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Bonnie Jo Campbell

Bonnie Jo Campbell

(IN PERSON AT MILLIKEN AUDITORIUM & LIVESTREAMED) On Sat., Jan. 27, Bonnie Jo Campbell joins the National ...

Bonnie Jo Campbell is one of our most highly acclaimed authors in Michigan—a national bestseller, a finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and a Guggenheim fellow award winner.

She is the author of the national bestselling novel Once Upon a River, praised by the New York Times Book Review as “an excellent American parable about the consequences of our favorite ideal, freedom.” The book was made into an award-winning feature film.

Her first novel, Q Road, delves into the lives of a rural community where development pressures brought unwelcome change. And her critically-acclaimed short fiction collection, American Salvage, was finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critic’s Circle Award. The collection tells fourteen rowdy stories of folks struggling to make sense of the twenty-first century. She also wrote Women and Other Animals, which won the AWP prize for short fiction; and the collection Mothers, Tell Your Daughters. Her awards also include a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow. She and her husband live with their pet donkeys outside of Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Kaveh Akbar

Kaveh Akbar

(IN PERSON AT CITY OPERA HOUSE & LIVESTREAMED) On Wed., Feb. 7, Kaveh Akbar joins the National Writers Series

Presented with the Support of Lola Jackson and Dilys Tosteson Garcia “Community-Building” Author Conversations

Kaveh Akbar is the author of the novel Martyr!, and his poems appear in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Paris Review, The Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. He is the author of two poetry collections: Pilgrim Bell and Calling a Wolf a Wolf, in addition to a chapbook, Portrait of the Alcoholic. He is also the editor of The Penguin Book of Spiritual Verse: 110 Poets on the Divine. He lives in Iowa City. Since 2020, Kaveh has served as poetry editor for The Nation.

 

Twin Flames: Burned! A Survivor and Cult Expert Speak Out

Twin Flames: Burned! A Survivor and Cult Expert Speak Out

(IN PERSON AT CITY OPERA HOUSE & LIVESTREAMED) On Thurs. Feb. 22, Janja lalich and Keely Griffin joins the ...

 

Janja Lalich, Ph.D. is a researcher, author, and educator specializing in cults and extremist groups, with a particular focus on charismatic relationships, political and other social movements, ideology, and social control, and issues of gender and sexuality. She has been a consultant to educational, mental health, business, media, and legal professionals, as well as having worked with current members, former members, and families of members of controversial groups.

A former Fulbright scholar, Dr. Lalich is a Professor Emerita of Sociology at California State University, Chico, where in 2007 she was awarded the Professional Achievement Honor. She is also the founder and director of the Center for Research on Influence and Control. She has a Master’s in Human Development and a Ph.D. in Human and Organizational Systems from Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara, California.

Keely Griffin is one of the survivors bravely sharing her experience inside the TFU cult. In addition to exposing TFU, she aspires to advocate for fellow survivors in the legal system and contribute to the education and legislation around coercive control.”

Mitch Albom

Mitch Albom

(IN PERSON AT THE CITY OPERA HOUSE & LIVESTREAMED) On Dec. 13, Mitch Albom joins the National Writers Series

 

Mitch Albom, a “writer with soul” (Los Angeles Times), is an author, screenwriter, playwright and nationally syndicated columnist. Four of his books, including Tuesdays with Morrie, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, For One More Day, and Have a Little Faith, have been made into highly acclaimed television movies for ABC. Albom has founded nine charities in and around Detroit, including the first ever 24-hour medical clinic for homeless children in America, and also operates an orphanage in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, which he visits every month without exception. He lives with his wife, Janine, in Detroit.

Nita Prose

Nita Prose

(IN PERSON AT THE CITY OPERA HOUSE & LIVESTREAMED) On Dec. 6, Nita Prose joins the National Writers Series

 

Nita Prose is the author of The Maid, which has sold over 1 million copies worldwide and was published in over forty countries. A #1 New York Times bestseller and a Good Morning America Book Club Pick, The Maid won the Ned Kelly Award for International Crime Fiction and was an Edgar Awards finalist for Best Novel. The Mystery Guest is a new mess. A new mystery. And it’s up to Molly the Maid to uncover the truth, no matter how dirty.

Ken Follett

Ken Follett

(The Alluvion & LIVESTREAMED) On Oct. 1 Ken Follett the National Writers Series

 

Ken Follett is one of the world’s best-loved authors, selling more than 188 million copies of his 36 books. Follett’s first bestseller was “Eye of the Needle”, a spy story set in the Second World War. In 1989, “The Pillars of the Earth” was published and has since become Follett’s most popular novel. It reached number one on bestseller lists around the world and was an Oprah’s Book Club pick. Its sequels, “World Without End” and “A Column of Fire”, and prequel “The Evening and the Morning”, proved equally popular, and the Kingsbridge series has sold more than 50 million copies worldwide. Follett lives in Hertfordshire, England, with his wife, Barbara. Between them they have five children, six grandchildren, and three Labradors.

