Fiction | Nonfiction | Poetry | Moderators |
Listed in alphabetical order
Jacob M. Appel
Medical Ethics in the Time of COVID — Saturday, 2:30 PM
Jacob M. Appel is currently Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Medical Education at Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine, where he is Director of Ethics Education in Psychiatry. He is also the author of four literary novels including, ten short story collections, an essay collection, a cozy mystery, a thriller, a volume of poems and a compendium of medical dilemmas. Prior to joining the faculty at Mount Sinai, Jacob taught most recently at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and at Yeshiva College, where he was the writer-in-residence. More at www.jacobmappel.com
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Lisa Feldman Barrett, PhD
Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain — Saturday, 10:00 AM
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Michael Blanding
Searching for Shakespeare — Saturday, 12:15 PM
Michael Blanding is a Boston-based investigative journalist, whose work has appeared in The New York Times, WIRED, Slate, The Boston Globe Magazine, Boston magazine, and other publications. He is author of The Map Thief: The Gripping Story of an Esteemed Rare-Map Dealer Who Made Millions Stealing Priceless Maps (2014), which was a New York Times bestseller and an NPR Book of the Year; and The Coke Machine: The Dirty Truth Behind the World’s Favorite Soft Drink (2010). A former journalism fellow at Brandeis University and Harvard Law School, he has taught feature writing at Tufts University, Emerson College, and GrubStreet Writers.
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Adam D. Chandler
Tiny Love Stories, Big Impact — Saturday, 12:15 PM
Adam D. Chandler is an attorney in Washington, DC. He has contributed several personal narratives to the New York Times, and his opinion pieces have appeared in Slate, USA Today, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and the National Law Journal. Forbes named Chandler one of its “30 Under 30 in Law & Policy” in 2014. Born and raised in Burlington, North Carolina, Chandler earned his J.D. from Yale Law School; a master’s degree from the University of Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar; and a B.S. in mathematics from Duke University.
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Eric Jay Dolin
A Furious Sky: The Five-Hundred-Year History of America’s Hurricanes — Sunday, 11:00 AM
Eric Jay Dolin is the author of fourteen books. His most recent is A Furious Sky: The Five-Hundred-Year History of America’s Hurricanes, which received a number of accolades, including being chosen by the Washington Post as one of 50 Notable Works of Non-fiction in 2020, by Kirkus Reviews as one of the Best Nonfiction Books of 2020 (in addition to being a Kirkus Prize finalist), by the Library Journal and Booklist as one of the Best Science & Technology Books of 2020, and by the New York Times Book Review as an “Editor’s Choice.” Other books include Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America, which was chosen as one of the Best Nonfiction Books of 2007 by the Los Angeles Times and the Boston Globe, and also won the 2007 John Lyman Award for U.S. Maritime History; and Black Flags, Blue Waters: The Epic History of America’s Most Notorious Pirates, which was chosen as a “Must-Read” book for 2019 by the Massachusetts Center for the Book, and was a finalist for the 2019 Julia Ward Howe Award given by the Boston Author’s Club. A graduate of Brown, Yale, and MIT, where he received his Ph.D. in environmental policy, Dolin lives in Marblehead, Massachusetts, with his family.
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Bethany Groff Dorau
Tiny Love Stories, Big Impact — Saturday, 12:15 PM
Bethany Groff Dorau is the author of A Newburyport Marine in World War I: The Life and Legacy of Eben Bradbury, A Brief History of Old Newbury (History Press), and a primary contributor to the Defining Documents in American History Series. She is the North Shore Regional Site Administrator for Historic New England, based at the Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm in Newbury, and a recipient of the Preservation Leadership Award from the Newburyport Preservation Trust, the Pioneer in Preservation Award from the Essex National Heritage Commission, and the North of Boston CVB Leadership Award. Bethany sits on the executive board of the North of Boston CVB, Lowell’s Boat Shop, and the planning committee of the Newburyport Literary Festival. She has published articles in the New York Times, New England Quarterly, the Encyclopedia of American History, and Historic New England Magazine. She holds an MA in History from the University of Massachusetts, and lives in West Newbury with her family. Photo credit: Amanda Ambrose.
