Katy Simpson Smith was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. She is the author of the novels The Story of Land and Sea, a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice and one of Vogue’s Best Books of 2014; Free Men; and The Everlasting, a New York Times Best Historical Fiction Book of 2020. Her writing has also appeared in The Washington Post, The Paris Review, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Oxford American, Granta, and elsewhere.
Savannah Sellers anchors Morning News NOW on NBC News’ streaming news network NBC News NOW, co-hosts Stay Tuned, NBC News’ flagship Gen Z news program on Snapchat and reports as a correspondent across NBC News.
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, a 2025 Guggenheim Fellow, is the author of Cloudthief (Summer 2026) and three previous novels, all New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice selections: King Zeno (2018); Odds Against Tomorrow (2013); and The Mayor's Tongue (2008). He has also written two works of nonfiction on environmental themes: Second Nature (2021), which includes the story that serves as the basis for the film Dark Waters; and Losing Earth (2019), which is currently being adapted into a film directed by Tom McCarthy, shooting in New Orleans.
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 The Auburn Conference and City Of Refuge, the short-story collection Blues and Trouble, the post-Katrina manifesto Why New Orleans Matters, and the essay collection Devil Sent The Rain. He was a principal writer for the innovative New Orleans-based HBO drama series TREME, and the winner of a Grammy Award for his album notes to Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues: A Musical Journey. He lives in New Orleans.
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.
Shannon Atwater is a New Orleans based author-illustrator. She works in traditional mediums, mostly watercolors. When she's not working on books, you can find her 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.
