2025 Moderators + Special Guests
The theme for the Tenth Annual Rancho Mirage Writers Festival is “The United States Semiquincentennial.” The Festival will take place February 5 to 7, 2025.
The theme for the Tenth Annual Rancho Mirage Writers Festival is “The United States Semiquincentennial.” The Festival will take place February 5 to 7, 2025.
Roz Chast is an American cartoonist and a staff cartoonist for The New Yorker. Since 1978, she has published more than 800 cartoons in The New Yorker in addition to cartoons in Scientific American and the Harvard Business Review. Her book, Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, is a graphic memoir combining cartoons, text and photographs to tell the story of an only child helping her elderly parents navigate the end of their lives. The book won a National Book Critics Circle Award and was shortlisted for a National Book Award.
Can’t We Talk about Something More Pleasant?: A Memoir
Founder and Chairman of Columbia University’s Columbia Fiction Foundry, authority on pitching literary agents and author of Getting Out of Saigon, which Oprah Daily called “…an edge-of-your-seat-too-insane-not-to-be-true story”
Getting Out of Saigon
Ryan J. Reilly is a justice reporter for NBC News. His unparalleled reporting on the Capitol attack has been cited by the January 6th committee and the FBI. He was also a 2017 Livingston Award finalist for his reporting on jail deaths at HuffPost. He makes regular appearances on MSNBC and NBC News NOW and has been a guest on many other television and radio programs, including Fresh Air with Terry Gross.
Sedition Hunters: How January 6th Broke the Justice System
Longtime New York Times op-ed columnist, former restaurant critic and Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy
The Beauty of Dusk: On Vision Lost and Found
Theo Baker is a student and investigative journalist for The Stanford Daily, the student newspaper of Stanford University. In 2023, he became the youngest recipient of the George Polk Award for his reporting that led to the resignation of Stanford president Marc Tessier-Lavigne. He is the son of journalists Peter Baker and Susan Glasser and a graduate of Phillips Academy Andover.
Bruce Vilanch is an American comedy writer, songwriter and actor who has won two Emmy Awards for his work on the annual Academy Awards. He is also known for his appearance as a celebrity participant and head writer on Hollywood Squares for four years.
Bruce!: My Adventures in the Skin Trade and Other Essays
In 2004, Stockwell was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army. She deployed to Baghdad, Iraq, where a blast from a roadside bomb struck her Humvee, causing the loss of her left leg above the knee. After enduring numerous infections and surgeries, Stockwell was medically retired from the Army. She is the first female soldier to ever lose a limb in active combat and has been awarded both the Bronze Star Medal and the Purple Heart. In 2008, she became the first Iraq War veteran to qualify for the Beijing Paralympics. After Beijing, she turned to the sport of Paratriathlon and is now a three-time World Champion.
The Power of Choice: My Journey from Wounded Warrior to World Champion
Gun control activist, Harvard College student and co-founder of the March for Our Lives movement. He is a survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting in 2018.
#Never Again
Steven Rowley is the bestselling author of Lily and the Octopus, a Washington Post Notable Book of 2016; The Editor, named by NPR and Esquire magazine as one of the Best Books of 2019; The Guncle, a Goodreads Choice Awards finalist for 2021 Novel of the Year and winner of The 22nd Thurber Prize for American Humor; and The Celebrants published May 2023. His fiction has been published in twenty languages. Originally from Portland, Maine, he is a graduate of Emerson College and currently resides in Palm Springs with his husband, the writer Byron Lane.
The Guncle Abroad
President of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, served as the U.S. ambassador to NATO for more than four years, served on the U.S. National Security Council staff as director for European Affairs, widely-published author, frequent contributor to the opinion pages of the world’s leading newspapers and a regular commentator on international affairs on television and radio
The Empty Throne: America’s Abdication of Global Leadership
Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the Liberation Trilogy, a narrative history of the liberation of Europe in World War II
The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777
New York Times bestselling author, a former news writer and producer. She has written for The New York Times, ABC News, The Huffington Post, USA Today, FOX News and other outlets.
Finding Margaret Fuller
Award-winning screenwriter for film and television and a novelist. He is a former writer/director with Comedy Central, MTV and AMC and a contributing writer for Saturday Night Live.
The Bump
Kaveh Akbar’s poems appear in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Paris Review, Best American Poetry and elsewhere. Akbar was born in Tehran, Iran, and is a faculty member at University of Iowa and in the low-residency MFA programs at Randolph College and Warren Wilson. He is the founder of Divedapper, a home for dialogues with the most vital voices in American poetry. He is the author of two poetry collections and his first novel, Martyr!, was published in January 2024.
Martyr!
Bradley Tusk writes about tech and politics for The Observer and for Inc. and hosts a podcast called Firewall. He served as Mike Bloomberg’s campaign manager, as deputy governor of Illinois, as Chuck Schumer’s communications director, as Uber’s first political strategist and as the founder and CEO of Tusk Strategies—dedicated to helping startups navigate political problems—and Tusk Ventures—dedicated to investing in startups facing political challenges.
The Fixer: My Adventures Saving Startups from Death by Politics
James Bennet is The Economist’s Lexington columnist and a senior editor. He has also served as editorial page editor of The New York Times and editor-in-chief of The Atlantic. Before joining The Atlantic, he worked as a reporter at The Times in various roles, including Jerusalem bureau chief, magazine correspondent, White House correspondent and Detroit bureau chief. He is the younger brother of U.S. Senator Michael Bennet.
Staff writer for The New Yorker, writer of The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, which won a Pulitzer Prize
Mr. Texas
Award-winning staff writer at The New Yorker and a New York Times bestselling author. Empire of Pain is a grand, devastating portrait of three generations of the Sackler family, famed for their philanthropy, whose fortune was built by Valium and whose reputation was destroyed by OxyContin.
Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks
Rudetsky spent many years on Broadway as a musical director, pianist and conductor, as well as two years as a comedy writer on The Rosie O’Donnell Show. He is now the afternoon deejay on the SiriusXM Broadway channel as well as the host of Seth Speaks. He’s written the books Seth’s Broadway Diary, Volume 1 and 2 and has also authored two young adult novels: My Awesome/Awful Popularity Plan and The Rise and Fall of a Theater Geek and, of course, Musical Theatre for Dummies.
Musical Theatre for Dummies
Jonathan Karl is the chief White House correspondent and chief Washington correspondent for ABC News and the president of the White House Correspondents’ Association (2019–2020). He has reported from the White House during the administrations of four presidents and thirteen press secretaries and covered every major beat in Washington. He is the author of several books on Donald Trump.
Tired of Winning: Donald Trump and the End of the Grand Old Party
Will Rollins was born in Torrance, California, and earned a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College in 2007 and a juris doctor from Columbia Law School in 2012. His career experience includes working as an assistant U.S. attorney and as a former federal prosecutor who focused on counterterrorism and counterintelligence cases in Southern California.
Donna Brazile is a veteran political strategist, Senior Advisor at Purple Strategies, New York Times bestselling author, Chair of the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board and Emmy and Peabody Award-winning media contributor. She is author of the 2004 bestselling memoir Cooking with Grease: Stirring the Pots in American Politics and the 2017 New York Times bestseller Hacks and co-author of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Politics. She serves as an adjunct professor at Howard University and as a fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School.
Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-Ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House
Professor at The Salk Institute, California. His lab studies how circadian rhythm in metabolism is an integral part of metabolic health and longevity.
The Circadian Code: Lose Weight, Supercharge Your Energy, and Transform Your Health from Morning to Midnight
Dubbed “The Adele of Audiobooks” by The New Yorker, Julia Whelan is a screenwriter, lifelong actor and audiobook narrator of over 500 titles. She has won numerous awards, including Audible’s Narrator of the Year and the Best Female Narrator Audie.
Thank You for Listening: A Novel
National political reporter covering the 2024 presidential race for The New York Times, previously the Los Angeles bureau chief and served eight years as the chief national political correspondent. Co-author of Out for Good, a history of the modern gay rights movement. His latest book is a sweeping behind-the-scenes look at the last four turbulent decades of “the paper of record,” The New York Times, as it confronted world-changing events, internal scandals and faced the existential threat of the internet.
The Times: How the Newspaper of Record Survived Scandal, Scorn, and the Transformation of Journalism
Lawyer, law professor, and legal commentator. Former United States Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, served previously as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the Department of Justice, an Assistant United States Attorney and a Special Assistant United States Attorney. Creator, host and executive producer of the Talking Feds podcast and legal affairs columnist for the Los Angeles Times opinion page.
Associate professor of law at New York Law School, author of several books including When Books Went to War, a New York Times bestseller. Curator of the exhibit The Best-Read Army in the World, inspired by When Books Went to War—exhibit features approximately 250 items that showcase the story of how the American government supplied troops with over 140 million books between 1943 and 1947.
When Books Went to War: The Stories That Helped Us Win World War II
Misty Jones is the director for the San Diego Public Library overseeing the Central Library and 35 branches. Previously, she was Deputy Director for the Central Division which included overseeing the move, opening and operations of the Central Library @ Joan Λ Irwin Jacobs Common.
Nick Higgins is the chief librarian at Brooklyn Public Library in charge of public service across Brooklyn. Under his leadership, Higgens oversees the library’s Books Unbanned program—which allows young people to browse its digital collections, regardless of where they live in the U.S.
Historian, educator and author of seven books and numerous scholarly papers that span the subjects of law, science and religion. Larson won the Pulitzer Prize in 1997 for his book Summer for the Gods, which covers the Scopes trial and America’s continuous debate over science and religion
American Inheritance: Liberty and Slavery in the Birth of a Nation, 1765-1795
Two-time National Book Award winner, youngest winner of the Library of Congress Prize for Fiction, and MacArthur Fellow.
Let Us Descend
Journalist and New York Times bestselling author. Was a writer, correspondent and editor for 33 years at TIME and Newsweek. Has taught writing and journalism at Harvard and Princeton.
Road to Surrender
A veteran of twenty political campaigns, she has extensive experience in public affairs, media relations and crisis communications at the local, state and national levels. She most recently worked as a senior advisor in communications to presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg.
Any Given Tuesday
Experimental psychologist who conducts research in visual cognition, psycholinguistics and social relations. He is the author of numerous books, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and Pulitzer Prize Finalist.
Rationality
Writer, journalist, author, political commentator and podcast host of Fast Politics. She is the daughter of Erica Jong.
Staff writer at The New Yorker and an associate professor of English at Vassar College. He received the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for memoir for his book Stay True.
Stay True
Staff writer at The New Yorker writing on race, history, justice, politics and democracy, Dean of Columbia Journalism School.
The Matter of Black Lives
Was a longtime Republican political strategist, award-winning ad-maker and political commentator. In 2015, he emerged as one of the earliest and most vocal critics of Donald Trump, helping found the Never Trump movement. Published in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Politico, USA Today, The Bulwark and more, he is frequently called on for sharp-edged and witty political insight on the national news networks, CNN and MSNBC.
Running Against the Devil
White House reporter at The Washington Post. In 2022, he won the Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency.
Richard Osman is an author, producer and television presenter. Each of his novels, The Thursday Murder Club, The Man Who Died Twice and The Bullet That Missed were number one, million-copy international bestsellers as well as New York Times bestsellers. He lives in London with his wife Ingrid and Liesl the cat.