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Lydia Dugdale, MD, MAR
Medical Ethics in the Time of COVID — Saturday, 2:30 PM
Lydia Dugdale, MD, MAR (ethics), is the Dorothy L. and Daniel H. Silberberg Associate Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and Director of the Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. She also serves as Associate Director of Clinical Ethics at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Irvine Medical Center. A practicing internist, Dugdale moved to Columbia in 2019 from Yale University, where she previously served as Associate Director of the Program for Biomedical Ethics. Her scholarship focuses on end-of-life issues, medical ethics, and the doctor-patient relationship. She edited Dying in the Twenty-First Century (MIT Press, 2015) and is author of The Lost Art of Dying (HarperOne, 2020), a popular press book on the preparation for death.
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Kerri Greenidge
Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter — Sunday, 2:00 PM
Kerri Greenidge is the author of Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter (2019). Listed by the New York Times as one of its top picks of 2019, the book is the first biography of Boston editor, William Monroe Trotter, written in nearly fifty years. Black Radical examines black radical politics and grass roots community protest in the north beyond the Washington-Du Bois dialectic. The book received the Mark Lynton Prize in History, the Massachusetts Book Ward, and the Peter J. Gomes Book Prize from the Massachusetts Historical Society. Black Radical was also short-listed for the Stone Book Award from the Museum of African American History, Boston, the Cundill History Prize, and the Plutarch Award for Best biography. Greenidge received her doctorate in American Studies from Boston University. Her scholarship examines African American and African Diasporic politics outside of the post-bellum South, particularly through popular literature and the trans-national black press. She is currently Mellon Assistant Professor in the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora at Tufts University, where she also co-directs the African American Trail Project, and where she serves as Interim Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy.
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Peter Guralnick
Looking to Get Lost: Adventures in Music and Writing — Saturday, 3:45 PM
Peter Guralnick has been called “a national resource” by critic Nat Hentoff for work that has argued passionately and persuasively for the vitality of this country’s intertwined black and white musical traditions. His books include the prize-winning two-volume biography of Elvis Presley, Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love. Of the first Bob Dylan wrote, “Elvis steps from the pages. You can feel him breathe. This book cancels out all others.” He won a Grammy for his liner notes for Sam Cooke Live at the Harlem Square Club as well as writing the scripts for the Grammy-winning documentary Sam Cooke/Legend and Martin Scorsese’s blues documentary Feel Like Going Home. His biography of Sam Cooke, Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke, was hailed as “monumental, panoramic, an epic tale told against a backdrop of brilliant, shimmering music, intense personal melodrama, and vast social changes.” His 2015 biography of Sam Phillips, Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘n’ Roll, was named one of the Best Books of the Year by the New York Times and was a finalist for the Plutarch Award for Best Biography of the Year. Reaction to his latest book, Looking to Get Lost, has ranged from Michael Eric Dyson’s tribute to “one of the 3 or 4 greatest writers in the country today” to Rosanne Cash’s description of him as “a dedicated explorer, a writer of great sensitivity and intuition, who lyrically un-tangles the network that exists between artist and art” to No Depression’s description of a book that “is not a summation so much as a culmination of his remarkable work, which from the start has encompassed the full range of blues, gospel, country and rock and roll.” Author photo credit: Mike Leahy. Cover photo credit: Russ Barnard.
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Dyke Hendrickson
Merrimack, the Resilient River: An Illustrated Profile of the Most Historic River in New England — Sunday, 10:00 AM
Dyke Hendrickson, an author-journalist living in Newburyport, has written six books. His most recent is, Merrimack: The Resilient River, An Illustrated Narrative of the Most Historic River in New England. Hendrickson calls it “part history and part call to action.” The 117-mile river is sometimes getting dirtier, not cleaner. The author provides insight on its remarkable past, including the fact it was the birthplace of the Coast Guard. Along the Merrimack were built the first major textile mills in the country. It was also the site of a scientific breakthrough in clean drinking water and of one of the first successful labor strikes. Hendrickson interviewed more than 50 North Shore residents for the well-researched text, and he has included more than 75 color photos of the majestic waterway. He is currently a historian with the Merrimack River Watershed Council. In that role, he speaks on Zoom to clubs, associations, and historical gatherings on the history of the Coast Guard and of the Merrimack River.
