Claire Danes is a multiple award–winning actress and producer. For eight seasons, Danes starred as Carrie Mathison in Showtime’s Homeland, garnering her two Emmy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and a SAG Award for Best Actress. Next, Danes will star in Netflix’s The Beast in Me opposite Matthew Rhys, which she also executive produced. Previously, Danes starred in FX’s limited series Fleishman Is in Trouble, for which she was nominated for an Emmy Award, Golden Globe, and Critics’ Choice Award for her performance. Danes received critical acclaim for her portrayal of Temple Grandin in HBO’s bio-pic Temple Grandin, winning the Emmy, Golden Globe, and SAG Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie. Danes is well known for her breakout role as Angela Chase in Winnie Holzman’s series My So-Called Life, for which she won a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Drama and was nominated for an Emmy in the same category. Her additional recent credits include starring in Steven Soderbergh’s Full Circle on HBO and Apple TV+’s The Essex Serpent opposite Tom Hiddleston. Upcoming, she is set to reteam with Winnie Holzman to star and executive produce The Applebaum Curse for HBO.

Troy Iwata joined Comedy Central's The Daily Show in 2024 as one of its new correspondents and in the same year was named as one of Variety’s Top 10 Comics to Watch. He previously starred in the Netflix series Dash & Lily and recurred opposite Anne Hathaway in AppleTV+'s WeCrashed. Iwata can be seen recurring on Netflix’s The Perfect Couple opposite Nicole Kidman as well as in a guest star role on Lena Dunham's new series for Netflix, Too Much. He also starred in the hit queer horror-comedy Summoning Sylvia opposite Michael Urie. An acclaimed singer and stage actor as well, Troy made his Broadway debut in Be More Chill.

Over 25 years in comedy, Gary Gulman has established himself as the comedian’s comedian, a remarkable performer, and a peerless writer. It’s no wonder The New York Times wrote, “Gary is finally being recognized as one of the country’s strongest comedians.” A product of Boston, Gulman has been a scholarship college football player, an accountant, and a high school teacher. He has made countless television appearances as both a comedian and an actor, and is one of only a handful of comedians to perform on every single late-night comedy program. Gulman has made four masterful TV specials, including his most recent universally acclaimed stand-up special for HBO, The Great Depresh, a tour-de-force look at mental illness, which is equal parts hilarious and inspiring. In 2019, he appeared in the international blockbuster film Joker. He can most recently be seen co-starring with Amy Schumer in the hit Hulu comedy series Life & Beth. Gary’s first book, published by Flatiron Books, is titled Misfit: Growing Up Awkward in the ’80s, a memoir based on his life from kindergarten through twelfth grade. It was released in September of 2023. Amy Schumer called the book “laugh-out-loud funny and heartfelt,” and MacArthur Fellowship recipient Adrian Nicole LeBlanc found it “exquisite, love-affirming and generous.” Today, Gulman is one of the most popular touring comics, selling out theaters around the country, including the prestigious Carnegie Hall in New York City.

Kenice Mobley is a standup comedian who has been seen on The Tonight Show, Comedy Central, HBO, and Netflix. She was recently listed as a comic to watch in Time Out, Vulture, and Essence magazine, and her debut comedy album, Follow Up Question, was one of Paste Magazine's albums of the year. This fall, you can catch her hosting the 10th Annual Hot Guy Draft as part of the New York Comedy Festival.

BD Wong is a regular reader, and former host, of Selected Shorts. He won the Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, Theatre World Award, Clarence Derwent Award, and Tony Award for his Broadway debut in M. Butterfly. Other Broadway includes the revivals of You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown and Pacific Overtures. His work Off-Broadway and regionally includes American Conservatory Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Williamstown Theater Festival, McCarter Theatre, Public Theater, Drama Dept., and the Atlantic Theatre, and he has appeared in more than 20 feature films, including Bird Box, Focus, Seven Years in Tibet, 4 Jurassic films, 2 Mulan films, and 2 Father of the Bride films. On television, he has been featured on Awkwafina Is Nora From Queens, Mr. Robot (Emmy and Critics’ Choice Award nominations), American Horror Story: Apocalypse, Gotham, 11 seasons of Law & Order: SVU, Oz, and All-American Girl. He has received recognitions from the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Asian American Journalists Association, Asian AIDS Project, PFLAG, GLAAD, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the Anti-Violence Project, Lambda Legal, Museum of Chinese in America, and Marriage Equality New York for his presence and participation in his communities. He has received honorary degrees from School of Visual Arts, American Conservatory Theater and San Francisco State University, and sits on the Boards of Trustees of The Entertainment Community Fund (formerly The Actors’ Fund), American Conservatory Theater, and Rosie’s Theater Kids. He was born and raised in San Francisco and lives in Brooklyn, New York. @wongbd

Philip Graham is the author of two story collections, The Art of the Knock and Interior Design, and the novels How to Read an Unwritten Language and (as Author Unseen) What the Dead Can Say. His non-fiction includes The Moon; Come to Earth: Dispatches from Lisbon; and two memoirs of Africa co-authored with his wife, anthropologist Alma Gottlieb, Parallel Worlds and Braided Worlds. Graham's short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Washington Post Magazine, North American Review, Fiction, Los Angeles Review, and elsewhere, and his non-fiction essays have appeared in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, and McSweeney’s. A Professor Emeritus of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Graham is a founding editor and the current Editor-at-Large of the literary/arts journal Ninth Letter. His website can be visited at philipgraham.net.

Esther Freud trained as an actress before writing her first novel, Hideous Kinky, which was short-listed for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and made into a film starring Kate Winslet. After publishing her second novel, Peerless Flats, she was chosen as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. Her other books include The Sea House, Lucky Break, Mr Mac and Me, I Couldn’t Love You More, and My Sister and Other Lovers, which was published in August.

Meghana Indurti is a first-generation South Asian stand-up comedian and writer who got her start in Chicago and is currently based in LA. She is a humor writer for The New Yorker and Reductress and a headline contributor for The Onion. She was named Chicago Reader’s People to Know in 2016, selected as a StandUp NBC Semi-Finalist in 2017 and as a semi-finalist in the Boston Comedy Festival in 2016, and featured in the NBC Breakout Comedy Festival in 2019. Indurti is a regular at Laugh Factory Chicago and Zanies. She co-produces and hosts The Big One, recently ranked as one of the best stand-up shows by The LA Times. She is currently writing a collection of autobiographical humor essays for the Massie & McQuilkin Literary Agency.

J. Robert Lennon is the author of eleven novels, including Broken River, Subdivision, and Buzz Kill, and the story collections Pieces for the Left Hand, See You in Paradise, and Let Me Think. He teaches creative writing at Cornell University.

Charles Yu is the New York Times bestselling author of Interior Chinatown, winner of the National Book Award for fiction and a Hulu original series starring Jimmy O. Yang and Ronny Chieng, and the novel How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, a New York Times Notable Book and a Time magazine best book of the year, as well as two short story collections. He is currently developing projects for Searchlight, Amazon, and Paramount, and his work in television and film has been nominated for three WGA awards as well as the Humanitas Prize. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired, among other publications. Together with TaiwaneseAmerican.org, he established the Betty L. Yu and Jin C. Yu Writing Prizes, in honor of his parents.