The Last Devil to Die
Sam Kestenbaum is a journalist who covers religious life in America for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone magazine and elsewhere. His reporting is supported by the Fund for Investigative Journalism and has won the Wilbur Award for magazine writing and top prizes from the Religion Newswriters Association, the Silurians Press Club, the Los Angeles Press Club and the American Academy of Religion, which calls his writing “remarkably fluent and engaging.” The Revealer magazine says, “He has a particular talent for telling stories about complicated people with a kind of lucid nuance.”
Historian, bestselling author, columnist and national security analyst who has been called one of the “world’s leading authorities on armed conflict” by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
The Road Not Taken
Author of four New York Times bestsellers, including his latest, Walking with Sam. For a dozen years he was an editor-at-large for National Geographic Traveler magazine. He has been named travel journalist of the year by the Society of American Travel writers and served as guest editor of the Best American Travel anthology. He has directed nearly 100 hours of television and as an actor appeared in dozens of films, including such iconic 80s fare as Pretty in Pink and Less Than Zero.
Walking with Sam: A Father, a Son, and Five Hundred Miles Across Spain
Creator and publisher of Morning Hangover, advisor to the DNC and DCCC, contributor to NBC News, Los Angeles Times and USA Today
Veteran diplomat and respected scholar of international relations, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations after having served as CFR’s president for 20 years, senior counselor with Centerview Partners—an international investment banking advisory firm, former director of Policy Planning for the United States Department of State, former United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland and recipient of the State Department’s Distinguished Service Award
The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens
Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin, author of 30 books on U.S. history and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist
Founding Partisans: Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, Adams and the Brawling Birth of American Politics
Elizabeth Sorensen is a board member of the Annenberg Trust at Sunnylands and Desert X and a trustee of the Royal Drawing School. She is a founder of Portobello Behavioural Health, a bespoke mental health service in London where she lives with her husband and three children.
Former special assistant to President Donald Trump and his chief of staff, Mark Meadows. She received national attention after being a key witness in the hearings led by the United States House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. Hutchinson previously worked for the White House Office of Legislative Affairs and interned for Republican leaders Steve Scalise and Ted Cruz. She is the author of Enough.
Enough
Partner in the global investment firm KKR and Chairman of the KKR Global Institute, served over 37 years in the U.S. military with six consecutive commands as a general officer—five of which were in combat, named one of America’s 25 Best Leaders by U.S. News and World Report
Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine
Skye Patrick is the library director of LA County Library, one of the largest library systems in the nation with 87 facilities serving 3.5 million people. She is also Los Angeles County’s first African American and openly LGBTQ+ library director. In 2019, Patrick was named Librarian of the Year by Library Journal.
Award-winning film producer and founder of Bona Fide Productions. Some of his producing credits include King of the Hill, Cold Mountain, Little Miss Sunshine and The Peanut Butter Falcon, as well as the Oscar-nominated film Nebraska.
Mary Hart is best known for hosting Entertainment Tonight for nearly 30 years. Her reporting for the show included interviewing nearly every major motion picture, television and music star of the last 30 years. Hart was inducted into the Broadcasting + Cable Hall of Fame in 1999. She was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Emmy Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Hart has continued to host the Palm Springs International Film Festival for nearly two decades.
Commander of U.S. Special Operations Command (2011-2014); Commander of U.S. Joint Special Operations Command (2008-2011); Commander of U.S. Special Operations Command Europe and Director of NATO special Operations Forces Coordination Centre (2006-2008)
The Wisdom of the Bullfrog: Leadership Made Simple (But Not Easy)
ABC News’ chief national correspondent. A multi-award-winning reporter, Gutman contributes regularly to World News Tonight with David Muir, 20/20, Good Morning America, and Nightline. He has reported from fifty countries across the globe and is the author of The Boys in the Cave: Deep Inside the Impossible Rescue in Thailand.
No Time to Panic: How I Curbed My Anxiety and Conquered a Lifetime of Panic Attacks
Journalist at The New York Times writing about the looming tech dystopia and how we can avoid it. Previously an investigative reporter at Gizmodo Media Group, focusing on privacy and technology. She specializes in first-person reporting and has previously lived on Bitcoin, worked as an invisible girlfriend and purchased a sterling online reputation for a fake business.
Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup’s Quest To End Privacy As We Know It
Award-winning author and screenwriter—his bestselling memoir, The Color of Water, is considered an American classic, a noted musician and composer he has toured as a saxophonist
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
Former U.S. Representative from Ilinois, senior political commentator for CNN, lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard
Renegade: What Defending Democracy Taught Me About Life, Liberty, and My Country
A sophomore at Brown University and the Founder and Executive Director of the Last Generation Coalition, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization committed to expanding access to genocide education and prevention efforts. Inspired deeply by her place in the last generation to personally know Holocaust Survivors, Blankstein served as co-chair of the Teen Board at Holocaust Museum LA, where she directed six short films about the lives of Holocaust Survivors. In 2023, she wrote and delivered a TEDx talk on the power of genocide education. As a storyteller and educator, her dedication to human rights advocacy also includes work toward environmental justice and menstrual equity.
