Authors

ARIA ABER was born and raised in Germany and now lives in the U.S. Her debut poetry collection, Hard Damage, won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize and the Whiting Award. She is a former Wallace Stegner fellow at Stanford University and graduate student at the University of Southern California, and her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New Republic, The Yale Review, Granta, and elsewhere. Raised speaking Farsi and German, she writes in her third language, English. She is the poetry editor of Amulet, a contributing editor at The Yale Review, and an assistant professor of creative writing at the University of Vermont. She divides her time between Vermont and Brooklyn, New York.

JENISBEL ACEVEDO is an author, content creator, mother of two, and committed philanthropist, who has turned her story of overcoming adversity into a catalyst for social change. As president and founder of the Acevedo Foundation, her mission is clear: to impact and transform lives through love and dedication. Born in Cuba and marked by the challenges of immigrating to the U.S. at age 9 on a risky sea voyage, she has turned her resilience into inspiration. Her debut book, A Raft of Dreams (Self Publishing) is more than a story – it’s a guide for young readers and their families, offering a comforting hand in navigating the complexities of change. The book serves as a testament to the idea that, no matter where we come from or what we face, we all have the power to overcome and shape our own destinies.

ELLIOT ACKERMAN is The New York Times bestselling author of 2054: A Novel; 2034: A Novel of the Next World War; Halcyon; Red Dress in Black and White; Waiting for Eden; Dark at the Crossing: A Novel; and Green on Blue: A Novel. He also wrote the memoirs The Fifth Act: America’s End in Afghanistan and Places and Names: On War, Revolution, and Returning. His books have been nominated for the National Book Award, the Andrew Carnegie Medal in both fiction and nonfiction, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, among others. He is a contributing writer at The Atlantic, a senior fellow at Yale’s Jackson School of Global Affairs, and a veteran of the United States Marine Corps and CIA special operations, having served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star Medal for valor, and the Purple Heart. He divides his time between New York and Washington, D.C.

IVÁN ACOSTA nació en Santiago de Cuba (Cuba). Tomó estudios secundarios en la Escuela de Comercio Pitman, Manzana de Gómez, en La Habana. Dramaturgo, compositor, director de cine y teatro y productor musical de conciertos, videos musicales y discos. En agosto de 1961 escapa de la isla en un barco junto a sus padres, hermana y otros 21 cubanos hacia Jamaica. Llega a Nueva York el 4 de diciembre (Changó) de 1961. En Estados Unidos sirve 6 años en el ejercito, como paracaidista en la División 101. Estudia cine en la Universidad de Nueva York, Estudios Sociales y Film Marketing, en la New School for Social Research University. Y producción de televisión en New York TeleVariation TV Academy. Se estrena como dramaturgo con el musical de Rock and Roll, Grito 71, el cual también es aclamado por la prensa anglosajona. En 1976 escribe y filma El ataúd/ La Jornada del Difunto, cortometraje en 16 mm, y debuta como director de largometrajes de ficción en 1985 con Amigos, cinta que cuenta las andanzas de un cubano (marielito) que ingresa a los Estados Unidos como parte del éxodo ocurrido en 1980 desde Cuba hacia este país por el puerto El Mariel. Sin embargo, es su pieza teatral El Súper (estrenada el 5 de noviembre de 1977) la que le concede la celebridad, al dar lugar al filme homónimo rodado en 1979, y que es considerada la obra teatral y la cinta más importante rodada por cubanos en el exilio, al conquistar más de veinticinco premios en la arena internacional. Es fundador del Centro Cultural Cubano de Nueva York (1972). Presidente del capítulo de Nueva York de la National Academy of Media Arts and Science. Miembro activo de la directiva del Circulo de Intelectuales por la Libertad de Cuba. Y de la Academia de la Historia de Cuba Exilio. Su documentalística se ha ocupado con frecuencia de los ritmos musicales cubanos, como pueden corroborarnos sus documentales, Cómo se forma una rumba, 50 years of Mambo in the USA, y Cándido, manos de fuego. Nueve de sus 16 obras teatrales han sido publicadas por las editoriales Universal, Arte Publico Press, Cubanacan, Revista Caribe, Alexander Street Press y Ediciones Alarcos en La Habana Cuba. Y la Editorial Colección Fugas. Su obra teatral, CUBA: PUNTO X, obtuvo 10 nominaciones, incluyendo, los Premios ACE, H.O.L.A. y ATI, como Mejor dirección y mejor actuación. Su mas reciente obra teatral, La Ventana de los Chévere, será escenificada en Nueva York en la primavera de 2026. Su libro, Con una canción cubana en el corazón/With a Cuban Song in the Heart; está siendo distribuido a través de varias universidades y plataformas literarias. Su libro, Fuacatapam, Será presentado por la editorial Colección Fugas, en la Miami Book Fair, 2025.

