The Presidents of the United States of America were an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1993. The three-piece group's initial lineup consisted of vocalist and bassist Chris Ballew, drummer Jason Finn, and guitarist Dave Dederer. The band became popular in the mid-1990s for their hits "Lump" and "Peaches"—released in 1995 and 1996, respectively—which helped their self-titled debut album go triple Platinum.
Claire Denis is a French film director and screenwriter. Her feature film Beau Travail (1999) has been called one of the greatest films of the 1990s and of all time. Other acclaimed works include Trouble Every Day (2001), 35 Shots of Rum (2008), White Material (2009), High Life (2018) and Both Sides of the Blade (2022), the last of which won her the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin International Film Festival. For her film Stars at Noon (2022), Denis competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. She won the Grand Prix, sharing the award with Lukas Dhont's film Close.
Never Mind Nirvana is the third novel by Mark Lindquist. The hardcover was published in 2000.
Magda Szabó was a Hungarian novelist. Doctor of philology, she also wrote dramas, essays, studies, memoirs, poetry and children's literature. She was a founding member of the Digital Literary Academy, an online digital repository of Hungarian literature. She is the most translated Hungarian author, with publications in 42 countries and over 30 languages.
XX/XY is a 2002 American romantic drama film written and directed by Austin Chick and starring Mark Ruffalo, Kathleen Robertson, and Maya Stange. The title refers to the different chromosome pairings present in men and women. XX/XY premiered in competition at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. Although the funding for the film came from the US, the film was produced by British company Natural Nylon.
Holiday Reinhorn is an American fiction writer known for her short stories.
Cheryl Strayed is an American writer and podcast host. She has written four books: the novel Torch (2006) and the nonfiction books Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail (2012), Tiny Beautiful Things (2012) and Brave Enough (2015). Wild, which told the story of a long hike that Strayed took in 1995, was an international bestseller, and was adapted as the 2014 Academy Award-nominated film Wild.
Rebecca "Maud" Newton is a writer, critic, and former lawyer born in Dallas, Texas in 1971. She was raised in Miami, Florida.
Claire of the Sea Light is a novel by Edwidge Danticat that was published in August 2013 by Knopf. Set in the island-town of Ville Rose, Haiti, it narrates the story of the disappearance of a seven-year-old girl, Claire Limyè Lanmè Faustin, and of the memories of an entire townspeople that are brought to life in the wake of her disappearance. In the words of Guardian reviewer Kamila Shamsie, "Danticat shows us a town scarred by violence, corruption, class disparities and social taboo, which is also a town of hope, dreams, love and sensuality. But these are enmeshed rather than opposing elements. Love leads to violence, dreams lead to corruption."
Pom Alexandra Klementieff is a French actress best known for playing Mantis in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Paris in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.
Mark Spragg is an American writer. He is the author of three novels and one book of nonfiction, mostly set in Wyoming, where he grew up.
The Light of the Evening is a 2006 novel by Irish novelist Edna O'Brien. The novel explores the relationship between one of O'Brien's archetypal defeated rural women, who on her deathbed is trying repair her relationship with her daughter, a writer.
Florence Williams is an American journalist and nonfiction author whose work focuses on the environment, health and science. She is a contributing editor at Outside magazine and a freelance writer for National Geographic, the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books, Slate, Mother Jones, High Country News, O-Oprah, W., Bicycling and numerous other publications.
""Human milk is like ice cream, penicillin, and the drug ecstasy all wrapped up in two pretty packages." — Florence Williams
Jami Attenberg is an American fiction writer and essayist. She is the author of a short story collection, six novels, including the best-seller The Middlesteins (2012), and a memoir, I Came All ThisWay to Meet You (2022).
Trouble is a 2009 novel by Kate Christensen. It is about two 40-something friends, Josie from New York and Raquel from Los Angeles, and their adventures in Mexico City.
Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ is a Nigerian writer. Her 2017 debut novel, Stay With Me, won the 9mobile Prize for Literature and the Prix Les Afriques. She was awarded The Future Awards Africa Prize for Arts and Culture in 2017.
Jessamyn Stanley is an American yoga teacher and body positivity advocate and writer. She gained recognition through her Instagram posts showing her doing yoga as a "plus-size woman of color," who self-identifies as a "fat femme" and "queer femme." She is the author of the book Every Body Yoga: Let Go of Fear, Get On the Mat, Love Your Body.
The Subtle Body: The Story of Yoga in America is a 2010 book on the history of yoga as exercise by the American journalist Stefanie Syman. It spans the period from the first precursors of American yoga, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Thoreau, the arrival of Vivekananda, the role of Hollywood with Indra Devi, the hippie generation, and the leaders of a revived but now postural yoga such as Bikram Choudhury and Pattabhi Jois.
Ellen Oh is a Korean-American author, and founding member and CEO of the non-profit We Need Diverse Books. She is the award winning author of young adult and middle grade novels including the Prophecy trilogy, also known as the Dragon King Chronicles, a series of fantasy, young adult novels based on Korean folklore.
The Wife is a 2003 novel by American writer Meg Wolitzer. The book was adapted into a film released in 2017, directed by Björn L. Runge, written by Jane Anderson, and starring Glenn Close, Jonathan Pryce, and Christian Slater.
