Kevin Brockmeier is the author of the memoir A Few Seconds of Radiant Filmstrip; the novels The Truth About Celia, The Illumination, and The Brief History of the Dead; and the story collections The Ghost Variations, The View from the Seventh Layer, and Things That Fall from the Sky. His work has been translated into eighteen languages and he has published stories in The New Yorker, The Georgia Review, McSweeney’s, Zoetrope, Tin House, The Oxford American, The Best American Short Stories, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, and New Stories from the South. He has received the Borders Original Voices Award, three O. Henry Awards (one, a first prize), the PEN USA Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an NEA Grant. In 2007, he was named one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists. Brockmeier teaches frequently at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
Peter Francis James recently directed All's Well That Ends Well for the Old Globe in San Diego. He has appeared on Broadway in Left on Tenth, Funny Girl, Hillary and Clinton, Present Laughter, The Merchant of Venice, On Golden Pond, Drowning Crow, and Judgment at Nuremberg. His Off-Broadway credits include Stuff Happens at the Public, for which he won the Obie, Lucille Lortel, and Drama Desk Awards, The Maids at Classic Stage Company, for which he also received an Obie Award, The Lady From Dubuque at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, and Signature Theater in New York, and Cymbeline with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Television and film credits include Godfather of Harlem, Oz, Boardwalk Empire, Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow, Rough Night, The Code, The Bold Type, and Katy Keene. James has narrated more than 75 audiobooks and taught Acting (Shakespeare) at the Yale School of Drama from 2000 – 2020.
Anna Sale is an interviewer and writer whom The New York Times once likened to “a therapist at happy hour.” Since 2014, she has hosted Death, Sex & Money, Slate’s interview podcast about “the things we think about a lot and need to talk about more.” She has contributed to This American Life, Fresh Air, The New York Times, and The Atlantic, and has hosted national call-in radio specials as well as on-stage variety shows at San Francisco Sketchfest, Tribeca Fest, the Commonwealth Club of California, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Her 2021 book, Let’s Talk About Hard Things, explores how we navigate life’s most fraught conversations. Sale lives in Berkeley, California, with her husband and two children.
Michael Stuhlbarg Broadway credits include: Patriots (Tony nomination),The Pillowman (Tony nomination, Drama Desk Award),The Invention of Love, Cabaret, Taking Sides, and Saint Joan. Off-Broadway, he was honored with an OBIE Award for his performance in The Voysey Inheritance, and has appeared in 11 plays with the Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival, including the title roles in Richard II, Hamlet, and Tim Blake Nelson’s Socrates. His film credits include A Serious Man (Golden Globe nomination), Call Me by Your Name, The Shape of Water, The Post, Bones and All, Shirley, Hugo, Men in Black 3, Lincoln, Blue Jasmine, Steve Jobs, Trumbo, Arrival, Pawn Sacrifice, Doctor Strange 1 & 2, Miles Ahead, The Instigators, and The Amateur. His television credits include Dopesick (Emmy nomination), The Looming Tower (Emmy nomination), Your Honor, The Staircase, Fargo, Boardwalk Empire, Traitors, and Transparent. He can currently be seen in Luca Guadagnino’s film After the Hunt, opposite Julia Roberts, and he will be seen opposite Tom Cruise in Alejandro G. Iñárritu's upcoming film Digger, set to release this fall.
Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900) was an Irish writer, poet, and playwright. His novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, brought him lasting recognition, and he became one of the most successful playwrights of the late Victorian era with a series of witty social satires, including his masterpiece, The Importance of Being Earnest.
Meg Wolitzer is the New York Times bestselling author of The Female Persuasion, The Interestings, The Ten-Year Nap, The Position, and The Wife, among other novels. A musical of The Interestings is in development. Wolitzer was the guest editor of The Best American Short Stories 2017, and also writes books for young readers. She is a faculty member in the Creative Writing Program at Stony Brook University, where she co-founded and co-directs BookEnds, a yearlong intensive for emerging novelists.
CREDITS
“The Model Millionaire,” by Oscar Wilde. In the public domain.
“Space,” by Kevin Brockmeier, from Things That Fall from the Sky (Pantheon, 2002), and published in The Georgia Review (Summer 2002). Copyright © 2002 by Kevin Brockmeier. Used by permission of Dunow, Carlson & Lerner Literary Agency, Inc.