CAMILLE U. ADAMS is a writer from Trinidad and Tobago. Her book How to Be Unmothered: A Trinidadian Memoir (Restless Books), was recognized as a finalist for the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing in 2023. She earned her MFA in poetry from City College of New York and a doctoral degree in creative nonfiction from Florida State University. Honors for her work include Best of The Net: Nonfiction 2024, five nominations for the Pushcart Prize, three Best of the Net: Nonfiction nominations, and recognition for a notable essay in Best American Essays 2022. She is the recipient of numerous fellowships, including an inaugural Tin House Reading Fellowship.

GBENGA ADESINA, Nigerian poet and essayist, received his MFA from New York University, where he was mentored by Yusef Komunyakaa. His work has been published in the Paris Review, Harvard Review, Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day, Guernica, Narrative, The Best American Poetry, The New York Times Magazine, and elsewhere, and has been translated into six languages. He is the inaugural Mellon Foundation Post-doctoral Fellow in Global Black and Diasporic Poetry at the Furious Flower Poetry Center, James Madison University. His debut book of poems, Death Does Not End at the Sea, was longlisted for the National Book Award in Poetry.

MARÍA DOLORES ÁGUILA is a Chicana poet and author from San Diego. Deeply inspired by Chicano history and art, she seeks to write empowering and inclusive stories about everything she learns. She also loves drinking coffee, browsing the bookshelves at her local library, and spending time with her family. She is the author of the critically acclaimed picture book Barrio Rising, illustrated by Magdalena Mora.

MEENAKSHI AHAMED is a freelance journalist and the author of A Matter of Trust: India-US Relations from Truman to Trump, a sweeping narrative history of the turbulent 70-year relationship between the two countries. Her writing has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, Seminar magazine, The Asian Age, and CNN. She has worked at the World Bank in Washington, D.C., and for New Delhi Television, and served on the boards of Doctors Without Borders, Drugs for Neglected Diseases, and Vellore Christian Medical College Foundation. Ahamed was born in Calcutta, India, and received an MA from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. She divides her time between New York, Los Angeles, and New Delhi.

RENÉE AHDIEH is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. When she’s not reading, she enjoys cooking, skincare, and fashion. The first few years of her life were spent in a high-rise in South Korea; consequently, she enjoys having her head in the clouds. She is the No. 1 New York Times and internationally bestselling author of The Wrath & the Dawn series, the Flame in the Mist series, The Beautiful quartet, and the picture book Emilio Sloth’s Modern Manners. Park Avenue: A Novel (Flatiron Books) is her debut adult novel. She and her family live in North Carolina.

CLAIRE AHN grew up in Seoul, Korea, and still considers it home. She moved to New York to attend university and now lives in Long Island City, New York, with her husband, daughter, and their dog, Dante. She writes about transcultural experiences and the traditions, values, and legacies that shape who we are. Follow her on Instagram @CuhlaireAhn.

ADAM ALEKSIC is a linguist and content creator posting educational videos as the “Etymology Nerd” to an audience of more than 3 million. As a linguistics student at Harvard College, he founded and served as president of the Harvard Undergraduate Linguistics Society. He’s discussed online language on NPR and contributed repeatedly to The Washington Post, and his work has been mentioned in The New York Times, The Economist, and The Guardian. He’s lectured on language and social media at Stanford, Yale, Georgetown, and other top universities, including a TEDx talk at the University of Pennsylvania. Aleksic is based in New York, where he spends a lot of time scrolling TikTok for “research.”

PATRICK ALEXANDER is an English-born writer who raised his children in France, Italy, Switzerland, Ireland, and California before settling in Coral Gables, Florida. In addition to four novels, his other books include two literary studies of Marcel Proust, a book of wine appreciation, and Boomer: The Story of a Generation: 1946-2024, a history of the Baby Boom generation. Alexander’s latest book, Migration, Colonialism and the Great Replacement Myth will be released in 2026. Building Paradise: The Developing History of Miami, published in 2022, is a history of Miami and South Florida. Alexander wrote Coral Gables: The First Hundred Years (independently published) to celebrate the 2025 centennial of his adopted home.

