Speakers

Featured Speakers

Chris Bohjalian

Bestselling Author • Novelist • Human Rights Advocate

Bohjalian’s hugely popular and New York Times bestselling novels explore compelling social issues as varied as human trafficking, domestic violence, and the Armenian genocide. His more than 20 books include The Flight Attendant, Midwives, The Sandcastle Girls and the forthcoming The Red Lotus, out in 2020.

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Anthony Doerr

Pulitzer Prize Winner • Bestselling Author • Novelist

Doerr is the author of the runaway bestseller and Pulitzer Prize winning All the Light We Cannot See, a novel set during WW II, which spent more than three and a half years on the New York Times bestseller list.

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Curtis Sittenfeld

Bestselling Author • Novelist • Short Story Writer

With 1.6 million books in print, Curtis Sittenfeld is the author of beloved novels Prep, Eligible, American Wife, and her latest Rodham, which imagines what might have been if Hillary Rodham had never married Bill Clinton.

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Dr. Ellen Wu

Historian • Author • Cultural Commentator

“The work of historians in general, shows us that it’s up to us and that we have the power to lay the foundation for a different kind of future, a brighter future, a more just future. Learning history helps us understand these decisions and what we do and what we would need to build in […]

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Alice Hoffman

Bestselling Author • Novelist • Short Story Writer

Alice Hoffman is the beloved bestselling author of Practical Magic, The Dovekeepers, The Marriage of Opposites, and many others. Her latest novel, The World That We Knew, follows three young women during humanity’s darkest hour in 1941 Berlin, and in her forthcoming Magic Lessons she continues the story of the Owens family first introduced in Practical Magic.

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Lisa See

Bestselling Author • Novelist • Memoirist

In her many beloved New York Times bestsellers, including Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, Shanghai Girls, and China Dolls, Lisa See brilliantly illuminates the immigrant experience and the indissoluble bonds between women. Her newest, The Island of Sea Women, is a “…mesmerizing new historical novel that celebrates women’s strengths.”(Oprahmag.com).

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Ayana Mathis

Bestselling Author • Novelist • Essayist

Mathis’s stunning debut novel, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, was an Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection and named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and NPR. Mathis is the first Black woman to be a permanent faculty member at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. A new novel is forthcoming.

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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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Téa Obreht

Bestselling Author • Novelist

Téa Oberht’s acclaimed debut, The Tiger’s Wife, was a National Book Award finalist; and her second novel, Inland, was listed on President Obama’s 2019 summer reading list.

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