time raising money for charity.
David L. Robb
David L. Robb is an award-winning freelance journalist who has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize three times. He is the author of Operation Hollywood: How the Pentagon Shapes and Censors the Movies, and his articles have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Daily News, The Nation, LA Weekly, Salon.com, and Brill’s Content. For many years he was a labor and legal reporter for The Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety.
Dina Zaphiris
Best known as Malibu's "Dog Trainer to the Stars," Animal Planet's Petfinder co-host and Bonnie Hunt Show regular Dina Zaphiris has owned and operated a dog training business for over twelve years. Her clients refer to her as "the Behavior Savior" because of her uncanny ability to solve canine behavioral problems. From aggression to separation anxiety, Dina can resolve it all.
Dina comes from a long line of animal movie trainers, having studied for seven years under Richard Vye. Richard Vye was trained by the famous Rudd Weatherwax. Rudd is well known for training the original Lassie. Some of Dina's more famous clientele include Al Pacino, Bruce Willis, Kate Beckinsale, Nicolas Cage, Barry Manilow, Mira Sorvino, directors Tony and Ridley Scott, Sylvester Stallone, and Ozzy Osbourne.
Dina was the primary dog handler for the San Anselmo Medical Clinic in Marin County (outside of San Francisco) for their scientific research involving cancer-sniffing dogs. She also trains Search and Rescue dogs, and has been classified as a First Responder by the Los Angeles County Outdoor Emergency Services. Dina writes for several canine-oriented publications, including Dog News, and is currently on the board of directors and planners for Wallis Annenberg's Companion Animal Center in Palos Verdes, California. She is the current training director for the Greyhound rescue organization, Hemopet. Dina also trains dogs for agility and competitive obedience trials.
Douglas E. Schoen
Douglas E. Schoen has been a Democratic Party adviser for the past thirty years. A founding partner of Penn, Schoen, and Berland, he was President Clinton’s strategic consultant during the 1996 reelection campaign and has advised New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, Indiana governor Evan Bayh, and former British prime minister Tony Blair. He has also provided preeminent strategic research to an extensive list of corporate clients, including AOL Time Warner, Procter & Gamble, Major League Baseball, AT&T, Frito Lay, and Citibank. Schoen graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, and is a graduate of Harvard Law School. Dr. Schoen has his doctorate in philosophy from Oxford University in England. He is the author of five books, including Declaring Independence.
Edmund J.Bourne, PhD
Edmund J. Bourne, Ph.D., has specialized in the treatment of anxiety disorders and related problems for two decades. For many years, he was director of the Anxiety Treatment Center in San Jose and Santa Rosa, CA. His bestselling anxiety workbooks, which have helped hundreds of thousands of readers throughout the world, include The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook, Beyond Anxiety and Phobia, Coping with Anxiety, and Natural Relief for Anxiety.
Ethan Brown
Ethan Brown has written for New York, The New York Observer, Wired, Vibe, Radar, The Independent, GQ, Mother Jones, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, Men’s Vogue, Entertainment Weekly, Details and The Village Voice. He has appeared on NPR, WNYC, Court TV, MSNBC, Hot 97, TPMCafe and BET to discuss drug policy, street crime, the music business and other issues.