CARLOS MANUEL ÁLVAREZ is the author of The Tribe: Portraits of Cuba and The Fallen: A Novel. He has been included in Granta’s The Best of Young Spanish-Language Novelists as well as Bogotá39’s best Latin American writers under 40. He lives in New York.

MARÍA AUXILIADORA ÁLVAREZ (Caracas, Venezuela), vive en EE.UU. desde 1996, cursó la maestría y el doctorado en Literatura Iberoamericana en la Universidad de Illinois, y es catedrática emerita de Miami University, Ohio, desde 2023. Algunos de sus libros publicados son: La mañana imaginada. Antología 1978-2021, 2021; El amor de los enfermos, 2018; Piedra en :U:, 2016; Paréntesis del estupor, 2011; Ca(z)a, 1993, Cuerpo, 1985; y Mis pies en el origen, 1978; Fino animal de sombra. De la antigua mística a la escritura urbana, 2017; y Experiencia y expresión de lo inefable. La poesía de San Juan de la Cruz, 2013.

ARLENA AMARO es periodista con 20 años de experiencia. Inició como reportera en canales locales por 9 años y, tras mudarse a Texas, fue presentadora de Telemundo San Antonio (2015-2022). Desde su regreso a Miami, conduce noticieros de lunes a viernes en Telemundo 51. Ha ganado 10 premios Emmy y lidera el programa Conversaciones con escritores, transmitido en todo Florida, donde ha entrevistado a reconocidos autores como Isabel Allende y Julia Navarro. Graduada y con maestría en literatura española por FIU, une sus pasiones por el periodismo y la literatura, con el compromiso de servir a su comunidad y fomentar la lectura.

STINE AN is a Korean poet, translator, and performer in New York whose work explores diasporic poetics, experimental translation, and virtual performance. Her poems and translations appear in Best Literary Translations, Poem-a-Day, Poetry Daily, Words Without Borders, and elsewhere. A 2024 National Endowment for the Arts translation fellow and 2022-2023 Emerge-Surface-Be fellow at The Poetry Project, Stine is the author of S_MMER CR_SH and the translator of Today’s Morning Vocabulary by Yoo Heekyung (Zephyr Press). Her debut poetry collection, B-Dragon Suite, was a winner of the 2023 Nightboat Poetry Prize.

PRIA ANAND is a neurologist at Boston Medical Center and an assistant professor at the Boston University School of Medicine. A graduate of Yale University and Stanford Medical School, she trained in neurology, neuroinfectious diseases, and neuroimmunology at Johns Hopkins Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital.

K. ANCRUM is the author of award-winning thrillers, notably The Wicker King and most recently Lethal Lit: Murder of Crows. She is a Chicago native passionate about diversity and representation in young adult fiction. She currently writes most of her work in the lush gardens of the Art Institute of Chicago.

CHARLIE JANE ANDERS is the author of Lessons in Magic and Disaster (Tor Books). Her other novels include All the Birds in the Sky, The City in the Middle of the Night, and the young adult Unstoppable trilogy. She's also the author of the short story collection Even Greater Mistakes: Stories and Never Say You Can't Survive: How to Get Through Hard Times by Making Up Stories, a book about how to use creative writing to get through difficult times. She has won the Hugo Award, Nebula Award, Theodore Sturgeon Award, Lambda Literary Award, Crawford Award, and Locus Award. She co-created Escapade, a transgender superhero, for Marvel Comics and wrote her into the long-running New Mutants comic. Anders is also the science fiction and fantasy book reviewer for The Washington Post. With Annalee Newitz, she co-hosts the podcast Our Opinions Are Correct.

SCOTT ANDERSON is the author of two novels and five works of nonfiction, including Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East, an international bestseller which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and a New York Times Notable Book. The New York Times Magazine devoted an entire issue to his reportage across the Middle East in August 2016 – which was published in book form as Fractured Lands: How the Arab World Came Apart – and he is a contributing writer for The Sunday Times Magazine.

SERGIO ANDRICAÍN graduado en Sociología (Universidad de La Habana). Escritor, investigador y crítico. Dirige la Fundación Cuatrogatos creada junto a Antonio Orlando Rodríguez. Ha publicado, entre otros libros, Encuentro al atardecer, Chao familia, Rizos Blancos quiere dormir, ¿Dónde está el niño?, Conoce a Dulce María Loynaz, Sirena y punto, La noche más noche, Cuando sea grande, Dragones en el cielo, Había otra vez. Historias de siempre vueltas a contar, Libro secreto de los duendes, Un zoológico en casa y La aventura de la palabra. Junto a Antonio Orlando Rodríguez escribió y publicó Escuela y poesía. ¿Y qué hago con el poema? Participa este año como organizador y conferencista en el XII Seminario de Literatura Infantil y Juvenil.

