Jodi Balfour is an actress and filmmaker based in LA and New York. After growing up on stages in South Africa, performing in professional ballets and musicals, she graduated from the country’s premier drama school at The University of Cape Town. Landing a highly coveted role in a BBC miniseries, her screen career quickly evolved abroad. She won a Canadian Screen Award for her leading role in the TV series Bomb Girls, starred in HBO/Cinemax’s critically acclaimed Quarry, and went on to lead the BBC1 miniseries Rellik. Balfour has since wowed critics with her portrayal of Jackie Kennedy in Netflix’s The Crown and with her performance on Apple TV’s For All Mankind, playing Ellen Wilson, astronaut turned first female president of the United States. She then went on to star opposite Juno Temple as investor Jack Danvers in Season 3 of the global phenomenon Ted Lasso. In film, Balfour was recently seen in the Sony Pictures Classics film Freud’s Last Session, starring alongside Sir Anthony Hopkins and Matthew Goode, as well as in the debut feature from up-and-coming filmmaker Will Seefried, Lilies Not for Me. Onstage, she starred in the two-hander Lowcountry at the Atlantic Theatre Company, directed by Tony Award nominee Jo Bonney. Balfour recently wrote and directed her first short film, which is currently being submitted to festivals, and she is preparing to make her first feature next year.

Allegra Goodman is the author of six novels, including the national bestseller Sam, which was a Read with Jenna selection; two short story collections; and a novel for young readers. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker and elsewhere, and has been anthologized in The O. Henry Awards and Best American Short Stories. Isola, a Reese’s Book Club pick and longlisted for the American Library In Paris Book Award, was published in paperback on December 2.

Ann Napolitano is the bestselling author of the novels Hello Beautiful, which was selected as Oprah’s 100th Book Club pick; Dear Edward, an instant New York Times bestseller, a Read with ­Jenna selection, and an Apple TV series; A Good Hard Look; and Within Arm’s Reach.