Calvin Duncan is the founder and director of the Light of Justice program, which is focused on improving legal access for incarcerated individuals. Falsely accused of murder at the age of nineteen, he endured a life sentence without the possibility of parole in Louisiana prisons for more than twenty-eight years. While incarcerated, he became an inmate counsel substitute, or jailhouse lawyer, helping hundreds of fellow prisoners challenge wrongful convictions and unjust sentences. His efforts have contributed to landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions, including Smith v.

Sophie Cull is a criminal justice reform advocate who has published on the death penalty, life sentences, and prosecutorial misconduct. As a cofounder of The Visiting Room Project, she helped create the world’s largest collection of filmed interviews with people serving life without parole. Originally from Australia, she began her career in New Orleans, assisting legal organizations defending individuals on Louisiana’s death row.

JULIETTE is a New York Times and international best-selling author of fantasy and paranormal romance. She’s a mood reader as well as a mood writer if that wasn’t obvious by her eclectic book list. As a native of Louisiana, she is inspired by the moss-laden trees and slow-moving bayou of her home as well as the Gothic setting of nearby New Orleans. She loves lazy nights with her husband, old-fashioneds, and family gatherings.

She is represented by Rachel Brooks at BookEnds Literary Agency.

HEATHER CLARK earned her bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Harvard University and her doctorate in English from Oxford University. A former Visiting Scholar at the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing, she is the author of Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath; The Grief of Influence: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes; and The Ulster Renaissance: Poetry in Belfast 1962-1972. Red Comet was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the LA Times Book Prize

Oren Cass is the founder and chief economist at American Compass, a contributing opinion writer at the New York Times, and a contributing editor at the Financial Times. His 2018 book, The Once and Future Worker: A Vision for the Renewal of Work in America has been called “absolutely brilliant” by New York Times columnist David Brooks and “A brilliant book. And among the most important I’ve ever read” by Vice President JD Vance.

SASHA BONÉT is a writer and cultural critic based in New York City. Her criticism and essays have appeared in The Paris Review, Aperture, New York Magazine, Vogue, and BOMB, among other publications. Bonét is a professor of creative writing for Columbia University and Barnard College.

Keisha N. Blain is a historian and professor at Brown University. She is a Guggenheim, Carnegie, and New America Fellow and a New York Times bestselling author. She has published eight books, including the multi-prize-winning book Set the World on Fire: Black Nationalist Women and the Global Struggle for Freedom (2018); and the National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer's Enduring Message to America (2021). Her latest book, Without Fear: Black Women and the Making of Human Rights (W.W.

Jami Attenberg is the bestselling author of eight books of fiction and two works of non-fiction. Her novel The Middlesteins was a New York Times bestseller and a finalist for both the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction and the St. Francis College Literary Prize. She is also the creator of the annual online writing accountability project #1000wordsofsummer, which inspired the USA Today bestseller 1000 Words: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round.

Rick Atkinson is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of seven previous works of history, including The Long Gray Line, the Liberation Trilogy (An Army at Dawn, The Day of Battle, and The Guns at Last Light), and The British Are Coming, the first volume of the Revolution Trilogy. He has won numerous awards, including Pulitzer Prizes for history and journalism. His latest book is The Fate of the Day.