Roy Blount Jr. is the author of Alphabet Juice, Alphabetter Juice (or The Joy of Text), Save Room for Pie, Be Sweet, and twenty other books whose subjects include the movie Duck Soup ("delightfully erudite"-- Times), the 70s Pittsburgh Steelers ("Deserves a place on the short shelf of the cracked masterpieces of New Journalism" -- Dwight Garner in the Times), and Robert E. Lee ("A miniature masterpiece" -- Bookpage).
Jason Berry, an author and documentary filmmaker, gained renown for investigative reporting with Lead Us Not into Temptation (1992), which exposed bishops concealing predator priests. Rolling Stone called it “the bible of the survivors’ movement.”
Michelle Miller is an Emmy Award–winning journalist whose work has been featured across CBS News for more than two decades. She has served as a correspondent for “48 Hours,” anchored CBS News Streaming’s “Eye on America,” and spent many years as a co-host of “CBS Saturday Morning." Her work has spanned major national and international stories and earned multiple prestigious awards.
Marc Morial, who has been described as one of the few national leaders to possess “street smarts”, and “boardroom savvy”, is the current President and CEO of the National Urban League, the nation’s largest historic civil rights and urban advocacy organization.
He served as the highly successful and popular Mayor of New Orleans as well as the President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. He previously was a Louisiana State Senator, and was a lawyer in New Orleans with an active, high profile practice.
Thomas Beller is Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at Tulane University, a regular contributor to the New Yorker, and the author of several books, most recently, Degas at the Gas Station: Essays, and Lost in the Game: A Book about Basketball, both published by Duke University Press. He is a recipient of a 2024-25 Guggenheim Fellowship, a Robert Silvers Award for Works in Progress, and a New York City Book Award for Biography/memoir for his book, "J.D. Salinger: The Escape Artist."
American painter and author Alex Beard is best known for his elaborate wildlife compositions created in his signature style of gestural painting, which he has coined “Abstract Naturalism.”
Raised in a family that fostered philanthropy, creativity and exploration, Alex has traveled extensively around the world. The diverse cultures, colors, and climates of Africa, India, China, Australia and the Americas have profoundly influenced both his professional and artistic practice.
Jon Meacham is a Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer. The Rogers Chair in the American Presidency at Vanderbilt University, he is the author of the New York Times bestsellers His Truth Is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope, Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, American Gospel, and Franklin and Winston. A fellow of the Society of American Historians, Meacham lives in Nashville.
Terry Baquet is a 28-year veteran of NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune and a lifelong New Orleanian. He served as Sunday Editor and was the Page 1 Editor during the paper’s Katrina coverage, which won two Pulitzer Prizes in breaking news and public service.
Ken Auletta launched the Annals of Communications columns and profiles for The New Yorker magazine in 1992. He is the author of twelve books, including five national bestsellers: Three Blind Mice: How the TV Networks Lost Their Way; Greed And Glory On Wall Street: The Fall of The House of Lehman; The Highwaymen: Warriors of the Information Super Highway; World War 3.0: Microsoft and Its Enemies; and Googled, The End of the World As We Know It, which was published in November of 2009.
Heather designs and promotes solutions to inequality in America. Over her career in public policy, Heather has crafted legislation, testified before Congress and helped shape presidential campaign platforms. Her book The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together spent 10 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and was longlisted for the National Book Award and Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction.