His maritime writing began several years ago when he produced a multi-part series for The Daily News, the local newspaper in Newburyport, on the 250th anniversary of that city. Hendrickson then researched and wrote “Nautical Newburyport: A History of Captains, Clipper Ships and the Coast Guard,” published by The History Press in 2017. His next book, “New England Coast Guard Stories: Remarkable Mariners,” was published in March 2020, also by the History Press. The book on the Merrimack River, from Fonthill Media, was released this month (April 2021).
The author graduated from Franklin and Marshall College with a degree in history, and he did graduate work at the University of Maine, Orono. He is a former writer and/or editor with the Portland Press Herald, the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the Boston Herald and The Daily News in Newburyport. Other publications he has written for include USA Today, the Boston Globe and Tennis magazine.
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Elizabeth Holmes
HRH: So Many Thoughts on Royal Style — Saturday, 1:30 PM
Elizabeth Holmes spent more than a decade on staff at The Wall Street Journal covering the business and messaging of fashion. Since leaving the paper in 2017, she has written for a variety of national outlets, including The New York Times, InStyle, Real Simple, Business of Fashion, and Vogue International. Elizabeth is a contributing editor at Town & Country magazine and has gained acclaim for her popular, Webby-honored Instagram Stories series, “So Many Thoughts.” She lives outside of San Francisco with her husband and three young children. You can find her on Instagram @EHolmes and read more of her work at ByElizabeth-Holmes.com.
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Scott James
Cocktail Party with the Authors of Alone Together — Saturday, 5:30 PM
Scott James is a veteran journalist and the author of Trial by Fire, the true story of The Station nightclub fire. Since 2009 Scott’s reporting has appeared in The New York Times, and he is the recipient of three Emmy Awards for his work in television news. He’s also the author of two bestselling novels, SoMa and The Sower, both written under the pen name Kemble Scott.
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Melissa Korn
UNACCEPTABLE: Privilege, Deceit and the Making of the College Admissions Scandal — Sunday, 9:00 AM
Melissa Korn is a reporter for The Wall Street Journal in New York covering higher education. Previously, she wrote for Dow Jones Newswires. She is a graduate of Cornell University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Photo Credit: Erin Silber Photography.
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Kate Clifford Larson
Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero — Sunday, 12:00 PM
Dr. Kate Clifford Larson is a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of three critically acclaimed biographies: Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero; Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter; and The Assassin’s Accomplice: Mary Surratt and the Plot to Kill Abraham Lincoln. A specialist in 19th and 20th century U.S. Women’s and African American History, Larson is an award-winning consultant whose work includes feature film scripts – most recently Focus Features’ Harriet starring Cynthia Erivo – documentaries, museum exhibits, animation and augmented reality productions, public history initiatives, curriculum materials, and numerous print and digital publications. She is frequently interviewed by local, national, and international radio programs and media outlets, and has appeared on national and international television broadcasts including CBS Sunday Morning, the BBC, PBS, and C-Span, and cable networks. Dr. Larson is currently writing a biography of Civil Rights icon, Fannie Lou Hamer entitled Walk With Me, due out from Oxford University Press in September 2021.
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Miya Lee
Tiny Love Stories, Big Impact — Saturday, 12:15 PM
Miya Lee is editor of Modern Love projects at The New York Times. With Daniel Jones, she co-hosts the Modern Love podcast, reads submissions to Modern Love, selects and edits Tiny Love Stories and develops the column’s special projects, like the Modern Love TV show on Amazon Prime. Miya began work for Modern Love as a reader for the column’s 2014 college essay contest. You can find her on Twitter @yayamilee. Photo Credit: Earl Wilson @ The New York Times.
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Jennifer Levitz
UNACCEPTABLE: Privilege, Deceit and the Making of the College Admissions Scandal — Sunday, 9:00 AM
Jennifer Levitz is a national reporter for The Wall Street Journal in Boston covering general news, economics, and politics. Previously, she wrote for the Providence Journal. She is a two-time Pulitzer team finalist. She graduated from Loyola University of Maryland. Photo Credit: Mark Arsenault.
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Benjamin Lorr
The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the America Supermarket — Sunday, 2:30 PM
Benjamin Lorr is the author of Hell-Bent, a critically acclaimed exploration of the Bikram Yoga community that first detailed patterns of abuse and sexual misconduct by guru Bikram Choudhury, and The Secret Life of Groceries, called “a titanic achievement of reportage, insight, humor, and humanity” about the American supermarket. Lorr is a graduate of Montgomery County, Maryland public schools and Columbia University. He lives in New York City.