One of the most innovative architects working today, regarded as the most significant North American architect of his era and perhaps the most celebrated living architect in the world, he has buildings on almost every continent
Art critic for the Los Angeles Times, awarded 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, after being a three-time finalist, received Lifetime Achievement Award for Art Journalism from the Dorothy and Leo Rabkin Foundation and the Frank Jewett Mather Award for Distinction in Art Criticism from the College Art Association—the first journalist to win the award in more than 25 years, author of two books: Last Chance for Eden: Selected Art Criticism, 1979-1994, and Art of the Sixties and Seventies: The Panza Collection
Last Chance For Eden
Emmy Award-winning producer, writer, director and actor, he is the creative mind behind TV shows The Office, Parks & Recreation, Brooklyn Nine-Nine and The Good Place
How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question
Playwright, screenwriter and television producer, creator of the show Brothers & Sisters, Tony nominee for the Broadway production of Other Desert Cities—a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, professor at Stony Brook Southampton and The New School
Historian, novelist, documentary filmmaker and author of four books on American history, she holds the Glasscock Chair at Texas A&M and a Research Fellowship at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution
Fearless Women: Feminist Patriots from Abigail Adams to Beyoncé
Bestselling writer on books about Hollywood and pop culture, Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and the Dawn of the Modern Woman was Publishers’ Weekly best book of the year, award-winning biography Fosse appeared on over a half-dozen best books of the year lists and was the basis for the Emmy and Golden Globe-winning series Fosse/Verdon
The Path to Paradise: A Francis Ford Coppola Story
Founder and CEO of Salamander Hotels & Resorts, the only African American woman to have ownership in three professional sports teams, has long been a powerful influence in the entertainment industry, starting with her work as co-founder of Black Entertainment Television (BET)
Walk Through Fire: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Triumph
Professor of history at Rice University, presidential historian for the New-York Historical Society and a New York Times bestselling author
Silent Spring Revolution: John F. Kennedy, Rachel Carson, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and the Great Environmental Awakening
President of the American Institute for Boys and Men, writes for a wide range of publications including The New York Times, The Guardian, National Affairs, The Atlantic, Democracy Journal, and The Wall Street Journal
Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It
Columnist, writer and feminist activist in Pakistan, author of five novels and two collections of short stories including Slum Child, a bestseller in Italy, provocative and bold commentator for the international press on Pakistan’s society, culture and women’s rights
The Monsoon War
Bestselling writer of mostly romance novels, typically set on and around Nantucket Island where she resides, New York Magazine called her “the queen of beach reads”
The Five-Star Weekend
British writer, documentary filmmaker, businesswoman and philanthropist
High Time
Dave Karger is a host on Turner Classic Movies. He has also made over 200 live appearances on NBC’s TODAY as an entertainment commentator. He began his career with a 17-year stint as a writer at Entertainment Weekly, where he wrote over 50 cover stories for the magazine. He also served as the Academy’s official red-carpet greeter on Oscar night, only the third person ever to hold that post. In 2015, Karger was the recipient of the Publicists Guild’s Press Award, honoring the year’s outstanding entertainment journalist. He is a proud graduate of Duke University and splits his time between Palm Springs, Los Angeles and New York.
50 Oscar Nights: Iconic Stars and Filmmakers on Their Career-Defining Wins
Educator, author and LGBT+ activist, he is married to Pete Buttigieg, the current U.S. secretary of transportation, was an advisor, spokesperson and social media campaigner during his husband’s 2020 presidential campaign
I Have Something to Tell You―For Young Adults: A Memoir
First woman in U.S. history to have run a presidential campaign—that of her brother, Joseph R. Biden, Jr., she also led his seven straight U.S. Senate victories and has been his principal surrogate on the campaign trail, she is Chair of the Biden Institute at the University of Delaware and a partner at Owens Patrick Leadership Seminars
Growing Up Biden: A Memoir
Abraham Verghese, MD, MACP is a physician, author and Professor for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at Stanford University Medical School and Senior Associate Chair of the Department of Internal Medicine, he is also the author of three bestselling books
The Covenant of Water
Executive vice president of the Milken Family Foundation, partner in the law offices of Maron & Sandler, past chair of the Jewish Federations of North America and the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, current chair of Milken Community School, serves on the boards of the Jewish Agency, Jewish Federations of North America, the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, Prostate Cancer Foundation and the Milken Institute
Witness to a Prosecution
America’s foremost legal expert on crimes of sexual assault and domestic violence, Linda Fairstein led the Sex Crimes Unit of the District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan for twenty-five years, A Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, a graduate of Vassar College and the University of Virginia School of Law. She is also a New York Times bestselling author. Her first novel, Final Jeopardy, introduced the critically acclaimed character of Alexandra Cooper, a Manhattan Assistant District Attorney for the Sex Crimes Unit. Blood Oath is Fairstein’s twentieth novel in the series.
Physician, New York Times bestselling author and internationally recognized speaker on nutrition, food safety and public health issues; recipient of ACLM Lifestyle Medicine Trailblazer Award; donates 100% of all proceeds from books, DVDs, and speaking engagements to charity
How Not to Age: The Scientific Approach to Getting Healthier as You Get Older
Professor of biological sciences and neurology at Stanford University and a research associate at the National Museums of Kenya
Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst
Senior director of Original Productions at Turner Classic Movies (TCM), programmer for TCM’s annual film festival and lead programmer for TCM Classic Cruise, has been a presenter at many of TCM’s past festivals and other industry conventions
Danger on the Silver Screen: 50 Films Celebrating Cinema’s Greatest Stunts
One of America’s most honored and experienced broadcast journalists, won Lifetime Achievement Emmy in 2003 for overall excellence in reporting, began her 31st season on 60 Minutes in September 2022, author of two bestselling books: Reporting Live, about her work as a White House correspondent, and the more recent Becoming Grandma
Becoming Grandma: The Joys and Science of the New Grandparenting
Science journalist who reports for The Atlantic, won the Pulitzer Prize in explanatory journalism for his coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, author of two New York Times bestsellers
An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us
Actress, comedian, author and producer, often a stand-in for Kelly Ripa on Live with Kelly and Ryan, married to Good Morning America co-anchor George Stephanopoulos
Ali’s Well That Ends Well: Tales of Desperation and a Little Inspiration
Founder and editor of The Free Press and host of the podcast Honestly, previously an opinion writer and editor at The New York Times and an op-ed and book review editor at The Wall Street Journal.