Ethan’s third book—Shake the Devil Off—was published in the fall of 2009. Evan Wright, author of the New York Times bestseller Generation Kill, called Shake the Devil Off as “a chilling portrait of a broken hero failed by the system.” George Pelecanos, New York Times bestselling author of The Turnaround, said that “Ethan Brown examines a notorious murder case, rescues it from the talons of tabloid journalists, and comes up with something much more than a true crime book. Shake the Devil Off is a gripping suspense story, an indictment of the military’s treatment of our soldiers in and out of war, and a celebration of the resilience and worth of a great American city.” Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, urged “every military general and every VA leader to read this book to understand how hubris and incompetence in government often leads to massive pain, suffering, and preventable death. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and VA Secretary Eric Shinseki should put Shake the Devil Off at the top of their reading list as a superbly written account of how everything could and did go wrong for a soldier and his family during and after war.” In a starred review, Publishers Weekly called Shake the Devil Off “heartbreaking” and Nate Blakeslee, author of Tulia, hailed the book as “a ‘coming home’ story that rivals any written about veterans of the war in Iraq, and a true crime account that raises the bar for the genre. Measured, thoroughly reported, and written with true empathy.” David Simon, creator of The Wire and author of Homicide and The Corner, said that “looking more deeply at that from which the rest of us turned in horror, Ethan Brown has transformed an ugly and disturbing shard of the post-Katrina anguish. In this book, that which was lurid and sensational becomes, chapter by chapter, something genuinely sad and reflective, something that now has true meaning for New Orleans and for all of us.” In September of 2009, Shake The Devil Off was chosen as a “Critics’ Pick” in the Washington Post and an “Editors’ Choice” by the editors of The New York Times Book Review.
Harlee Harte
Harlee Harte is a fictitious junior at Hollywoodland High School. She writes the celebrity column “Hartebeat” for her school’s student newspaper.
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James Brown
James Brown is the author of the novels Lucky Town, Final Performance, Hot Wire, and The Second Story Theatre. He's received the Nelson Algren Award for Short Fiction and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Creative Writing. His writing has been featured in the Los Angeles Times Magazine, New York Times Magazine, GQ, Esquire, and Plougshares. Brown teaches in the M.F.A. Program at Cal State Bernardino.
James McBride
James McBride is an author, musician and screenwriter. His landmark memoir, The Color of Water, is considered an American classic. His debut novel Miracle at St. Anna was translated into a film directed by icon Spike Lee. He has also written for the Boston Globe, People, Washington Post, Essence, Rolling Stone, National Geographic, and the New York Times. James plays saxophone and tours with his six piece jazz/r&b band. He received the Stephen Sondheim Award and the Richard Rodgers Foundation Horizon Award for his musical "Bo-Bos" co-written with playwright Ed Shockley. A native New Yorker, he studied composition at The Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio and received his Masters in Journalism from Columbia University in New York at age 22. He holds several honorary doctorates and is currently a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University. He is married with three children.
Jeff Johnson, Ph. D.
Jeff Johnson, Ph.D., is a trained psychologist and advertising professional frequently quoted in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
Jenny McCarthy
Jenny McCarthy is the former host of the enormously popular MTV dating show Singled Out. She has starred in many films, including Dirty Love, the Sundance 2005 film that she also wrote. She is the author of several New York Times bestselling books such as Baby Laughs: The Naked Truth About the First Year of Mommyhood and Louder Than Words: A Mother’s Journey Healing Autism. In 2002, McCarthy and her director ex-husband John Asher had their first child, Evan.
Jim Moret
Jim Moret has been a journalist for over two decades and is currently Chief Correspondent for Inside Edition. During his prolific career, he has served as co-anchor of the long-running Showbiz Today, co-anchor of CNN’s main newscast, The World Today, anchor of CNN’s NewsNight, and recent guest anchor of Larry King Live.
Joan Winmill Brown
Joan Winmill Brown, a multi-talented writer and actress, has written 18 books, including the autobiographical No Longer Alone and the anthology Day by Day with Billy Graham, both bestsellers in the inspirational marketplace.
Jodee Blanco
Survivor, expert, and activist Jodee Blanco is one of the country’s pre-eminent voices on the subject of school bullying. She is the author of The New York Times bestseller, Please Stop Laughing At Me…. She is also a youth advocate and the creator and executive producer of the critically acclaimed, “It’s NOT Just Joking Around!” anti-bullying program. Blanco’s life story has been featured in Parade, Teen Newsweek, USA TODAY, Teen Guideposts, Hispanic, The Chicago Tribune, The St. Petersburg Times, hundreds of local daily newspapers across the United States, and is part of a permanent exhibit at the Chicago National Historical Society.
