Fiction | Nonfiction | Poetry | Moderators |
Listed in alphabetical order
Mateo Askaripour wants people to feel seen. His first novel, Black Buck, takes on racism in corporate America with humor and wit. It was an instant New York Times bestseller and a Read with Jenna Today show book club pick. Askaripour was chosen as one of Entertainment Weekly’s “10 rising stars poised to make waves” and was named as a recipient of the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” prize. This Great Hemisphere is his second novel. He lives in Brooklyn.
Jenna Blum is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of novels Those Who Save Us, The Stormchasers, The Lost Family; memoir Woodrow on the Bench; WWII original podcast “The Key of Love,” and audiocourse “The Author at Work: The Art of Writing Fiction.” Jenna is one of Oprah’s Top 30 Women Authors and CEO/ Cofounder of online author interview startup A Mighty Blaze. Jenna is a professional teacher and speaker, traveling nationally and internationally to talk about writing and books; she is based in Boston, where she has taught fiction and marketing workshops for Boston University, Grub Street Writers, A Mighty Blaze, and other institutions for over 20 years. Please visit Jenna at www.jennablum.com and follow her on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Substack, and TikTok.
Timely Topics in Apocalyptic Fiction — Sunday 12 PMCebo Campbell is an author and creative director based in Brooklyn, New York. Winner of the Linda L. Ross Creative Writing Award and the Stories Award for Poetry, Cebo’s work has been featured in numerous publications. Cebo is the co-founder of the award-winning creative agency, Spherical, where he leads a team of creatives in shaping the best hotel brands in the world. Sky Full of Elephants is his debut novel.
Essie Chambers is an award-winning author and producer. Her debut novel, Swift River—a Today Show “Read with Jenna” Book Club pick—won the 2024 Barnes & Noble Discover Prize and was named a best book of the year by The Washington Post, NPR, The Boston Globe, Elle, and more. It was also longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award, among others. A former TV executive turned filmmaker, Essie produced the Oscar-shortlisted documentary Descendant, released by the Obamas’ Higher Ground and Netflix. She holds an MFA from Columbia University and has received fellowships from MacDowell, the Vermont Studio Center, and Baldwin for the Art. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Ron Currie is the author of four novels. He has won the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Award, the Addison M. Metcalf Award, the Alex Award, and the Pushcart Prize. His books have been translated into fifteen languages, and his short fiction and nonfiction have received recognition in Best American anthologies. As a screenwriter he worked most recently on the Apple TV+ series Extrapolations and has developed projects with AMC Studios, Amblin Television, and ITV America. He lives in Portland, Maine and teaches in the University of Southern Maine Stonecoast MFA program.
KJ Dell’Antonia is the New York Times best-selling author of the novels The Chicken Sisters, Playing the Witch Card, and In Her Boots, and the non-fiction book How to Be a Happier Parent, all of which center around the same themes: the challenge of figuring out what makes us happy, the need to value the life we’re living more than the one in our phones and laptops, and the irritating fact that nothing, not reality TV, not literary fraud, not even witchcraft, will solve our problems for us. She is also the former editor of the New York Times’ parenting section, then called Motherlode, the co-host of the #AmWriting podcast, and a passionate bookstagrammer (@kjda). She lives in Lyme, New Hampshire with her husband and an ever-evolving cast of children, dogs, cats, chickens, horses and houseguests.
Sara Reish Desmond grew up in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, a small community nested among the Appalachian mountains and surrounded by Amish communities. She earned a BA in English from Kenyon College and her MFA in Fiction from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her work has appeared in The Los Angeles Review, The Kenyon Review, and Water~Stone Review, among other publications. Her short stories have been finalists for the Rick DeMarinis Short Story Prize and The Copper Nickel Award. She is fascinated by liminal characters and experiences and has written a collection of stories centered on that idea called What We Might Become, out now from Cornerstone Press. She recently completed a novel about grief and redemption set in the rural Pennsylvania of her upbringing. She teaches and lives just north of Boston with her husband and two daughters.