How to Fight Anti-Semitism
Filmmaker, writer, actor and artist, known for his for his boundary-pushing cult films, wrote and directed Hairspray, creates photo-based artwork and installations
Liarmouth: A Feel-Bad Romance
Journalist known for his writings on climate change, his essay “The Uninhabitable Earth” was the most read article in the history of New York Magazine, contributor to The New York Times
The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming
MSNBC anchor and New York Times bestselling author, host of Katy Tur Reports, author of Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History on covering Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign
Rough Draft: A Memoir
Op-ed columnist for The New York Times, focusing on foreign and domestic policy
Fight for Liberty: Defending Democracy in the Age of Trump
Contributing editor at Vanity Fair, has written for the Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Esquire, Vogue, The Wall Street Journal and more, teaches nonfiction writing at Columbia University
Everybody Thought We Were Crazy: Dennis Hopper, Brooke Hayward, and 1960s Los Angeles
Author, columnist and political strategist, formerly senior advisor and deputy chief of staff for President George W. Bush
The Triumph of William McKinley: Why the Election of 1896 Still Matters
Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential historian, contributing writer to The New York Times Book Review and contributing editor at TIME
And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle
Journalist, political analyst, New York Times columnist, host of The Ezra Klein Show podcast and co-founder of Vox
Why We’re Polarized
Former White House Correspondent for CNN, previously editor-at-large for CNBC and chief Washington Correspondent for CNBC
Pennsylvania Avenue: Profiles in Backroom Power
World-renowned presidential historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times number one bestselling author
Leadership: In Turbulent Times
Former foreign correspondent and columnist for The New York Times, regular on-air political analyst for MSNBC, author of The Persuaders: At the Center of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy and Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World
The Persuaders: At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy
Political commentator and former presidential advisor, senior political analyst for CNN, professor of public service at the Harvard Kennedy School
Hearts Touched with Fire: How Great Leaders are Made
National Book Award-winning author of six novels and five works of nonfiction, frequent contributor to The New Yorker and bird enthusiast
Crossroads
Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Cuba: An American History, Julius Silver Professor of History and Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University
Cuba: An American History
Dubbed “the most popular poet in America” by Bruce Weber in The New York Times, served two terms as the U.S. poet laureate and was New York State poet laureate
Musical Tables: Poems
Senior political analyst and anchor at CNN, author, columnist and commentator, previously editor-in-chief and managing director of The Daily Beast
Lincoln and the Fight for Peace
Staff writer for The Atlantic, Pulitzer-prize winning historian and a Senior Fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the Agora Institute
Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism
A librarian, a library administrator, and the 10th Archivist of the United States. He was Director of the New York Public Library, and before that, the University Librarian and Vice Provost for Library Affairs at Duke University. Prior to his Duke position, he worked for 31 years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology library. Ferriero is the first librarian to serve as Archivist of the United States.
Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, bestselling author and Deputy National Editor for The Washington Post
I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year
*Per Nielson Bookscan
Finding Freedom
Congressman Joseph Kennedy III is the managing director at Citizens Energy, a diversified renewable energy non-profit that helps low income families meet their basic needs. He is also the founder of Groundwork Project, a political advocacy organization dedicated to supporting local community organizing efforts in regions of the country historically under-resourced and disenfranchised. Kennedy served as the U.S. Representative for Massachusetts 4th congressional district from 2013–2021, where he focused on civil rights and economic justice.
White House Chief of Staff (2017), Chairman of Republican National Committee (2011–2017), named by TIME as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2016 and 2017, regular political commentator for major news channels
Award-winning British-American congressional reporter for The Guardian in Washington DC, has broken a number of high-profile stories on the January 6 select committee investigation, regularly appears as a political analyst on MSNBC
Acclaimed British actor, producer, novelist and screenwriter, creator of Emmy Award-winning Downton Abbey, peer of the House of Lords
Award-winning writer, journalist, and director, his documentary Valentino: The Last Emperor was shortlisted for an Oscar nomination, special correspondent for Vanity Fair
Attorney and journalist, chief legal correspondent for MSNBC, host of The Beat with Ari Melber
Two Michelin star Spanish chef and humanitarian, founded World Kitchen Central to provide food after natural disasters, James Beard best chef and humanitarian of the year
Author, feminist, gay rights activist and political commentator, host of Firing Line with Margaret Hoover, great-granddaughter of President Herbert Hoover
Writer-at-large for The Bulwark and a political consultant
Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell
Sally Bedell Smith is the New York Times bestselling author of Elizabeth the Queen and Prince Charles, as well as biographies of William S. Paley; Pamela Harriman; Diana, Princess of Wales; John and Jacqueline Kennedy; and Bill and Hillary Clinton. An on-air contributor for CNN since 2017, she was a contributing editor at Vanity Fair from 1996 to 2018. She previously worked at TIME and The New York Times, where she was a cultural news reporter.
George VI and Elizabeth: The Marriage That Saved the Monarchy
Founder of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, the largest gang-intervention, rehabilitation, and re-entry program in the world
Forgive Everyone Everything
Professor of journalism and science writing and an invesigative journalist focused on the evironment and innovation
The Fate of Food: What We’ll Eat in a Bigger, Hotter, Smarter World
Award-winning writer and a longtime contributor to The New York Times and Pop-Up Magazine. She is the author of Why We Swim and American Chinatown.