John Grogan
John Grogan is the author of the #1 adult bestseller Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog, which inspired the bestselling middle-grade memoir Marley: A Dog Like No Other. He is also the author of the #1 bestselling picture books Bad Dog, Marley! and A Very Marley Christmas. John lives with his wife and three children and their dogs, Gracie and Woodson, in the Pennsylvania countryside.
John Wilcockson
John Wilcockson has reported on the Tour de France for more than forty years. He is the author of 23 Days in July, among other books, and lives in Boulder, Colorado.
Johnny Eugenio
Johnny Eugenio is the proud father of eight beautiful children. Eugenio wrote Lil' Jordan's 9 Holes of Fear upon being inspired by his son Jordan. Jordan started golfing at the tender age of two. Eugenio says “Lil’ Jordan” has been the reason he’s wanted to encourage more children to play the game of golf. As Jordan has revealed to his father, golf can be a difficult sport because of all the mental pressures associated with the game. Another inspiration to Eugenio is his other son, Joshua, who has Down syndrome. Joshua’s smile motivates Eugenio to educate other children about youth who live with disabilities. Eugenio’s desire is to share adventures like Lil' Jordan's 9 Holes of Fear which can be told over and over again to kids, and will inspire them to keep trying harder when challenges arise. Such a book will allow parents and grandparents to share their positive and challenging memories about life, sports, and all the lessons learned along the way.
Kevin Nealon
A Saturday Night Live alum, Kevin Nealon has also appeared in Happy Gilmore, The Wedding Singer, Anger Management, Grandma's Boy, Get Smart, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and The Larry Sanders Show. He current stars as Doug Wilson in the Showtime hit series Weeds.
Kristen McGuiness
Kristen McGuiness works in fundraising for a Los Angeles non-profit, which provides progressive educational and social services to impoverished children, youth and families. Before she started hanging out with four year-olds for pay, she worked in books for St. Martin’s Press, Simon & Schuster, and Harper Collins (via the office of Judith Regan), and in film as a junior creative executive. Her first screenplay, The Betty, was optioned last year. She spends her free time being watched by horses.
Lara Bergen
Lara Bergen is the author of many books, including the Candy Apple books, Drama Queen, and I've Got a Secret. She lives in New York City with her husband and two children.
Lars Anderson
Lars Anderson has been writing professionally about sports since 1994, when he was hired by Sports Illustrated a few months after graduating from Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism. He is currently a staff writer at the magazine and over the years has written over 500 stories for SI, including several cover pieces. He also writes a weekly column for the magazine’s web site and is the author of Carlisle vs. Army and The All Americans.
Laura Bennett
Laura Bennett wowed viewers of Project Runway’s Season Three with her own politically incorrect brand of humor and sophisticated designs. Now, with a large and growing fan base through her appearances on MSN’s “Glam Squad” StyleStudio, and QVC (which sells her designs), her Case Clothed comic strip on iVillage, a column on The Daily Beast, and her segment on Oprah’s show about moms, she’s filming a pilot for her own reality show about her family, which if picked up by Bravo will air next fall.
Laura Furman
Laura Furman's work has appeared in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Ploughshares, The Yale Review, and other magazines. She is the founding editor of the highly regarded American Short Fiction (three-time finalist for the American Magazine Award). A professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin, she teaches in the graduate James A. Michener Center for writers. She lives in Austin.
Laura Silverman
Laura Silverman first caught the attention of television viewers with her memorable vocal performance as the bitingly droll receptionist also named Laura on the popular animated sitcom Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist. She followed that with turns in the movies Half Baked, State and Main, Jesus is Magic, and Love Shack, as well as numerous television shows including King of Queens, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Home Movies, and was a series regular on the cult HBO comedy series The Comeback. In 2007, she joined her sister on the critically acclaimed Comedy Central series The Sarah Silverman Program, currently in its third season. In 2008, Silverman guest-starred opposite Hugh Laurie on Fox's hit series House, and she stars in the upcoming feature film Cummings Farm. She performs live comedy and original music regularly in Los Angeles and writes an advice column for HEEB Magazine. She was named one of the “Top 100 People of 2008” by USA Today.
