Representing some of the country’s most compelling authors and academics for speeches, lectures, and readings

Featured Speakers

Colum McCann

Colum McCann

National Book Award Winner • Bestselling Author • Novelist

Irish-born author Colum McCann wrote the National Book Award-winning novel Let the Great World Spin and the bestselling Transatlantic. His next novel slated for release in February 2020 is Apeirogon, a boundary-pushing real-life story of two grieving fathers on either side of a seemingly intractable conflict in the Middle East. He speaks on storytelling, self-discovery, social justice, and travel.

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Krista Tippett

Krista Tippett

Public Radio Show Host • Journalist • Author

Tippett is the Peabody Award-winning broadcaster and New York Times bestselling author behind public radio’s On Being and the books Becoming Wise and Einstein’s God. Her next book, Letters to a Young Citizen, a field guide for discovering creative possibilities and reclaiming conversation and civility, is out in 2021.

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Maaza Mengiste

Maaza Mengiste

Novelist • Essayist • Social Justice Advocate

Mengiste’s critically acclaimed debut novel, Beneath the Lion’s Gaze, was selected by The Guardian as one of the 10 Best Contemporary African Books. Her latest novel, The Shadow King, set during Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, examines what it means to be a woman at war.

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Rachel Louise Snyder

Rachel Louise Snyder

Domestic Violence Advocate • Journalist • Author

An outspoken journalist on issues of domestic violence, Snyder is the author of No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Slate, Salon, Washington Post, Huffington Post, and others. She is also the author of Fugitive Denim: A Moving Story of People and Pants in the Borderless World of Global Trade, and the novel What We’ve Lost is Nothing.

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John Irving

John Irving

National Book Award Winner • Bestselling Author • Screenwriter

Widely regarded as an American master, John Irving, author of The World According to Garp, The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany, is a consummate storyteller with over 12 million books in 35 languages in print and a streak of international bestsellers stretching back over four decades.

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Speakers by Subject

New & Noteworthy

The World According to Garp

Praise for The World According to Garp

Nothing in contemporary fiction matches it.

The New Republic

The Shadow King

Praise for The Shadow King

A brilliant novel, lyrically lifting history towards myth. It’s also compulsively readable. I devoured it in two days.

Salman Rushdie

Becoming Wise

Praise for Becoming Wise

A thoughtful chronicle of spiritual discovery. A hopeful consideration of the human potential for enlightenment.

Kirkus

Apeirogon

Praise for Apeirogon

All I can really tell you is, read McCann’s book.  It’s an important book.  It’s quite possibly a great book.

Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours

No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us

Praise for No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us

[Snyder] glides from history to the present day, from scene to analysis, with a relaxed virtuosity that filled me with admiration. This is a writer using every tool at her disposal to make this story come alive, to make it matter.

The New York Times