Why We Swim
Former political correspondent for Newsweek and an author who writes about American politics and history
Becoming FDR: The Personal Crisis That Made a President
Ambassador Eleni Kounalakis is the first woman elected Lt. Governor of California. In 2010, Kounalakis was appointed by President Barack Obama as the U.S. Ambassador to Hungary.
Madam Ambassador: Three Years of Diplomacy, Dinner Parties, and Democracy in Budapest
David Duchovny is an actor, writer, producer, director, novelist and singer-songwriter. He is known for playing FBI agent Fox Mulder on the television series The X-Files and writer Hank Moody on the television series Californication, both of which have earned him Golden Globe awards and four Emmy Award nominations. He is a prolific author whose fourth novel, Truly Like Lightning, was published in February 2021. His previous novels include Holy Cow, Bucky F*cking Dent and Miss Subways. As a musician, Duchovny has released three studio albums, Hell or Highwater, Every Third Thought and Gestureland. His most recent novella is The Reservoir.
The Reservoir
Contributing classical music critic for The New York Times and founder of Beginner’s Ear, which creates immersive music meditations
Congressman Schiff is the ranking member and chair of the House Intelligence Committee. He was one of the lead investigators in the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump, stemming from the Trump–Ukraine scandal, and the lead impeachment manager in the first impeachment trial before the U.S. Senate. He is also a member of the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.
Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could
Winner of the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his novel The Netanyahus. Called “a major American writer” by The New York Times and “an extraordinary prose stylist, surely one of the most prodigious at work in American fiction today” by The New Yorker, Cohen was awarded Israel’s 2013 Matanel Prize for Jewish Writers and in 2017 was named one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists.
The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family
Chief White House correspondent for The New York Times and political analyst for MSNBC
The Divider: Trump in the White House 2017–2021
Staff writer at The New Yorker and founder of the award-winning Politico Magazine
The Divider: Trump in the White House 2017–2021
Author, food critic and restaurateur she was editor in chief of Gourmet magazine for a decade
Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir
Peril
Author of the award-winning, number one New York Times bestselling Outlander novels and co-producer and advisor for the popular Outlander TV series
Outlander
Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee is a pioneering physician, oncologist, professor and author. He won the Pulitzer Prize for The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer. The Gene: An Intimate History was one of the most influential books of 2016.
The Song of the Cell: The Transformation of Medicine and the New Human
Dr. Kounalakis is a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and is an award-winning syndicated foreign affairs columnist
Freedom Isn’t Free: The Conflicts and Costs for World Order and National Interests
Author and New York Times opinion columnist
100 Things We’ve Lost to the Internet
Jennifer Morris is The Nature Conservancy’s Chief Executive Officer. For the past 25 years, Morris has dedicated her life to protecting the environment for people and nature. She has been an inspired and outspoken leader of The Nature Conservancy.
Biographer, contributing editor to Politico Magazine, previously prize-winning journalist at The Denver Post and The Boston Globe
Ted Kennedy: A Life
James “The Ragin’ Cajun” Carville is America’s best-known political consultant. His long list of electoral successes evidences a knack for steering overlooked campaigns to unexpected landslide victories and for re-making political underdogs into upset winners. He is best known for helping William Jefferson Clinton win the Presidency in 1992.
We’re Still Right, They’re Still Wrong: The Democrats’ Case for 2016
Director and founder of Scripps Research Translational Institute, a pioneer in the field of cardiovascular medicine, voted number one “most influential physician executive” by Modern Healthcare
Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again
Staff writer for The New Yorker, writer of The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, which won a Pulitzer Prize
The Plague Year: America in the Time of Covid
Award-winning writer and longtime faculty member at the University of Michigan
Maybe It’s Me
Award-winning writer of novels and short stories, his novel All the Light We Cannot See was a number one New York Times bestseller and winner of a Pulitzer Prize
Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel
Deputy editorial page editor and columnist for The Washington Post, previously with TIME and the Los Angeles Times
The Triumph of Nancy Reagan
Major (Promotable) Josh Silver graduated from West Point and received his commission in the Infantry in 2005. He is a graduate of Airborne, Air Assault, Jumpmaster, and Ranger Schools. In his four deployments, he has led ground soldiers in combat operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq. After earning a Masters in History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he taught American and Military History at West Point for two years. He currently serves with the Mission Command Training Program where he helps prepare the Army’s biggest units for large-scale combat operations.
Writer, director and producer and the grandson of Herman Mankiewicz and great-nephew of Joe Mankiewicz
Competing with Idiots
Mike Murphy is the co-director of the Center for the Political Future at USC. Murphy is one of the Republican Party’s most successful political media consultants, having handled strategy and advertising for more than 26 successful gubernatorial and senatorial campaigns. His record in helping Republicans win Democratic states is unmatched by any other GOP consultant. He is a widely known political pundit, appearing frequently on NBC, MSNBC, CNN and NPR. He cohosts a political podcast called Hacks on Tap.
Bestselling author, staff writer at The New Yorker and David Woods Kemper Professor of American History and Affiliate Professor of Law at Harvard University
If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future
Author of the Bridgerton books, now a Netflix original series—in March 2021, all eight Bridgerton novels were on The New York Times list at the same time, a record for an adult fiction author
Bridgerton series
As a world-renowned journalist, Megyn Kelly rose to prominence reporting on some of the most consequential U.S. and international news events of the past decade. She was a journalist at FOX News from 2004 to 2017 and has moderated five presidential debates, including the first Republican primary debate in 2016, where she received widespread acclaim for her tough and direct line of questions to the candidates. Kelly is also a New York Times bestselling author.