Leslie Jamison
Leslie Jamison has been published in Best New American Voices 2008, A Public Space and Black Warrior Review. Originally from Los Angeles, she went to Harvard and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and is currently finishing a Ph.D. in English literature at Yale. She is 25 years old.
Linda Gray Sexton
Linda Gray Sexton is the daughter of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Anne Sexton. She has written four novels, and her first memoir Searching for Mercy Street was published to critical acclaim.
Lynn Grabhorn
Lynn Grabhorn was a long-time student of how thoughts and feelings format our lives. Raised in Short Hills, New Jersey, she began her working life in the advertising field in New York City, founded and ran an audio-visual educational publishing company in Los Angeles, and owned and ran a mortgage brokerage in Washington state. Lynn's first book Beyond the Twelve Steps, along with her sweeping multimedia program Life Course 101, have received high acclaim internationally. She died in 2004.
Marcelo Gleiser
Marcelo Gleiser is a Brazilian physicist and astronomer. He received his bachelor's degree in 1981 from the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, his M.Sc. degree in 1982 from the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, and his Ph.D. in 1986 from King's College London. Since 1991, he has taught at Dartmouth College. He was awarded the Appleton Professorship of Natural Philosophy in 1999 and is currently a professor of physics and astronomy. The author of over eighty papers in peer-reviewed journals, Gleiser has also written two popular books on cosmology and religion, The Prophet and the Astronomer and The Dancing Universe. His third book, Imperfect Creation: Cosmos, Life, and Nature’s Hidden Code, is coming from Free Press in 2010. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and has been awarded the Presidential Faculty Fellows Award from the White House and the National Science Foundation.
Marcelo Gleiser
Marcelo Gleiser is a Brazilian physicist and astronomer. He received his bachelor's degree in 1981 from the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, his M.Sc. degree in 1982 from the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, and his Ph.D. in 1986 from King's College London. Since 1991, he has taught at Dartmouth College. He was awarded the Appleton Professorship of Natural Philosophy in 1999 and is currently a professor of physics and astronomy. The author of over eighty papers in peer-reviewed journals, Gleiser has also written two popular books on cosmology and religion, The Prophet and the Astronomer and The Dancing Universe. His third book, Imperfect Creation: Cosmos, Life, and Nature’s Hidden Code, is coming from Free Press in 2010. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and has been awarded the Presidential Faculty Fellows Award from the White House and the National Science Foundation.
Margaret Fishback Powers
Margaret Fishback Powers is the creator of the world-famous Footprints poem, an inspirational message inscribed on cards, calendars, and posters that is treasured by millions of people. As itinerant evangelists, she and her husband Paul travel throughout the world. They live in British Columbia.
Mark Twain
Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in Florida, Missouri. Following careers as a printer, Mississippi riverboat pilot, and a brief stint in the Confederate militia, Twain wrote such American classics as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
Mary Birdsong
Mary Birdsong is an actress (and sometime writer) who has appeared on Reno 911, The Daily Show, the films Killers, Rob Zombie’s Halloween II, Adventureland, and Made of Honor. For her Broadway debut (in Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me!), she won a Theatre World Award. Off-Broadway she starred opposite Jane Lynch in Love, Loss and What I Wore, (by Nora & Delia Ephron), and in Elaine May's Adult Entertainment. Obsessed with Judy Garland, Mary wrote the one-woman show Judy Speaks in which she starred as the woman. (Guess who.) Mary is writing a rock musical called 99 Cent Whore. She lives in two cities (NY and LA) with two pussies.
