Mike Sacks works on the editorial staff for Vanity Fair and writes for The New Yorker, as well as contributing humor to Esquire, GQ, Believer, Vice, Salon, McSweeney’s, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other publications. He is the New York Times bestselling author of ten comedy books and three audio projects. The last four books have been featured on Vulture’s “Best Comedy Books of the Year” list. His books have made the New York Times Bestseller List twice. He's a Tulane 1990 grad.

Keith Payne is a professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an international leader in the psychology of inequality and discrimination. He uses behavioral experiments to discover how people understand their place in the social world. The stories, justifications, and rationalizations they tell themselves are infused with moral and social meaning,and have immense consequences for our politics.

Samhita Mukhopadhyay is the former executive editor of Teen Vogue and former executive editor at Feministing. She is the author of two books, Outdated: Why Dating is Ruining Your Love Life and most recently, The Myth of Making It. She also edited the anthology Nasty Women with Kate Harding. Her work has appeared in New York Magazine, The Cut, Vanity Fair, Vogue, The Atlantic Monthly, and Jezebel. Born in New York City, Mukhopadhyay lives between Putnam County and Brooklyn, NY. 

CASEY MCQUISTON is a #1 New York Times bestselling author of romantic comedies, including One Last Stop, I Kissed Shara Wheeler, and Red, White & Royal Blue, whose writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Bon Appetit. Born and raised in southern Louisiana, Casey now lives in New York City with a poodle mix named Pepper.

Christopher Kirchhoff, an expert in emerging technology, helped create the Defense Innovation Unit, which he continues to advise for. During the Obama administration, he was the director of strategic planning for the National Security Council and senior civilian adviser to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Chris obtained an AB degree from Harvard College and a PhD in social and political sciences from Cambridge University.

RACHEL KHONG is the author of Goodbye, Vitamin, winner of the California Book Award for First Fiction, and named a Best Book of the Year by NPR; O, The Oprah Magazine; Vogue; and Esquire. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Cut, The Guardian, The Paris Review, and Tin House. In 2018, she founded The Ruby, a work and event space for women and nonbinary writers and artists in San Francisco’s Mission District. She lives in California.

Amanda Jones has been an educator for 22 years and is the President of the Louisiana Association of School Librarians. She was the 2021 School Library Journal Co-Librarian of the Year, 2021 Library Journal Mover & Shaker, and 2020 Louisiana School Librarian of the Year. Amanda is a sought-after keynote speaker at national and international conferences, and has been interviewed in national media including MSNBC, NPR, NBC News, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and more .

Sarah Jaffe is a writer and reporter living in New Orleans and on the road. She is the author of Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion To Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone; Necessary Trouble: Americans in Revolt, and From the Ashes: Grief and Revolution in a World on Fire, all from Bold Type Books.

Arlie Hochschild was born in Boston, grew up in Maryland, attended Swarthmore College (BA) and U.C Berkeley (MA, PhD) where she has long taught sociology.

Barbara Heller was inspired to create the letters and ephemera in Pride and Prejudice, Anne of Green Gables, Persuasion, and Little Women by a desire to hold the characters’ letters in her own hands. In addition to curating the Handwritten Classic Series for Chronicle Books, she finds furnishings for many film and television shows, including Poker Face, Blue Bloods, The Americans, and When They See Us. A native of New Orleans, she graduated from Brown University with a degree in English Literature. She lives with her son in New York City.