Elex Michaelson co-anchors FOX 11 News weeknights with Christine Devine and the FOX 11 Special Report with Marla Tellez. He also hosts and produces the political talk show The Issue Is, which airs on stations throughout the state of California. Michaelson is the winner of six Emmy Awards and has 13 nominations. From 2010 to 2017, he was a reporter and fill-in anchor at KABC-TV in Los Angeles. Prior to that, he served as a weekend morning anchor and weeknight reporter at XETV in San Diego. He has interviewed many key political figures including Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Al Gore, Gavin Newsom and Jerry Brown among others.
Patt Morrison is a writer for the Los Angeles Times and has received two Pulitzer Prizes, six Emmys and eleven Golden Mike awards for her work as a radio and television host. In her honor, Pink’s, the legendary Hollywood hotdog stand, named its vegetarian hot dog after Patt.
Johan Sorensen is the founder of Portobello Behavioral Health which provides private care management/social care management within the behavioral health space. Previously he was a clinical director of centers in the U.K. and Middle East as well as cofounder of Lifeworks in Surrey, which is one of the most recognized addiction treatment facilities in Europe, and also Urban Recovery in Brooklyn, New York. He is one of the cofounders of Music Support in the U.K. which helps people in the music industry access help for mental and behavioral health issues.
Robert Shrum is a political consultant and was senior advisor to the 2004 Kerry-Edwards campaign, the 2000 Gore presidential campaign, the campaign of Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel and to the British Labour Party in the 2001 parliamentary campaign. Since 1985, Shrum has been a strategist and advertising consultant for 45 winning campaigns for senate, governor and mayor. The Atlantic Monthly described him as “the most sought-after consultant in the Democratic Party.”
Congresswoman Jackie Speier—a fearless fighter for women’s equality, LGBTQ rights and the disenfranchised—has dedicated her life to eliminating government corruption while working to strengthen America’s national and economic security. She represents California’s 14th Congressional District and serves on the House Armed Services Committee and as the Chair of the Military Personnel Subcommittee, on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. Speier is a survivor of the 1978 Jonestown Massacre and the author of Undaunted: Surviving Jonestown, Summoning Courage, and Fighting Back.
Dr. Joseph Scherger, MD, is the former vice president for primary care at Eisenhower Health. Dr. Scherger is also a clinical professor of family medicine at the Keck School of Medicine at USC. His main focuses are nutrition and wellness, and the redesign of office practice using the tools of information technology and quality improvement. Dr. Scherger is a proponent of functional medicine, a focus on treating the causes of disease rather than just treating disease with drugs and procedures. He has written a book on healthy living, Lean and Fit.
Van Gordon Sauter was president of FOX News and CBS News and is the former chairman and is now a member of the California boxing commission. Sauter started his career as a local TV anchorman for CBS in Chicago and worked as Paris bureau chief, president of CBS Sports and CBS News and executive vice-president of CBS Television Group. He is married to Hon. Kathleen Brown, former California state treasurer and sister of Governor Jerry Brown.
Marylouise “Oatsie” Oates is a journalist who is the former society columnist for the Los Angeles Times and the author of Making Peace. She is married to Democratic political consultant, commentator and author Robert Shrum.
Justice Douglas Miller was born in Whittier, California. He received a degree in economics from BYU and his law degree from Pepperdine. After practicing law for 17 years, he was appointed to the Riverside Superior Court in 1995, where he served as a judge until 2006. He was then nominated by Governor Schwarzenegger to the Fourth District Court of Appeals where he continues to serve. Justice Miller has been on many state and local committees and is currently the vice chair of the Supreme Court Committee of Judicial Ethics Opinions and was chair of the Executive and Planning Committee on the Judicial Council from 2010 through 2019.
Zoe Lukov is an independent curator and filmmaker. She was the former director of exhibitions at Faena Art in Miami. Previously, she worked for the International Liaison for the Bienal Internacional de Arte Contemporáneo de Cartagena de Indias, she was a project manager at Jeffrey Deitch, Inc. and she was curatorial coordinator at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (LA MoCA). She completed a 2010 Fulbright fellowship in Colombia, and she currently serves on the board of Desert X.
Dr. Khoi Le, who was born and raised in Vietnam, came to the United States at the age of 14. After graduating with honors from Harvard College and Harvard Medical School, he trained in his specialty at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and now serves as one of 13 cardiologists at the renowned Eisenhower Desert Cardiology Center. In addition to teaching and lecturing, Dr. Le has performed medical mission work throughout Asia and South America and in 1977 performed the first stent procedure in his homeland, Vietnam.
Dr. Carla Hayden was sworn in as the 14th Librarian of Congress on September 14, 2016. Dr. Hayden is the first woman and the first African American to lead the national library. She was nominated by President Barack Obama on February 24, 2016, and approved by the Senate in July 2016. As the Librarian of Congress, Hayden manages a vast national collection of some 160 million books, recordings, photographs, newspapers, maps and manuscripts. The Library of Congress is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office.
Mara Gladstone has worked in the arts as a curator, producer, fundraiser and writer for two decades. She is currently Deputy Director at Desert X, and has curated exhibitions and programs at the Palm Springs Art Museum and J. Paul Getty Museum, among others. Gladstone serves on the boards of the Project X Foundation for Art and Criticism and Bayanihan Desert. She received a doctorate from the University of Rochester and a bachelor’s degree from Brown.
Geoffrey Cowan is an educator, playwright, Emmy Award-winning producer and author of Let the People Rule: Theodore Roosevelt and the Birth of the Presidential Primary. He was the inaugural President of the Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands and Chairman emeritus of the Annenberg School of Communication at USC.
Douglas Brunt was president and CEO of Authentium, Inc., an internet security company. He now writes full time and has published three New York Times bestselling novels: Ghosts of Manhattan, The Means and Trophy Son. A Philadelphia native, he lives in New York City with his wife, Megyn Kelly, and their three children.