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Deirdre Mask
The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power — Saturday, 9:00 AM
Deirdre Mask graduated from Harvard College summa cum laude, and attended University of Oxford before returning to Harvard for law school, where she was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. She completed a master’s in writing at the National University of Ireland. The author of The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power, Deirdre’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, and The Guardian. Originally from North Carolina, she has taught at Harvard and the London School of Economics. She lives with her husband and daughters in London.
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Nancy Sander
Site Specific: 20 Years of Outdoor Sculpture at Maudslay — Sunday, 3:00 PM
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Nina Sankovitch
Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Celebrating the Joys of Letter Writing — Sunday, 12:00 PM
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Dani Shapiro
Cocktail Party with the Authors of Alone Together — Saturday, 5:30 PM
Dani Shapiro is the author of the instant New York Times best-selling memoir, Inheritance, which was published in January 2019 by Knopf. Her other books include the memoirs Hourglass, Still Writing, Devotion, and Slow Motion, and five novels including Black & White and Family History. Along with teaching writing workshops around the world, Dani has taught at Columbia and New York University, and is the cofounder of the Sirenland Writers Conference in Positano, Italy. In February of 2019, Dani launched an original podcast, Family Secrets, in collaboration with iHeartMedia. An iTunes Top 10 podcast, the series features stories from guests who—like Dani— have uncovered life-altering and long-hidden secrets from their families’ past. She lives with her family in Litchfield County, Connecticut. Photo credit: Michael Maren.
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Peter Godfrey-Smith
Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain — Saturday, 10:00 AM
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Bert Snow
Site Specific: 20 Years of Outdoor Sculpture at Maudslay — Sunday, 3:00 PM
Bert Snow is an artist and designer, and for the last 21 years has been the coordinator of the annual Outdoor Sculpture at Maudslay show. The experience of developing the show and it’s community has influenced Bert’s perspectives on creativity and how we think about art and art making. In his artwork, Bert aims to leave room for viewers to engage with sculptures, sometimes giving them controls to physically set things in motion. Bert also works as a game designer, currently focused on games that are used in learning.
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Phuc Tran
Sigh, Gone: A Misfit’s Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In — Sunday, 1:30 PM
Phuc Tran has been a high school Latin teacher for more than twenty years while also simultaneously establishing himself as a highly sought-after tattooer in the Northeast. Tran graduated Bard College in 1995 with a BA in Classics and received the Callanan Classics Prize. He taught Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit in New York at the Collegiate School and was an instructor at Brooklyn College’s Summer Latin Institute. Most recently, he taught Latin, Greek, and German at the Waynflete School in Portland, Maine. His 2012 TEDx talk “Grammar, Identity, and the Dark Side of the Subjunctive” was featured on NPR’s Ted Radio Hour. His acclaimed memoir, SIGH, GONE: A Misfit’s Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and The Fight To Fit In, received the 2020 New England Book Award for Nonfiction. He tattoos and lives with his family in Portland, Maine. Photo credit: Jeff Roberts Imaging
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Ghlee E. Woodworth
Newburyport Clipper Heritage Trail, Volume II — Sunday, 9:00 AM
Ghlee E. Woodworth is a 12th-generation Newburyport native. Ghlee’s first publication Tiptoe Through the Tombstones, Oak Hill Cemetery, won awards from the New England (2009) and New York (2010) Book Festivals. She is the creator and author of Newburyport’s Clipper Heritage Trail, a series of self-guided history tours accessed via a website and smart phones: www.clipperheritagetrail.com. The Clipper Heritage Trail was an American Association for State and Local History Merit Award winner in 2014. Clipper Heritage Trail, Volume I was published in 2020 and Volume II is scheduled to come out in the summer of 2021. Ghlee was honored with the Distinguished Citizen Award for beneficence to the Newburyport community in 2016 presented by Mayor Donna Holaday and the Spirit of Adventure Council of the Boy Scouts of America and was the recipient of the Pioneer in Partnership Award from the Essex National Heritage Commission in 2017 for her contributions to Newburyport’s local history. Trained in gravestone restoration Ghlee has restored over 1,200 gravestones in Oak Hill Cemetery and other burying grounds.
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Joyce Audy Zarins
Site Specific: 20 Years of Outdoor Sculpture at Maudslay — Sunday, 3:00 PM
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