Philip Milton Roth was an American novelist and short-story writer. Roth's fiction—often set in his birthplace of Newark, New Jersey—is known for its intensely autobiographical character, for philosophically and formally blurring the distinction between reality and fiction, for its "sensual, ingenious style" and for its provocative explorations of American identity. He first gained attention with the 1959 short story collection Goodbye, Columbus, which won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. Ten years later, he published the bestseller Portnoy's Complaint. Nathan Zuckerman, Roth's literary alter ego, narrates several of his books. A fictionalized Roth narrates some of his others, such as the alternate history The Plot Against America.
Richard Powers is an American novelist whose works explore the effects of modern science and technology. His novel The Echo Maker won the 2006 National Book Award for Fiction. He has also won many other awards over the course of his career, including a MacArthur Fellowship. As of 2024, Powers has published fourteen novels and has taught at the University of Illinois and Stanford University. He won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Overstory.
Michael Cunningham is an American novelist and screenwriter. He is best known for his 1998 novel The Hours, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1999. Cunningham is Professor in the Practice of Creative Writing at Yale University.
Walter Ellis Mosley is an American novelist, most widely recognized for his crime fiction. He has written a series of best-selling historical mysteries featuring the hard-boiled detective Easy Rawlins, a black private investigator living in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. They are, perhaps, his most popular works. In 2020, Mosley received the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, making him the first Black man to receive the honor.
Moment is an independent magazine which focuses on the life of the American Jewish community. It is not tied to any particular Jewish movement or ideology. The publication features investigative stories and cultural criticism, highlighting the thoughts and opinions of diverse scholars, writers, artists and policymakers. Moment was founded in 1975, by Nobel Prize laureate Elie Wiesel and Jewish activist Leonard Fein, who served as the magazine's first editor from 1975 to 1987. In its premier issue, Fein wrote that the magazine would include diverse opinions "of no single ideological position, save of course, for a commitment to Jewish life." Hershel Shanks served as the editor from 1987 to 2004. In 2004, Nadine Epstein took over as editor and executive publisher of Moment.
Alicia Suskin Ostriker is an American poet and scholar who writes Jewish feminist poetry. She was called "America's most fiercely honest poet" by Progressive. Additionally, she was one of the first women poets in America to write and publish poems discussing the topic of motherhood. In 2015, she was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. In 2018, she was named the New York State Poet Laureate.
George Saunders is an American writer of short stories, essays, novellas, children's books, and novels. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, McSweeney's, and GQ. He also contributed a weekly column, "American Psyche", to The Guardian's weekend magazine between 2006 and 2008.
Annalee Newitz is an American journalist, editor, and author of both fiction and nonfiction. From 1999 to 2008, Newitz wrote a syndicated weekly column called Techsploitation, and from 2000 to 2004 was the culture editor of the San Francisco Bay Guardian. In 2004, Newitz became a policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. With Charlie Jane Anders, they also co-founded Other magazine, a periodical that ran from 2002 to 2007. From 2008 to 2015, Newitz was editor-in-chief of Gawker-owned media venture io9, and subsequently its direct descendant Gizmodo, Gawker's design and technology blog. They have written for the periodicals Popular Science, Film Quarterly and Wired. As of 2019, Newitz is a contributing opinion writer at The New York Times.
David Quammen is an American writer focusing on science, nature, and travel. He is the author of fifteen books. Quammen's articles have appeared in Outside, National Geographic, Harper's Magazine, Rolling Stone, The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, and other periodicals. He is also a science communicator.
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein is an American philosopher, novelist, and public intellectual. She has written ten books, both fiction and non-fiction. She holds a Ph.D. in philosophy of science from Princeton University, and is sometimes grouped with novelists such as Richard Powers and Alan Lightman, who create fiction that is knowledgeable of, and sympathetic toward, science.
Adam Haslett is an American fiction writer and journalist. His debut short story collection, You Are Not a Stranger Here, and his second novel, Imagine Me Gone, were both finalists for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. He has been awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the American Academy in Berlin. In 2017, he won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.
Francisco Goldman is an American novelist, journalist, and Allen K. Smith Professor of Literature and Creative Writing, Trinity College. His most recent novel, Monkey Boy (2021), was a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Laila Lalami is a Moroccan-American novelist, essayist, and professor. After earning her licence ès lettres degree in Morocco, she received a fellowship to study in the United Kingdom (UK), where she earned an MA in linguistics.
Grade inflation is the general awarding of higher grades for the same quality of work over time, which devalues grades. However, higher average grades in themselves do not prove grade inflation. For this to be grade inflation, it is necessary to demonstrate that the quality of work does not deserve the high grade.
Allen Kurzweil is an American novelist, journalist, editor, and lecturer. He is the author of four works of fiction, most notably A Case of Curiosities, as well as a memoir Whipping Boy. He is also the co-inventor, with his son Max, of Potato Chip Science, an eco-friendly experiment kit for grade schoolers. He is a cousin of Ray Kurzweil and brother of Vivien Schmidt.
Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi was the Salo Wittmayer Baron Professor of Jewish History, Culture and Society at Columbia University, a position he held from 1980 to 2008.
Marlon James is a Jamaican writer. He is the author of five novels: John Crow's Devil (2005), The Book of Night Women (2009), A Brief History of Seven Killings (2014), which won him the 2015 Man Booker Prize, Black Leopard, Red Wolf (2019), and Moon Witch, Spider King (2022).
Matthew Kressel is a multiple Nebula, World Fantasy Award, and Eugie Award nominated author and coder. His short stories have been published in Reactor, io9, Lightspeed, Clarkesworld Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Interzone, Apex Magazine, and many other magazines and anthologies. His first novel King of Shards was released in 2015.
Rebecca F. Kuang is an American novelist. Her first novel, The Poppy War, was released in 2018, followed by the sequels The Dragon Republic in 2019, and The Burning God in 2020. Kuang released a stand-alone novel, Babel, or the Necessity of Violence in 2022. Her latest release is Yellowface, a satirical novel which was published in 2023. Kuang holds an undergraduate degree in international economics with a minor in Asian Studies from Georgetown University and graduate degrees in Sinology from Magdalene College, Cambridge, and University College, Oxford, and is currently pursuing a PhD at Yale University.
Darcie Little Badger is an American novelist, short story writer, and Earth scientist. Her writings are specialized in speculative fiction, especially horror, science fiction, and fantasy. She is a member of the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas. She develops her stories with Apache characters and themes. She has also added her voice to Indigenous Futurism, a movement among Native artists and authors to write science fiction from their historical and cultural perspectives. Her works also feature characters who reconfirm the presence and importance of LGBTQ community members.
