Mark Kurlansky is an American journalist and author who has written a number of books of fiction and nonfiction. His 1997 book, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World (1997), was an international bestseller and was translated into more than fifteen languages. His book Nonviolence: Twenty-five Lessons From the History of a Dangerous Idea (2006) was the nonfiction winner of the 2007 Dayton Literary Peace Prize.
Robert Baker Dairyu Chotan Aitken Rōshi was a Zen teacher in the Harada-Yasutani lineage. He co-founded the Honolulu Diamond Sangha in 1959 together with his wife, Anne Hopkins Aitken. Aitken received Dharma transmission from Koun Yamada in 1985 but decided to live as a layperson. He was a socialist and anarchist who advocated social justice for homosexuals, women and Native Hawaiians throughout his life, and was one of the original founders of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship.
Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher Parrish Friede, writing as M.F.K. Fisher, was an American food writer. She was a founder of the Napa Valley Wine Library. Over her lifetime she wrote 27 books, including a translation of Brillat-Savarin's The Physiology of Taste. Fisher believed that eating well was just one of the "arts of life" and explored this in her writing. W. H. Auden once remarked, "I do not know of anyone in the United States who writes better prose." In 1991 the New York Times editorial board went so far as to say, "Calling M.F.K. Fisher, who has just been elected to the American Academy and National Institute of Arts and Letters, a food writer is a lot like calling Mozart a tunesmith."
Stephen Batchelor is a Scottish Buddhist author and teacher, known for his writings on Buddhist subjects and his leadership of meditation retreats worldwide. He is a noted proponent of agnostic or secular Buddhism.
David Thomas Rees is a humorist and cultural critic. He first rose to prominence as a cartoonist whose best-known work combined bland clip art with "trash talk". Rees later created an artisanal pencil sharpening service and published a related book on the subject. He co-created and hosted two seasons of the television series Going Deep with David Rees.
Susan Estrich is an American lawyer, professor, author, political operative, and political commentator. She is known for serving as the campaign manager for Michael Dukakis in 1988 and for serving in 2016 as legal counsel to the former Fox News chairman Roger Ailes.
Sandra Tsing Loh is an American writer, actress, radio personality, and former professor of art at the University of California, Irvine.
Joanna Rogers Macy is an environmental activist, author, and scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory, and deep ecology. She is the author of twelve books.
Nuala O'Faolain was an Irish journalist, TV producer, book reviewer, teacher and writer. She became well known after the publication of her memoirs Are You Somebody? and Almost There. She wrote a biography of Irish criminal Chicago May and two novels.
Gretel Ehrlich is an American travel writer, poet and essayist.
Molly Peacock is an American-Canadian poet, essayist, biographer and speaker, whose multi-genre literary life also includes memoir, short fiction, and a one-woman show.
Tim Sandlin is an American novelist and screenwriter.
Jennifer Belle is an American novelist, based in New York City.
Lesley Adele Hazleton was a British-American author and journalist. Born in Reading, Berkshire, she began her career as a correspondent in Israel before moving to the United States in 1979. She wrote about a variety of subjects, including automobiles, history, politics, and religion. She wrote for Time, The Jerusalem Post, and The New York Times, among other publications, and authored several books.
Mandy Aftel is an American perfumer. She is the owner and nose behind the natural perfume line Aftelier as well as the author of nine books, including four books on natural perfume and a cookbook on essential oils.
Lily Tuck is an American novelist and short story writer whose novel The News from Paraguay won the 2004 National Book Award for Fiction. Her novel Siam was nominated for the 2000 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. She is a Guggenheim Fellow.
Anne Rice was an American author of gothic fiction, erotic literature, and bible fiction. She is best known for writing The Vampire Chronicles. She later adapted the first novel of the series into a commercially successful eponymous film, Interview with the Vampire (1994).
Masha Gessen is a Russian-American journalist, author, translator, and activist who has been an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.
Micheline Aharonian Marcom is an American novelist.
Emma Straub is an American novelist and bookstore owner. Her novels include Modern Lovers, The Vacationers, Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures and All Adults Here. She is the author of a short story collection entitled Other People We Married. In May 2022, Straub's novel This Time Tomorrow was published by Riverhead Books. Straub was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2024.