Alison Espach is the New York Times best-selling author of The Wedding People, a New York Times Editor’s Choice, a TODAY Show #ReadwithJenna Book Club pick, a Barnes and Noble Book Club Pick, and the #1 Indie Next Pick for August 2024. The Wedding People will be published in over twenty countries. She is also the author of Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance, a Chicago Tribune and NPR “Best Book of 2022,” as well as The Adults, a New York Times Editor’s Choice and Barnes and Noble Discover pick. Her fictional audio series In-Depth Market Research Interviews with Dead People is an Audible Original. She has written for McSweeney’s, Vogue, Outside, LitHub, Joyland and other places. She lives and teaches creative writing in Rhode Island. Alison received her MFA from Washington University in St. Louis. She has been a writer-in-residence at the Ucross Foundation for the Arts, Millay Arts, The Wassaic Project, the Cuttyhunk Writers Residency and the San Miguel Literary Sala.
Elizabeth Graver’s fifth novel, Kantika, was inspired by her grandmother Rebecca, who was born into a Sephardic Jewish family in Istanbul and whose shape-shifting life journey took her to Spain, Cuba and New York. Kantika was awarded the Edward Lewis Wallant Award, the Julia Ward Howe Award, the Massachusetts Book Award for Fiction, and a National Jewish Book Award. It was named a Best Historical Fiction Book of 2023 and Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times, and a Best Book of the Year by NPR, Lilith and Libby, and translated into German and Turkish. Elizabeth’s fourth novel, The End of the Point, was long-listed for the 2013 National Book Award in Fiction. Her other novels are Awake, The Honey Thief, and Unravelling. Her story collection, Have You Seen Me?, won the 1991 Drue Heinz Literature Prize. Her work has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories, Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, and Best American Essays. She teaches at Boston College.
Áine Greaney is an Irish-born author who lives in Newburyport. In addition to her five published books, her shorter works have appeared in various journals, including Creative Nonfiction, The Boston Globe Magazine, Books Ireland and others. Her work has been Pushcart nominated and cited in “Best American Essays.” She leads writing workshops at various community venues.
Through the power of fiction, JoeAnn Hart writes about the pervasive and widespread effects of the climate crisis on the natural world and the human psyche. Her most recent book is Arroyo Circle, a novel of reclamation in a time of loss, set in Boulder, Colorado. Her other books include the prize-winning environmental and animal fiction collection Highwire Act & Other Tales of Survival, the crime memoir Stamford ’76: A True Story of Murder, Corruption, Race, and Feminism in the 1970s, as well as Float, a dark comedy about plastics, and Addled, a social satire with geese. Her short fiction, reviews, and essays have been widely published, appearing in The Common, Slate.com, The Dodge, Orion, The Hopper, Terrain.org, Ecolit, and many others. She lives with her husband and an assortment of rescue livestock in Gloucester, Massachusetts.
Marjan Kamali is the award-winning author of The Lion Women of Tehran, an instant national bestseller, The Stationery Shop, a national and international bestseller, and Together Tea, a Massachusetts Book Award finalist. She is a 2022 recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship. Marjan’s novels are published in translation in more than 25 languages. Her essays have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Literary Hub, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. Marjan holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature from the University of California, Berkeley, a Master of Business Administration from Columbia University, and a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from New York University. Born in Turkey to Iranian parents, she spent her childhood in Turkey, Iran, Germany, Kenya, and the U.S. Marjan is currently the Fannie Hurst Writer-in-Residence at Brandeis University and lives in the Boston area with her family.
Timely Topics in Apocalyptic Fiction — Sunday 12 PMSusanna Kwan is an artist and writer from San Francisco. Awake in the Floating City is her first novel.
Not Another Book Ban — Saturday 2:30 PM
Dana Alison Levy is the author of the critically acclaimed and beloved Family Fletcher books and It Wasn’t Me, as well as the noteworthy nonfiction titles Breaking the Mold and Allies. Her most recent title is Not Another Banned Book. Levy’s books have been bestsellers, garnered starred reviews, been named to countless “best of” lists, and been Junior Library Guild Gold Star Selections. Some of them have also been banned. When she’s not writing, Dana can be found reading banned books and smashing the patriarchy.
Amesbury author Edith Maxwell writes the Agatha Award-winning historical Quaker Midwife Mysteries, set in Amesbury. Her Agatha Award-nominated short crime fiction has been published in thirty juried anthologies and magazines, including Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. As Maddie Day, she writes the long-running Country Store Mysteries, the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries set on Cape Cod, the wine country Cece Barton Mysteries, and the historical Dot and Amelia Mysteries. Maxwell is a member of Mystery Writers of America and a proud lifetime member of Sisters in Crime. She lives with her beau and their cat Martin, where she writes, cooks, gardens, and wastes time on Facebook. Find her at her web site, on social media, at WickedAuthors.com, and at Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen.
