Jenna Bush Hager is the co-host of NBC News’ TODAY with Hoda & Jenna. She joined TODAY as a correspondent and contributor in August 2009. The founder of TODAY’s Read with Jenna book club, Bush Hager is also the best-selling author of the #1 New York Times best-seller “Sisters First,” written with her sister Barbara Bush, and the New York Times best-seller “Ana’s Story: A Journey of Hope,” which she wrote after interning with UNICEF in Latin America. She also co-authored the children’s books “Our Great Big Backyard” and “Read All About It!” with her mother.

John Grisham is the author of fifty-one consecutive #1 bestsellers, which have been translated into nearly fifty languages. His recent books include Camino Ghosts, The Exchange: After the Firm, and his third Jake Brigance novel, A Time for Mercy, which is being developed by HBO as a limited series. Grisham is a two-time winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and was honored with the Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction.

Deandrea Green is an author, advocate and plus size model. Deandrea is a NewOrleans native. DeAndrea is the author of Skating On A Rainy Day, The Who DatMovers-Jump Team and DeWayne and Mr. Shrimp Po Boy. Deandrea discoveredher passion for writing at the tender age of 12; her love for children was her inspirationin becoming a children’s book author.

An award-winning journalist and urbanist, Roberta Brandes Gratz has been observing and writing about cities – how they grow, fall apart, recover – for more than 40 years. NYC born and raised, Roberta started her journalism career as a reporter for the New York Post under Dorothy Schiff. She left when Rupert Murdoch bought the paper and went on to write six books on urban change. Her last one, It’s a Helluva Town: Joan K.

R. Blakeslee Gilpin is an Associate Professor of History at Tulane University. His first book, John Brown Still Lives!: America’s Long Reckoning with Violence, Equality, and Change, was a finalist for the Gilder Lehrman Center’s Frederick Douglass Book Prize. With Rose Styron, Gilpin compiled and edited The Selected Letters of William Styron. His next book will be about Nat Turner, William Styron, and the longevity of slavery’s hold on America’s racial imagination.

James Gill immigrated in 1977 from England, whcre, after graduating from the University ofLiverpool in 1963, he worked on newspapers and wrote two books on thoroughbred racing andbreeding. He joined the Times-Picayune in 1979 and still contributes a regular column. He is theauthor of a book on New Orleans carnival, Lords of Misrule (1977), and co-author of Tearing Down theLost Cause (2021).

Merissa Nathan Gerson is Visiting Assistant Professor of Communication at Tulane University and the author of Forget Prayers, Bring Cake: A Single Woman’s Guide to Grieving (Mandala Publishing / Simon & Schuster, August 2021). She was the intergenerational trauma consultant to Amazon's hit show Transparent and has writing featured in The New York Times, CNN.com, Playboy Magazine, The Atlantic, Elle.com, Tablet Magazine, Lilith Magazine, and beyond.

Cheryl Gerber is an award-winning documentary photographer and New Orleans native. She has been a regular contributor to the New York Times, the Associated Press, New Orleans Magazine,and Gambit for more than twenty-five years. She is the author of New Orleans: Life and Death in the Big Easy and Cherchez la Femme: New Orleans Women.

Katherine M. Gehl is a business leader, author, speaker, and political innovator. Katherine was president and CEO of Gehl Foods, a $250 Million high-tech food manufacturing company in Wisconsin. Her career includes roles in the private and public sectors including at Oracle Corporation, Bernstein Investment Research and Management, Mayor Richard M. Daley’s Office at the City of Chicago, and Chicago Public Schools. In 2011, Katherine was confirmed by the U.S. Senate to serve on the Board of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.