Melody Beattie
Melody Beattie was a struggling single parent of two children and writer, cranking out stories for a small-town daily newspaper in 1986 when she came up with a book idea. She wanted to write a book about what happens to people when they love someone who is addicted to alcohol and other drugs. Twenty publishers turned down Beattie's book proposal, but Hazelden, a treatment center and recovery publisher based in Minnesota, saw a need for the book. The publisher understood how families of alcoholics suffer and believed Beattie's book would help people. Beattie went to the welfare department, asked for enough financial help to make it through the three months it would take to write the book, then locked herself in a basement office and cranked out Codependent No More. Codependent No More has now sold over 4 million copies. Since then, Beattie has written nine more books, appeared in the pages of Newsweek and People, and has been a regular guest on Geraldo and Oprah.
“Melody Beattie is an American phenomenon.”
—Time
Nadine Schiff
Nadine Schiff is the co-author of two books, and the Executive Producer of several film and television movies. An on-air journalist for several networks, including the CBS Evening News, she holds a Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology. Not a day goes by in Hollywood that she doesn’t use it.
Orson Scott Card
Orson Scott Card is the author of Ender's Game and many other New York Times bestsellers. His latest novels include Shadow of the Giant and Magic Street. Card is the only writer to have won science fiction’s top prizes, the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award, two years in a row.
This recording features Stefan Rudnicki, who has narrated around 100 audiobooks. He earned an Audie for his solo narration on Orson Scott Card's Lost Boys and Earphones Awards for his productions of Card's Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, and Crystal City.
P.G. Wodehouse
P.G. Wodehouse, (1881-1975) was born in Surrey, educated in London and spent much of his life in Southampton, Long Island, becoming an American citizen in 1955. In a literary career spanning more than 70 years, he published more than 90 books, 20 film scripts and collaboratated on more than 30 plays and musical comedies.
Paula Forman, Ph. D.
Paula Forman, Ph.D., became an adjunct sociology professor after her 25-year advertising career.
Philip Kearney
Phil Kearney is an Assistant United States Attorney in his native San Francisco, California. During 2007 and 2008, the U.S. Justice Department loaned him to the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. From his post in The Hague, Netherlands, Kearney helped prosecute the former prime minister of Kosovo for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Before that, Kearney was hired as one of a handful of “international prosecutors” for the UN Mission in Kosovo. While serving in that post in 2001 and 2002, he prosecuted war crimes and human trafficking offenses in the district courts of Kosovo and Belgrade.
In 1981, Kearney earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Davis, followed by a doctorate in law from the Hastings campus of the University of California in 1984. After law school, he joined the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office as a trial attorney. He served there for 17 years, finishing a distinguished career on the homicide team. Kearney is married with one son.
Randy Sklar
Randy Sklar is part of a comedy team along with his twin brother, Jason. The Sklars have appeared in television shows such as Law & Order, Becker, Providence, The Oblongs (as conjoined twin brothers Biff and Chip Oblong), Entourage, Grey's Anatomy, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. They also regularly appear on VH1 specials such as I Love the '80s. Most recently, they hosted the show Cheap Seats on ESPN Classic.
Richard Belzer
Richard Belzer is an American standup comedian, writer, and actor, who played Sgt. John Munch on Homicide: Life on the Street and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Richard has written many books, including UFOs, JFK, and Elvis: Conspiracies You Don't Have to Be Crazy to Believe. Richard has a wonderful wife, two awesome children, and a whole bunch o’ dogs.
Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907, was an English novelist, short story writer, and poet. His sweeping tales of adventure won him wide popularity during his lifetime and have been beloved by generations.
Ruth Rendell
Ruth Rendell has won numerous awards, including three Edgars, the highest accolade from Mystery Writers of America, as well as three Gold Daggers, a Silver Dagger, and a Diamond Dagger for outstanding contribution to the genre from England’s prestigious Crime Writers' Association. Time Magazine dubbed Rendell "the best mystery writer in the English-speaking world."