For more information, please visit https://ken-follett.com/about/ 

V.E. Schwab

V.E. Schwab

(IN PERSON AT Lars Hockstad & LIVESTREAMED) On Oct. 7, V.E. Schwab joins the National Writers Series

 

VICTORIA “V. E.” SCHWAB is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty books, including the acclaimed Shades universe, the Villains series, the City of Ghosts series, Gallant, and the international bestseller The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. Her work has received critical acclaim, translated into over two dozen languages, and optioned for television and film. First Kill – a YA vampire series based on Schwab’s short story of the same name – is now a Netflix series. When not haunting Paris streets or trudging up English hillsides, she lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is usually tucked in the corner of a coffee shop, dreaming up monsters.

Heather Cox Richardson

Heather Cox Richardson

(IN PERSON AT LARS HOCKSTAD & LIVESTREAMED) On Oct. 17, Heather Cox Richardson joins the National Writers Series

Heather Cox Richardson is a Professor of History at Boston College. She has written about the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Gilded Age, and the American West in award-winning books whose subjects stretch from the European settlement of the North American continent to the history of the Republican Party through the Trump administration. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and The Guardian, among other outlets. She is the cohost of the Vox podcast, Now & Then. She began writing a daily Facebook essay in the midst of the 2019 impeachment crisis, providing historical context for the daily churn of news. It soon became a chart-topping Substack newsletter, Letters from an American, which now reaches more than 2 million subscribers – passionate, dedicated readers who rely on Richardson’s plainspoken, insightful take on America, past and present, as a much-needed dose of sanity in today’s insane world.

 

Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson

Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson

(IN PERSON AT CITY OPERA HOUSE & LIVESTREAMED) On Sept. 19, Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson the National ...

 

Authors Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson are both journalists at the Wall Street Journal who have covered gun culture and the industry, including mass shootings, for years. McWhirter, who lives in Georgia, is the author of Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America. He has also written for The Atlanta Journal-Constituion, The Detroit News, and the Harvard Review. Elinson, who lives in California, has also written for the Center for Investigative Reporting and The New York Times. The authors received a MacDowell Fellowship to complete this book.

Erin French

Erin French

(IN PERSON AT THE CITY OPERA HOUSE & LIVESTREAMED) On Nov.8 Erin French joins the National Writers Series

Erin French is the owner and chef of The Lost Kitchen, a 40-seat restaurant in Freedom, Maine, that was recently named one of TIME Magazine’s World’s Greatest Places and one of “12 Restaurants Worth Traveling Across the World to Experience” by Bloomberg. She is the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir, Finding Freedom, and features in Magnolia Network’s The Lost Kitchen, which is now in its third season. A born-and-raised native of Maine, she learned early the simple pleasures of thoughtful food and the importance of gathering for a meal. Her love of sharing Maine and its delicious heritage with curious dinner guests and new friends alike has been lauded by such outlets such as The New York Times, Martha Stewart Living, NPR’s All Things Considered, The Chew, CBS This Morning, The Today Show, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and Food & Wine.

Ed Yong

Ed Yong

(IN PERSON AT CITY OPERA HOUSE & LIVESTREAMED) On Sept. 12,Ed Yong the National Writers Series

Ed Yong is a science writer who won several honors for his reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic, including the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting and the George Polk Award for science reporting. His first book, I Contain Multitudes, was a New York Times bestseller. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, National Geographic, The New York TimesWiredScientific American, and more. He lives in Oakland, California.

Ed is also the best-selling author of I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us, a groundbreaking look at the relationship between animals and microbes. His second book, An Immense World, takes a comprehensive look at the fascinating sensory worlds of animals. A New York Times bestseller, An Immense World is longlisted for the PEN America 2023 Literary Award and has made many Best Books of the Year lists. In addition to The Atlantic, his work has appeared in National Geographic, the New Yorker, Wired, Nature, New Scientist, and Scientific American, among others.

Geraldine Brooks

Geraldine Brooks

(IN PERSON AT CITY OPERA HOUSE & LIVESTREAMED) On June 13, Geraldine Brooks joins the National Writers Series ...

Australian-born Geraldine Brooks is an author and journalist who grew up in the Western suburbs of Sydney, attending Bethlehem College Ashfield and the University of Sydney. She worked as a reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald for three years as a feature writer with a special interest in environmental issues.

In 1982 she won the Greg Shackleton Australian News Correspondents scholarship to the journalism master’s program at Columbia University in New York City. Later she worked forThe Wall Street Journal, where she covered crises in the the Middle East, Africa, and the Balkans. In 1990, with her husband Tony Horwitz, she won the Overseas Press Club Award for best coverage of the Gulf War. The following year they received a citation for excellence for their series, “War and Peace.”  In 2006 she was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard University. She returned to Harvard as a Visiting Lecturer in 2021.

She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in fiction in 2006 for her novel March. Her novels People of the BookCaleb’s Crossing and The Secret Chord all were New York Times Bestsellers. Her first novel, Year of Wonders is an an international bestseller, translated into more than 25 languages and currently optioned for a limited series by Olivia Coleman’s production company. She is also the author of the nonfiction works Nine Parts of DesireForeign Correspondence and The Idea of Home.

Brooks married fellow journalist and author Tony Horwitz in Tourette-sur-Loup France in 1984 and were together until his sudden death in 2019.  They have two sons, Nathaniel and Bizu, She now lives with a dog named Bear and a mare named Valentine by an old mill pond on Martha’s Vineyard and spends as much time as she can in Australia.  In 2016, she was named an Officer in the Order of Australia.