Teagle F. Bougere recently portrayed James Baldwin in The American Vicarious production of Debate: Baldwin vs. Buckley, in New York City and London. He co-starred with Catherine Zeta-Jones in the television series Queen America. Bougere's Broadway credits include The Crucible, A Raisin in the Sun, and The Tempest. He was featured in The Public Theater’s productions of Socrates and the much acclaimed production of Coriolanus in Central Park. His most recent New York stage appearance was the world premiere of The New Englanders at Manhattan Theater Club. Additional theater credits include Is God Is at SoHo Rep, Beast in the Jungle, the title role in the stage adaptation of Ralph Ellison’s novel Invisible Man at The Court Theater in Chicago, The Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C., and The Huntington in Boston, Julius Caesar and Cymbeline for The Public Theater in Central Park, A Soldier’s Play at Second Stage, A Fair Country at Lincoln Center, Last Dance for Sybil (with Ruby Dee) at the New Federal Theatre, An Iliad (one-man show) at the Pittsburgh Public Theater, and Joe Turner’s Come and Gone and Blue Door at Berkeley Rep. His film and television credits include Hill ’n’ Gully, The Path, The Mist, Good Friday, Conviction, Cosby, The Job, Third Watch, Murder in Black and White, A Night at the Museum, The Imposters, The Pelican Brief, Two Weeks Notice, What the Deaf Man Heard, and Bull, as well as seven episodes for the Law & Order franchise.

Catherine Cohen is a comedian and actress based in NYC. She is best known for her Netflix comedy special The Twist? She’s Gorgeous. She hosts a weekly cabaret show at Alan Cumming’s East Village venue, Club Cumming, and currently co-hosts the popular weekly podcast Seek Treatment. Cohen’s first book, God I Feel Modern Tonight, Poems from a Gal About Town, was published in 2021.

Hugh Dancy’s film and television credits include Black Hawk Down, Ella Enchanted, King Arthur, Adam, the television mini-series Elizabeth I, Blood and Chocolate, Martha Marcy May Marlene, The Big C, Hannibal, Deadline Gallipoli, The Path, Late Night, Homeland, The Good Fight, Roar, and Downton Abbey: A New Era. On stage, he starred off-Broadway in The Pride and Apologia, and on Broadway in Venus in Fur and the revival of Journey’s End. Dancy currently stars in the reboot of Law & Order.

Jin Ha’s stage credits include Here We Are, Hamilton: An American Musical, and M. Butterfly. Ha can be seen onscreen in Pachinko (Apple TV+), DEVS (FX), Love Life (HBO Max) and Jesus Christ Superstar: Live in Concert (NBC). Ha is an alumnus of the NYU Graduate Acting program.

N. K. Jemisin is the first author in the genre’s history to win three consecutive Best Novel Hugo Awards, for her Broken Earth trilogy. Her work has also won the Nebula and Locus Awards, and she is a 2020 MacArthur Fellow. She’s been an instructor for Clarion and Clarion West writing workshops. Among other critical work, she was formerly the science fiction and fantasy book reviewer at The New York Times. Her speculative works range from fantasy to science fiction to the undefinable; her themes include resistance to oppression, the inseverability of the liminal, and the coolness of Stuff Blowing Up.

Alexandra Chang is the author of Days of Distraction and Tomb Sweeping. She is a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree, and her writing has appeared in Zoetrope: All-Story, The New York Times, Harper’s Bazaar, Guernica, and elsewhere.

Daniel Lavery is a writer whose next book, Women's Hotel, will be published in 2024.

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929 – 2018) authored 23 novels, 12 volumes of short stories and novellas, 11 volumes of poetry, 13 children’s books, five collections of essays, and four volumes of translation over her celebrated career, including the Hainish Cycle and the Earthsea series. Le Guin’s major titles have been translated into 42 languages and have remained in print, often for over half a century. She was honored with the National Book Award, nine Hugo Awards, six Nebula Awards, the Kafka Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Howard Vursell Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. She was the second woman named a Grand Master of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Le Guin is the subject of the documentary Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin. Her final publications included the non-fiction collections Dreams Must Explain Themselves and Ursula K Le Guin: Conversations on Writing, both released posthumously.

John Scalzi is one of the most popular Science Fiction authors of his generation. His debut novel, Old Man's War, won him the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. His New York Times bestsellers include The Last Colony, Fuzzy Nation, Redshirts (which won the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novel), The Last Emperox, and 2022's The Kaiju Preservation Society. Material from his blog, Whatever (whatever.scalzi.com), has earned him two other Hugo Awards. You can get to his blog by typing the word "Whatever" into Google. No, seriously, try it.