Sabatina James
Sabatina James (the name is a pseudonym) was born in Pakistan in 1982 and is now an Austrian citizen. At the age of ten, she moved with her family from Pakistan to Linz. She learned German and attended secondary school. When Sabatina was sixteen, her parents decided that she had become too westernized and sent her back to Pakistan; there she was forced to attend a strict Koran school where she was beaten and mistreated. When she was then expected to marry against her will, the young Muslim fled her martyrdom, returning to Europe. There, Islam's harsh response was even louder: on June 2, 2001, her family sentenced her to death. Since then, Sabatina has been in hiding in southern Germany.
Scott Phillips
Scott Phillips is the author of three of the most highly acclaimed crime novels of recent years. His debut novel, The Ice Harvest, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and won the California Book Award, a Silver Medal for Best First Fiction, and was a finalist for the Edgar Awards, the Hammett Prize and the Anthony Award. It is now a major motion picture from Focus Features. Its follow-up The Walkaway continued his success, with the New York Times calling it "wicked fun."
Shari Arison
Shari Arison is an Israeli-American businesswoman and the daughter of Ted Arison, founder of Carnival Cruise Lines. Following the death of her father in 1999, Arison assumed the chairmanship of the Arison Group, a business and philanthropic group headquartered in Tel Aviv. Since that time, Arison has led significant business processes in the group, including the acquisition of the sole controlling equity stake in Bank Hapoalim, Israel’s largest global bank, Shikun & Binuy, one of Israel’s most reputable real estate and infrastructure companies, and Israel Salt Industries Ltd, the largest salt manufacturer in Israel. In 2008, Arison founded Miya, a global water company providing water loss prevention management solutions to municipalities and utilities around the world. Arison is also a major beneficiary shareholder of Carnival Corporation, and has served two terms on its Board.
Arison is also the chairperson of the Ted Arison Family Foundation, the largest private philanthropic foundation in Israel, which has spearheaded and funded major social initiatives in Israel in the fields of Healthcare, People with Disabilities, Education, Children and Youth, Distressed Populations, and Arts, Culture and Sports. During her leadership of the Foundation, Arison has also been the driving force behind the establishment of several unique and innovative social initiatives in Israel. Arison led the foundation of Matan, Israeli affiliate of United Way International, which encourages Israeli corporations and their employees to raise funds for charitable causes and be directly involved in non-for-profit activities in their communities. In 2001, Arison founded Essence of Life, an organization promoting awareness and providing tools for individuals for finding inner and social peace. Arison also initiated the Good Deeds Day, a day held annually in which people are encouraged to perform good deeds.
In 2005, Arison was named Honorary Fellow of the Decade by the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, and she has been serving on the institution’s board since 2007. Arison is repeatedly ranked by Forbes Magazine as one of the world’s wealthiest women, and was also ranked by Forbes among the top 50 most influential women in the world in 2008. Arison was also elected by Globes financial magazine as the most influential businesswoman in Israel in both 2007 and 2009.
Sharyn McCrumb
Sharyn McCrumb is the author of The Rosewood Casket, She Walks These Hills and many other acclaimed novels. Her books have been named Notable Books of the Year by the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. She was named a “Virginia Woman of History” for Achievement in Literature in 2008. She lives and writes in the Virginia Blue Ridge, less than a hundred miles from where her family settled in 1790 in the Smoky Mountains that divide North Carolina and Tennessee.
Squire Rushnell
Squire Rushnell is the president and CEO of Goodlife TV Network. For 20 years he was an executive with the ABC television network, where his work earned him more than 75 Emmys. He is a popular public speaker and has been seen on such national programs as Nightline, NBC News, CBS This Morning, and, as the show’s producer, led Good Morning America to the number-one spot.
Streeter McClure
Growing up in the Midwest, Streeter McClure spent most of his childhood far away from the kitchen. The charismatic young man preferred chasing girls, riding his dirt bike and sneaking pulls from his father's Coors. It wasn't until his college years at the University of Oklahoma that Streeter learned when income is limited, adding a beer to chili can stretch the recipe and enhance the flavor.