Hon. Kathleen Brown is a lawyer and former treasurer of the state of California. She is the daughter of former California Governor Pat Brown and sister of the former Governor Jerry Brown. She is currently a partner at Manatt Phelps & Phillips, LLP focusing on public policy issues related to health care.
Hon. Barbara Boxer is a former U.S. Senator from California from 1993 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served as the U.S. Representative for California’s 6th congressional district from 1983 until 1993. She is currently cochair of Mercury Public Affair’s Los Angeles office. She has been a forceful advocate for families, children, consumers, the environment and her home state of California during her 24 years in the Senate, ten years in the House and six years on the Marin County Board of Supervisors. Boxer is the author of five books including The Art of Tough: Fearlessly Facing Politics and Life.
Peter Bart started his career as a newsman with The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, then spent seventeen years as a film executive (vice president of Paramount, senior vice president of MGM, president of Lorimar Film Co.) only to return to journalism as editor-in-chief of Variety. Along the way, he was responsible for eight books, including Shoot-Out, written with Peter Guber, Dangerous Company and two nonfiction books, The Gross and Fade Out.
Serial entrepreneur, community researcher and storyteller
Professor, bestselling author, diplomat and businesswoman who served as the first female Secretary of State
Hell and Other Destinations: A 21st-Century Memoir
Journalist and bestselling author, hosts The Lead with Jake Tapper and cohosts State of the Union
Rock Me on the Water
Lawyer and scholar of United States constitutional law and criminal law and author of several books about politics
Taking the Stand: My Life in Law
The only person to lead the police departments of America’s two largest cities—Los Angeles and New York
The Profession: A Memoir of Community, Race, and the Arc of Policing in America
Bestselling author; contributor for NBC News, MSNBC and Crooked Media; and an advisor to former President Barack Obama
The World as It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House
Senior editor at The Atlantic, and a senior political analyst for CNN
Rock Me on the Water
Publisher and CEO of The Washington Post and a longtime aficionado of both wine and White House history
Wine and the White House: A History
Journalist and politics reporter for The New York Times and an MSNBC contributor
Insurgency: How Republicans Lost Their Party and Got Everything They Ever Wanted
One of broadcasting’s most respected journalists, she is the anchor of CBS Sunday Morning
Your Life Calling: Reimagining the Rest of Your Life
Journalist, film critic and television personality best known as a host on Turner Classic Movies
14th Librarian of Congress, the first woman and the first African American to lead the national library
Widely-acclaimed music director of the Louisville Orchestra and music director and conductor of the Britt Orchestra
Bestselling and award-winning biographer, academic and broadcaster
FDR at War Boxed Set: The Mantle of Command, Commander in Chief, and War and Peace
Bestselling author, journalist and public speaker and a regular contributor to The Wall Street Journal
Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans
Dewey Defeats Truman: The 1948 Election and the Battle for America’s Soul
MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellow, currently the fiction editor at Boston Review and professor of writing at MIT
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Pulitzer-Prize winning humor writer and lead guitarist in literary band the Rock Bottom Remainders
Lessons from Lucy: The Simple Joys of an Old, Happy Dog
A Field Guide to the Jewish People: Who They Are, Where They Come From, What to Feed Them…and Much More. Maybe Too Much More
The James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor and chair of the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University
Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own
Bestselling and award-winning biographer, academic and broadcaster
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race
Writer and cultural satirist, for her prodigious commentary on American culture and life in New York City
Pretend It’s a City
Professor of history at the University of Toronto and emeritus professor of international history at the University of Oxford
War: How Conflict Shaped Us
Award-winning writer, Pulitzer Prize finalist, 2014 MacDowell Fellow and 2016 Writing by Writers Fellow
There There
Political journalist and biographer, currently Washington bureau chief of USA Today
Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power
Award-winning writer, he holds honorary doctorates and fellowships at six European and six American universities
Quichotte
Prize-winning biographer, lecturer, and former Reuters foreign correspondent
Ethel Rosenberg: An American Tragedy
Award-winning interior designer, he was appointed by President Barack Obama to the Committee for the Preservation of the White House
Designing History: The Extraordinary Art & Style of the Obama White House
One of the world’s most renowned journalists and the anchor and managing editor of te PBS NewsHour
The country’s most widely read political columnist, as well as its foremost conservative voice
The Conservative Sensibility
One of the most respected historians and journalists writing today and a bestselling author
First: Sandra Day O’Connor
Chan Soon-Shiong Pressor of Medicine and director of the MDS Center at Columbia University in New York
The First Cell: And the Human Costs of Pursuing Cancer to the Last
News anchor for FOX News and host of The Story with Martha MacCallum
Unknown Valor: A Story of Family, Courage, and Sacrifice from Pearl Harbor to Iwo Jima
Criminal defense lawyer and legal analyst for CBS News
CNN’s chief political analyst, appearing regularly on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper 360°
Acclaimed writer, recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation
Trust Exercise
Senior correspondent and chief arts correspondent for the PBS NewsHour
The News: Poems
Consultant, author and expert on international security, space policy, energy and foreign relations
How Ike Led: The Principles Behind Eisenhower’s Biggest Decisions
Winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary, op-ed columnist for The New York Times
The Year of Voting Dangerously: The Derangement of American Politics
Former Illinois congressman, chief of staff to President Barack Obama and mayor of Chicago
The Nation City: Why Mayors Are Now Running the World
Booker Prize-winning writer of fiction, poetry, essays, literary criticism and radio and theatre drama
Girl, Woman, Other
Bestselling writer of nonfiction and novels, teaches creative writing at New York University
We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast