Melissa Bank (1960 – 2022) was the author of two bestselling books, The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing and The Wonder Spot, and won the 1993 Nelson Algren Award for short fiction. Her work has been translated into 33 languages, and two stories from Girls’ Guide were adapted into a 2007 movie starring Alec Baldwin and Sarah Michelle Gellar, titled Suburban Girl. Bank attended Hobart and William Smith Colleges and had an MFA from Cornell University. She taught in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton.
Raphael Bob-Waksberg is the creator and executive producer of the Netflix series BoJack Horseman. His first collection of short stories, Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory, was published in 2019.
Danielle Henderson is a TV writer, with credits including Maniac, Divorce and Dare Me. Her writing has appeared in The Cut, Vulture, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, and Elle. Her memoir, The Ugly Cry, was published by Viking in June 2021.
Richard Kind began his career in Chicago with the Practical Theatre Company. He has appeared on Broadway in The Producers, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and The Big Knife, for which he received a Drama Desk Award. His film credits include Argo, A Serious Man, All We Had, The Paper Store, The Visitor, The Station Agent, and Bombshell, as well as voicing characters in A Bug’s Life, Cars, and Inside Out. His television appearances include starring roles on Spin City and Mad About You, as well as Curb Your Enthusiasm, Gotham, I’m Dying Up Here, Burn Notice, Big Mouth, Luck, Red Oaks, The Other Two, and Brockmire, among others. Kind can currently be seen in East New York, History of the World: Part II, and the upcoming Ari Aster film Beau Is Dead.
As an Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild award winner, Julianna Margulies has achieved success in television, theater, and film. Margulies starred as Alicia Florrick on the long-running hit CBS show The Good Wife, which she also produced, and is also well known for her role as one of the original cast members of ER. More recently, Margulies has starred on critically acclaimed series including The Morning Show, Billions, and The Hot Zone. She has been involved with Project ALS and Erin’s Law and is also a board member of the New York City–based MCC Theater company. Her memoir, Sunshine Girl, was published in 2021.
Karen Pittman is best known for featured roles on And Just Like That..., The Morning Show, The Americans, Marvel’s Luke Cage, Yellowstone, Living with Yourself, and Homeland. Her numerous stage credits include Ayad Akhtar’s Pulitzer Prize–winning play Disgraced, for which she received the 2015 Theatre World Award, and Pipeline, for which she was nominated for Lucille Lortel and Broadway League’s Distinguished Performance awards. Pittman recently starred in the films What We Do Next and Unthinkably Good Things.
Meg Wolitzer is the New York Times bestselling author of The Female Persuasion, The Interestings, The Ten-Year Nap, and The Wife, among other books. She was the guest editor of The Best American Short Stories 2017, and 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
“Missed Connection—M4W” by Raphael Bob-Waksberg, from Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory (Knopf, 2019). Copyright © 2019 by Raphael Bob-Waksberg. Used by permission of the author.
“My Years of Living Dangerously” by Danielle Henderson, excerpted from The Ugly Cry (Viking, 2021) and as published on LitHub (June 18, 2021). Copyright © 2021 by Danielle Henderson. Excerpt courtesy Penguin Random House Audio from The Ugly Cry by Danielle Henderson.
“Run Run Run Run Run Run Run Away” by Melissa Bank, from The Wonder Spot (Viking, 2005). First appeared in Ploughshares (Spring 2005). Copyright © 2005 by Melissa Bank. Used by permission of The Friedrich Agency, LLC, on behalf of The Estate of Melissa Bank.