Not Another Book Ban — Saturday 2:30 PM
Kirsten Miller grew up in a tiny town in the mountains of North Carolina and moved to New York City to attend Barnard College. After graduation, she spent over two decades toiling away in the advertising industry. Today, she lives in Brooklyn with her daughter. Kirsten is the author of more than a dozen novels for young people, including the critically acclaimed Kiki Strike trilogy and How to Lead a Life of Crime. Her first adult novel, The Change, was a Good Morning America Book Club pick in 2022. Her third adult novel, The Women of Wild Hill, will be published in October 2025.
Tova Mirvis is the author of the novel We Would Never, as well as three previous novels, Visible City, The Outside World, and The Ladies Auxiliary which was a national bestseller. Her memoir The Book of Separation was a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice and excerpted in the New York Times Modern Love Column. Her essays have appeared in many publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe Magazine, Real Simple, and Psychology Today, and her fiction has been broadcast on NPR. She lives in Newton, MA with her family.
Two-time Audie Award-winner & recipient of Earphones Awards, Carol has narrated over 450 audiobooks in 17 genres for more than 20 years. She’s been featured in Abbreviated Audio, AudioFile Magazine, VoiceOverXtra and TeenReads. Her narration of Sara Gran’s Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway and Elizabeth Hand’s Curious Toys were named among the top 10 Audiobooks of 2013 by Salon and Slate.
Kate Niles is an award winning author of 3 novels. Kate holds an MFA from Vermont College and currently lives in Providence RI after a lifetime in the American Southwest. Kate has been published widely in a number of genres, but consider novel “my most beloved form”.
An award-winning stage actor and award nominated voice over artist, Alex Picard brings her classical training to her work in front of the mic. A former theatre professor, Alex has almost 100 titles and keeps learning and growth at the core of her craft. She is a lifelong book nerd and lover of all things dark and twisty since she was caught sneaking Agatha Christie and Stephen King books home in her backpack in 5th grade. She narrates in a variety of genres including Literary Fiction, Women’s fiction, Thrillers, Science Fiction, Romance and Comedy with producers such as Penguin Random House, Harper, Brilliance, Blackstone, Tantor and others. When she’s not in the booth she enjoys taking to the skies with her husband, a pilot and the real Captain Picard, hanging out with her kiddos, losing games of Catan, and figuring out what’s for dinner (actually, she hates that last one). Alex is a terrible cook, works really hard to keep plants alive, once ran a marathon in a pandemic and despite her passion for her favorite genres of Thriller and Mysteries – has an unnatural fear of paper cuts.
Amy Poeppel is the award-winning author of the novels Far and Away, The Sweet Spot, Musical Chairs, Limelight, and Small Admissions. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Rumpus, Literary Hub, and Working Mother. She and her husband have three sons and split their time between New York City, Germany, and Connecticut.
Timely Topics in Apocalyptic Fiction — Sunday 12 PMBenjamin Resnick is the rabbi of the Pelham Jewish Center in New York. Ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, he lives in Pelham with his family. Next Stop is his first novel.
Jennifer Saint grew up reading Greek mythology and was always drawn to the untold stories hidden within the myths. She read Classical Studies at King’s College, London where she is now a Visiting Research Fellow in the Classics department. After thirteen years as a high school English teacher, she wrote Ariadne which was shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year in 2021 and was a Waterstones Book of the Month, as well as being a Sunday Times bestseller. Her second novel, Elektra, and third novel, Atalanta, were number one Sunday Times bestsellers. Her latest mesmerising mythological retelling is titled Hera.
Sara Sheckells is an Earphones Award recipient for ensemble narration. She is also featured among AudioFile magazine’s Voices to Know. Performing both fiction and nonfiction works, Sara has voiced over 110 audiobooks. A lifelong New Englander, Sara came to narration as an avid listener and longtime pupil of dramatic arts and vocal performance. Her audiobook work has been described as “emotionally connected” and “engaging.” Sara was a radio host and performed as a costumed tour guide before launching a long-term career in academia. She loves dogs, coffee, and anything witchy. Sara lives north of Boston with her “wicked smaaht” family.