DEBORAH N. ARCHER is president of the ACLU, where she serves as chair of the board of directors and executive committee. She is a tenured professor, the associate dean and the faculty director of the Community Equity Initiative at New York University School of Law. She lives in New York with her husband and two children.

DINA ARONSON is a writer, editor, and pro-age advocate who is passionate about shining a light on midlife women and reframing the cultural conversation around aging. A former attorney and founder of a legal search consultancy, she pivoted careers at 51 after realizing how little content reflected her own evolving midlife experience. She began freelancing for startups focused on the over-40 woman, and founded the "Patina" blog, now a Substack newsletter called Patina with Dina Aronson, where she explores topics in and around aging through her midlife lens. She is also a co-editor of Midlife Private Parts: Revealing Essays that Will Change the Way You Think About Age (Regalo Press), co-edited with Dina Alvarez, which is a soulful, unfiltered collection of stories that speak to what it really feels like to be a midlife woman in the world today. She sits on the governing board of the nonprofit America Needs You and on the influencer council of the nonprofit Uncommon Threads. She lives between New York and Miami with her husband and is the proud stepmother of two grown sons.

RYAN BACHOO is an award-winning journalist from Trinidad and Tobago who has written on climate change and international affairs. Literature has a special place in his heart and – having grown up reading the works of great West Indian writers – he also wanted to contribute to the literary landscape of the Caribbean.

BADIUCAO is a Chinese Australian artist, activist, and political provocateur. One of the most popular and prolific creatives from China, he confronts a variety of social and political issues in his work, often using satire to tackle censorship, authoritarianism, and capitalism. He has exhibited in the U.S., Australia, and throughout Europe. He has been interviewed by The Washington Post, The Guardian, Time, CNN, NBC, and others, and was profiled by The New York Times and CBS News’ 60 Minutes. In 2020, he won the Human Rights Foundation’s Václav Havel International Prize for Creative Dissent. He currently lives in exile in Australia. You Must Take Part in Revolution: A Graphic Novel (Street Noise Books) is his debut graphic novel.

TESSA BAILEY is a New York Times bestselling author who can solve all problems except for her own, so she focuses those efforts on stubborn, fictional blue-collar men and loyal, lovable heroines. She lives on Long Island, New York, avoiding the sun and social interactions, then wonders why no one has called. Dubbed the “Michelangelo of dirty talk” by Entertainment Weekly, she writes with spice, spirit, swoon, and a guaranteed happily ever after. Visit www.tessabailey.com for a complete list of her books.

LARRY BAKER is the author of six novels. His first, The Flamingo Rising: A Novel, became a Hallmark movie in 2001. He began publishing short stories at the age of 15 and his first novel was published when he was 50. Baker currently lives in Iowa City, Iowa, but is not a graduate of the Writers’ Workshop. Tell It Slant: A Novel by Nobody (Ice Cube Press) is his final novel.

Born in Boston but more closely associated with New York, ARTHUR BAKER is an American record producer and DJ best known for his work with artists like Planet Patrol and New Order. He lives in Miami.

DONNA BARBA HIGUERA is an award-winning author who masterfully blends folklore with her lived experiences to create captivating stories for young readers. Growing up in the dust-filled oil fields of central California, she spent her life weaving tales that sparked her imagination. Now residing in the Pacific Northwest with her family and a lively menagerie of pets, she is the acclaimed author of picture books like El Cucuy Is Scared, Too! and The Yellow Handkerchief. Her middle-grade novels have garnered significant recognition: Lupe Wong Won't Dance received the Sid Fleischman Award for Humor and a Pura Belpré Honor, while her second novel, The Last Cuentista, was awarded the John Newbery Medal and the Pura Belpré Award. The Last Cuentista was also named a best book of the year by The Boston Globe, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, and Time. Her newest book, Xolo (Levine Querido), reimagines the Aztec myth of the origin of man – and man's best friend. The highly anticipated third and final book in The Cuentista series, Firesnake, is slated for release in 2026.

JAMES BARRAT is the author of The Intelligence Explosion: When AI Beats Humans at Everything. He is a documentary filmmaker who has written and produced films for National Geographic, Discovery, PBS, and many other broadcasters in the U.S. and Europe. He is also the author of Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era and Facing Suicide: Why People Kill Themselves and How We Can Stop Them.