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.

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.

Prof. Richard Campanella, geographer and associate dean for research with the Tulane School of Architecture and Built Environment and holder of the Jean and Saul A. Mintz Professorship in Architecture, is the author of sixteen books and over 300 articles on Louisiana geography, history, urbanism, and related topics.

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.

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, Lost in the Game: A Book about Basketball, also 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." 

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.

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.

New York Times bestselling author Michael Lewis has published many books on subjects ranging from politics to Wall Street. Lewis’s newest #1 New York Times bestselling book, Going Infinite, tells the story of FTX’s collapse and the enigmatic founder at its center, Sam Bankman-Fried.
Lewis is the creator and host of Apple's #1 rated podcast Against the Rules, a searing look at what’s happened to fairness in American life through the lens of people who depend on public trust.

Stan McChrystal founded McChrystal Group in January 2011 to deliver innovative leadership solutions to businesses globally in order to help them transform and succeed in challenging, dynamic environments.