Streeter was introduced to the art of making beer during his college job at Coaches Micro Brewery in Norman, Okla. World famous brew master Brian Smittle taught Streeter how to properly combine water, barley and hops. After graduating with a degree in business, Streeter worked as a bartender, ski instructor and even a U.S. Senate intern before relocating to Denver and launching a company that designs and fabricates jewelry safes. His company still going strong, this young entrepreneur and "man about town" is as comfortable in the board room as he is at a bar.
It is no surprise that as a single man balancing a business with an active social life, Streeter would get hungry and very thirsty. While he is admittedly no culinary expert, one could certainly classify Streeter as a beer connoisseur.
Combining his two loves—beer and entertaining—Streeter had found yet another career, this time cooking with beer and developing his own recipes, and sharing them with the public. Several years after college and numerous rough drafts later, The Single Man's Guide to Cooking with Beer was born. It is a compilation of well-tested, easy to prepare, delicious recipes that are guaranteed to impress guests while satisfying even the most refined palates.
T. Colin Campbell, PhD
T. Colin Campbell, PhD, is the project director of the China-Oxford-Cornell Diet and Health Project (the China Study), a 20-year study of nutrition and health. He is the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor Emeritus of nutritional biochemistry at Cornell University. In more than 40 years of research he has received more than 70 grant-years of peer-reviewed research funding and authored more than 300 research papers. He lives in Ithaca, New York.
Taylor Negron
An accomplished, actor, standup comedian, and playwright, Taylor Negron has starred in his own HBO special and has appeared on The Tonight Show. His films include Easy Money, Punchline, Stuart Little, and The Last Boy Scout. He wrote Gangster Planet, a domestic comedy set during the Los Angeles Riots that was "Critics Choice” by The Los Angeles Times. His essays are currently published in the anthology Love West Hollywood: Reflections of Los Angeles, a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. Taylor is one of the founding members of the Un–Cabaret dubbed “The Mother Show of Alternative Comedy” by the Wall Street Journal. He is a contributing writer to the Huffington Post and keeps NO PETS.
Thaisa Frank
Thaisa Frank’s short stories have received two PEN awards, and her two most recent collections Sleeping in Velvet, 1998, and A Brief History of Camouflage, 1992) have been on the Bestseller List of the San Francisco Chronicle and were nominated for the Bay Area Book Reviewer’s Association Award. A Brief History of Camouflage was included in Dalton’s New Voices. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies, including HarperCollins Reader’s Choice.
Frank has also written Finding Your Writer’s Voice, co-authored with Dorothy Wall. It has been compared to Brenda Uleland's book If You Want to Write and has been translated into Portuguese and Spanish. She has taught writing in the graduate department of San Francisco State, is on the part-time faculty at the University of San Francisco and has been Visiting Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California at Berkeley. Recently, Frank penned an afterword for Voltaire’s Candide, Zadig and Selected Stories.
Thomas Maier
Thomas Maier is the author of The Kennedys: America’s Emerald Kings, which was adapted for Warner Home Video DVD, and the critically acclaimed Dr. Spock, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year in 1999. He is a special writer at Newsday. He lives in Long Island, New York.
Tom Peters
Tom Peters is co-author of In Search of Excellence, the book NPR named as one of the “Top Three Business Books of the Century.” His other international bestsellers include A Passion for Excellence, Thriving on Chaos, Liberation Management, The Tom Peters Seminar, The Pursuit of WOW!, and The Circle of Innovation.
Warren Kozak
Warren Kozak is an author and journalist who has written for televison's most respected news anchors. Winner of the prestigious Benton Fellowship at the University of Chicago in 1993, he was an on-air reporter for NPR and his work has appeared on PBS and in the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The New York Sun, as well as other newspapers and magazines.
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