Tracy Sierra was born and raised in the Colorado mountains. She is an attorney who currently lives in New England in an antique colonial-era home complete with its own secret room. When not writing, she spends time with her husband and two children. Nightwatching is her debut novel, and was selected as a Fallon Book Club pick.
J. Courtney Sullivan is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels Commencement, Maine, The Engagements, Saints for All Occasions, and Friends and Strangers. Her latest book, The Cliffs, was a 2024 Reese’s Book Club pick. Courtney’s work has been translated into seventeen languages. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, New York, Real Simple, and O: The Oprah Magazine, among many other publications. In 2017, she wrote the forewords to new editions of two of her favorite classic novels–Anne of Green Gables and Little Women. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and two children.
MAGGIE THRASH is the author of the critically acclaimed graphic memoirs Honor Girl, which was nominated for a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Lost Soul, Be at Peace, as well as two novels for young adults. Rainbow Black is her first novel for adults, and was a finalist for the New England Book Prize. Born and raised in Atlanta, she lives in New Hampshire.
Dawn Tripp is the nationally bestselling author of the novel JACKIE and the novel GEORGIA, finalist for the New England Book Award and winner of the Mary Lynn Kotz Award for Art in Literature. Praised by The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, People Magazine, and others, Jackie is described by author Chris Bohjalian as a “brilliant, beautiful book that touches the soul in ways conventional biographies can’t.” Tripp is the author of three previous novels: GAME OF SECRETS, MOON TIDE, and THE SEASON OF OPEN WATER, which won the Massachusetts Book Award for Fiction. Her poems and essays have appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review, Harvard Review, Conjunctions, AGNI, and NPR. She serves on the executive board of the Boston Book Festival and on the board of Gnome Surf: a non-profit surf therapy organization focused on creating a culture shift towards kindness, love, and acceptance for athletes of all abilities. She lives in Westport, Massachusetts with her sons.
Joan Wickersham is the author of No Ship Sets Out To Be A Shipwreck, The News from Spain, and The Suicide Index, a finalist for the National Book Award. Her fiction, poetry, and essays have been published in many magazines as well as in The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. She has read her work on NPR’s “Morning Edition” and “On Point,” and is a regular contributor to The Boston Globe, where her op-ed column has been running for the past 15 years.
Maria Zoccola is a poet and educator from Memphis, Tennessee. Her debut poetry collection, Helen of Troy, 1993, reimagines the Homeric Helen as a dissatisfied housewife living in small-town Tennessee in the early nineties, and was published by Scribner on January 14, 2025. Maria’s work has previously appeared in The Atlantic, Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, The Iowa Review, The Sewanee Review, and elsewhere, and has received a special mention for the Pushcart Prize. Maria has writing degrees from Emory University and Falmouth University, and spent many years managing programming for a youth leadership and social justice nonprofit.
Testimony: Stories of World War II — Sunday 1:00 PMLauren Grodstein is the author of five novels, including the Read with Jenna selection We Must Not Think of Ourselves, New York Times bestseller A Friend of the Family and the Washington Post Book of the Year The Explanation for Everything. Lauren’s work has been translated into French, Turkish, German, Hebrew, and other languages, and her essays and reviews have been widely published. She teaches in the MFA Program at Rutgers University-Camden and lives in New Jersey with her husband and children.
Ann Hood is the author of over a dozen novels, including the bestsellers The Knitting Circle, The Obituary Writer, and The Book That Matters Most. Her debut novel, the bestseller Somewhere Off the Coast of Maine, has been in print since 1987. She has also written five memoirs, including Comfort: A Journey Through Grief, which is the story of the death of her five-year-old daughter Grace from a virulent form of strep in 2002. The book was a NYT Editors’ Choice and was named one of the top ten non-fiction books of 2008 by Entertainment Weekly. Her essays and short stories have appeared in many publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, Food and Wine, Traveler, National Geographic Traveler, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, and many more.
She has won two Pushcart Prizes, two Best American Food Writing awards, a Best American Travel Writing award, and a Best American Spiritual Writing award. Hood’s most recent book is her memoir, Fly Girl, which is about her eight years as a TWA flight attendant from the late 70s to the mid-80s, spanning the Golden Age of Flying through deregulation and the beginning of vast system wide changes.
