A former Paris bureau chief for TIME magazine, Tom Sancton is the author of Song For My Fathers (2006), an acclaimed memoir of his jazz apprenticeship in 1960’s New Orleans. Sancton’s Bettencourt Affair (2017), about a scandal surrounding L’Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, has been optioned as a TV mini-series.
Nathaniel Rich is the author, most recently, of two works of nonfiction on environmental themes: Second Nature, which includes the story that serves as the basis for the film Dark Waters; and Losing Earth, a finalist for the PEN/E.O.
Jason Reid was named senior NFL writer for Andscape, ESPN’s platform exploring the intersections of sports, race, and culture, in January 2016, after serving as an NFL columnist, for ESPN.com for a year. He joined ESPN in February 2015 as an NFL columnist and his work appeared on the NFL pages of ESPN.com. Prior to joining ESPN, Reid covered the Los Angeles Dodgers for the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Commanders for the Washington Post and was a general sports columnist for the Post.
Tom Piazza is celebrated both as a novelist and as a writer on American music. His twelve books include the novels A Free State and City Of Refuge, the short-story collection Blues and Trouble, the post-Katrina manifesto Why New Orleans Matters, and Devil Sent The Rain: Music and Writing in Desperate America, a collection of his essays and journalism.
Imani Perry is the Henry A. Morss, Jr. and Elisabeth W. Morss Professor of Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University and the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at Harvard Radcliffe Institute. Perry is the author of 8 books, including the New York Times Bestseller South to America: A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation which received the 2022 National Book Award for Nonfiction, the inaugural Inside Literary Prize, and was named one of President Obama’s favorite books of 2022.
Casey Parks is a Washington Post reporter who covers gender and family issues. She was previously a staff reporter at the Jackson (Miss.) Free Press and spent a decade at The Oregonian, where she wrote about race and LGBTQ+ issues and was a finalist for the Livingston Award. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Oxford American, ESPN, USA Today, and The Nation. A former Spencer Fellow at Columbia University, Parks was most recently awarded the 2021 J.
Originally from Florida, Shannon Kelley Atwater moved to Louisiana in 2005 to attend Loyola University where she graduated with a degree in Visual Arts. She fell in love with the city and her husband; they planted their roots and haven’t left. When not writing, drawing, or painting, Atwater is raising her three kids and playing dress up as a larger than life flower with Krewe des Fleurs.
Richard Ovenden has been Bodley’s Librarian since 2014, and is the 25th person to hold the title, which is the senior executive position of the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford. In February 2022 he was also made Head of Gardens, Libraries and Museums at the University.
Todd Doughty is currently SVP, head of Publicity and Communications for the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group and has worked at Penguin Random House for more than two decades. A graduate of Southern Illinois University (Carbondale) and former bookseller, he lives with his partner in Westchester County, New York.
Scott Nelson is the Georgia Athletic Association Professor of History at UGA. His 2006 book Steel Drivin’ Man, about the legend of John Henry won four national awards including the Curti Prize for best book in US history. His latest book, Oceans of Grain compares conflicts over westward expansion in the United States to conflicts over Russian expansion into the Black Sea. Completed in 2021, it predicted continued Russian violence in Ukraine. It was published two days before Putin’s invasion.
