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.
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.
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.
Jin Ha’s stage credits include Here We Are, Hamilton: An American Musical, and M. Butterfly. On screen, Ha has been seen in Civil War, Pachinko, DEVS, Love Life, and Jesus Christ Superstar: Live in Concert. Ha is an alumnus of the NYU Graduate Acting program.
N. K. Jemisin is an award-winning science fiction and fantasy author whose works include the novels The World We Make, The City We Became, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, The Killing Moon, The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, The Stone Sky, and the short story collection How Long ’Til Black Future Month? Jemisin is the first author to win three consecutive Hugo Awards, as well as the Locus and Nebula awards. Her fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Tor.com, Weird Tales, WIRED, Helix, Strange Horizons, Popular Science, and TheNew York Times Book Review, among other publications.
Daniel Lavery is a writer whose next book, Women's Hotel, will be published in October.
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.
Meg Wolitzer is the New York Times bestselling author of The Female Persuasion, The Interestings, The Ten-Year Nap, and The Wife, which was adapted to film in 2018, starring Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce. She was the guest editor of The Best American Short Stories 2017, and has also published books for young readers, mostly recently a picture book, Millions of Maxes. Wolitzer is a faculty member in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton, where she co-founded and co-directs BookEnds, a one-year, non-credit intensive in the novel.
CREDITS
“When the Yogurt Took Over,” by John Scalzi. Copyright © 2010 by John Scalzi. Used by permission of the author.
“Me and My Algo” from Tomb Sweeping by Alexandra Chang. Copyright © 2023 by Alexandra Chang. By permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
“The Ones Who Stay and Fight,” by N. K. Jemisin, from How Long ‘til Black Future Month? (Orbit Books, 2018). Copyright © 2018 by N. K. Jemisin. Used by permission of the author.
