Listed in alphabetical order
Fiction | Nonfiction | Poetry | Moderators |
Caleb Gayle is the author of Black Moses: A Saga of Ambition and the Fight for a Black State (longlisted for the National Book Award) and We Refuse to Forget: A True Story of Black Creeks, American Identity, and Power. An award-winning journalist and professor at Northeastern University, Gayle’s writing has been recognized by the Matthew Power Literary Reporting Award, the PEN America Writing for Justice Fellowship, the Center for Fiction Emerging Writers Fellowship, the New America Fellowship, and a fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, among others. Caleb’s work has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Three Penny Review, Guernica, The Atlantic, Harvard Review, Pacific Standard, The New Republic, The Boston Globe, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Root, Daily Beast, and more. He lives near Boston.
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; Sweet Soul Music; Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke; and Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘n’ Roll. His most recent books are Looking to Get Lost: Adventures in Music and Writing and The Colonel and the King: Tom Parker, Elvis Presley, and the Partnership That Rocked the World. He wrote the scripts for the Grammy-winning documentary Sam Cooke/Legend and Martin Scorsese’s blues documentary, Feel Like Going Home.
Wil Haygood is the author of ten nonfiction books, many of which have won literary awards. His book The Butler was made into a film directed by Lee Daniels. Haygood has been a correspondent for The Washington Post and The Boston Globe, where he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. In 2022, he received the Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award from the Dayton Peace Prize Foundation. A Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, Haygood is currently the Boadway Visiting Distinguished Scholar at Miami University in Ohio.
Alan Lightman is an American physicist and writer. PhD in physics, Caltech. He has served on the faculties of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and was the first person at MIT to receive dual faculty appointments in science and in the humanities. He is currently professor of the practice of the humanities at MIT. Lightman is the recipient of six honorary doctoral degrees. He is the author of numerous books, both nonfiction and fiction, including Einstein’s Dreams, an international bestseller, and The Diagnosis, a finalist for the National Book Award in fiction. His essays concern the intersection of science, culture, philosophy, and theology. His most recent nonfiction books are Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine, The Transcendental Brain: Spirituality in the Age of Science, and The Miraculous from the Material. Lightman is the host of the public television series “SEARCHING: Our Quest for Meaning in the Age of Science,” based on his books. In 2005, Lightman founded Harpswell, a nonprofit organization devoted to empowering young women leaders in Southeast Asia. In August 2023, Lightman was appointed a member of the United Nation’s Scientific Advisory Board, reporting directly to the Secretary General.
Dr. Kendra Taira Field is the Gerald R. Gill Associate Professor of History and Director of the Center for Public History at Tufts University. She is currently a Hutchins Fellow at Harvard University. Field is the author of Growing Up with the Country, which traced her own ancestors’ lives in slavery and freedom. Her current book project, The Stories We Tell, is a history of African American genealogy and storytelling from the Middle Passage to the present, and winner of a 2023 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant. Field abridged David Levering Lewis’s W.E.B. Du Bois: A Biography, and her scholarly articles have appeared in numerous journals. As a public historian, Field co-founded the Du Bois Forum, a retreat for writers, scholars, and artists, and serves as chief historian for the 10 Million Names Project. Before entering the academy, she worked in education, organizing, and the nonprofit sector in Boston and New York.
DIY Storytelling: A Virtual Writing Workshop With Steve Almond — Sunday 9:00 AMSteve Almond is the author of a dozen books, including the New York Times bestsellers “Candyfreak” and “Against Football.” His first novel, “Which Brings Me to You” (co-written with Julianna Baggott) was made into a major motion picture starring Lucy Hale. His second novel, “All the Secrets of the World,” is being developed for television by 20th Century Fox. He’s the recipient of a 2022 NEA grant for fiction and teaches at Harvard’s Nieman Foundation. His stories and essays have been published in the Best American Short Stories, the Best American Mysteries, Best American Erotica, and the New York Times Magazine. His latest book is “Truth Is the Arrow, Mercy Is the Bow: A DIY Manual for the Construction of Stories.” He lives outside Boston, where he can usually be found, procrastinating.
Author-journalist Dyke Hendrickson’s most recent book, Boston’s Fading Ink: A Journalist’s Path Through the Good Years of Hub Newspapers, is a memoir of more than 50 years of journalism. He is a resident of Newburyport, and a former writer with the Portland Press Herald, the Boston Herald and The Daily News of Newburyport. His other books of local interest include Nautical Newburyport (2017), New England Coast Guard Stories (2020), Merrimack, the Resilient River (2021), Plum Island: A Vulnerable Gem (2022) and Reclaiming the Merrimack: An Action Plan to Clean the River (2023). He is a former adjunct professor of journalism at Northeastern University.
Ghlee E. Woodworth is a 12th-generation Newburyport native. Ghlee is the creator of Newburyport’s Clipper Heritage Trail, a series of self-guided history tours accessed via the web, brochures, and smartphones (2014). She is the author of Tiptoe Through the Tombstones, Oak Hill Cemetery (2009) and Newburyport Clipper Heritage Trail Volume I (2020) and Volume II (2022), and Newburyport’s Black Heritage Trail brochure series (2024). For the past 17 years, Ghlee has conducted over 260 slideshow presentations and walking, bus, and boat tours of cemeteries, neighborhoods, and the city. Trained in gravestone restoration, Ghlee has restored over 1,700 gravestones in Oak Hill Cemetery, city cemeteries, and other burying grounds. Ghlee has won several awards for contributions honoring Newburyport history.
Kate Clifford Larson is the bestselling author of four critically acclaimed biographies: Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter (2015), winner of the 2016 Massachusetts Book Award, a People Magazine Best Books of 2015, and named one of the Best Biographies of All Time by BookBub in 2019; Walk With Me: A Biography of Fannie Lou Hamer (2021) which received starred reviews and named one of the Best Biographies of 2021 from Kirkus, Library Journal, Christianity Today, and more; Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero (2004)—still considered the standard modern biography; and The Assassin’s Accomplice: Mary Surratt and the Plot to Kill Abraham Lincoln (2008), the first accurate biography of the woman who helped John Wilkes Booth before and after he assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. Larson is also an award-winning historical consultant who has worked on feature film scripts—including Focus Features’ Harriet starring prize-winning Cynthia Erivo, and Robert Redford’s The Conspirator—numerous documentaries, museum exhibits, public history initiatives, heritage tourism products, curriculum guides, and various other publications. She has appeared on local, national, and international media outlets, including the BBC, PBS, and C-Span, mainstream media and cable networks, podcasts, and CBS Sunday Morning.
