Cindy Cheung most recently appeared onstage in Alex Lin’s LAOWANG at Primary Stages, directed by Joshua Brody. Her additional theater credits include The Antiquities and Catch As Catch Can at Playwrights Horizons, Coach Coach with Clubbed Thumb, Merry Me at the New York Theatre Workshop, Golden Shield with the Manhattan Theater Club, and William Inge’s Bus Stop at Classic Stage Company with Transport Group and NAATCO. Cheung’s screen credits include Dying for Sex, The Sinner, The Flight Attendant, Billions, Thirteen Reasons Why, High Maintenance, Mistress America, Obvious Child, and Lady in the Water. Cheung was a 14-year steering committee member of the Asian American Performers Action Coalition (AAPAC), which received a Tony Honor for Excellence in the Theatre and an Obie Award Special Citation for Advocacy in the Field of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. She has an MFA from A.C.T. and a B.S. in Applied Mathematics from UCLA. Her current projects include the comedy series American Classic on MGM+
Melora Hardin starred in Amazon’s Transparent in her Emmy-nominated role as Tammy Cashman, as Jacqueline Carlyle in Freeform’s The Bold Type, and is recognized worldwide as Jan Levinson from NBC’s The Office. On stage, she recently starred alongside Robert Downey Jr. in McNEAL at Lincoln Center. Hardin also directed The Bold Type and received a Best Director Women’s Image Award nomination for her episode. She starred in the first one-woman movie ever, Golden Vanity, which has garnered seven awards in the first six festivals it’s played at, including three Best Actress and two Audience Awards. Her extensive big-screen credits include 17 Again, Hannah Montana: The Movie, 27 Dresses, The Hot Chick, Absolute Power, and You, which she also directed. Hardin has been a professional actor since she was six years old and has guest starred and recurred on TV favorites such as Little House on the Prairie, The Love Boat (the original), Magnum P.I., Friends, Gilmore Girls, Monk, The Blacklist, Scandal, A Million Little Things, and stars in Love, Classified on the Hallmark Channel. Melora reprised her role as Trudy Monk in Mr. Monk's Last Case, the Golden Globe and Critics Choice–nominated movie streaming now on NBC Peacock. Hardin is currently directing––and also appears in––the documentary Hunter’s Thunder (working title). Hardin is also a collage artist; she had her first gallery show of her large, fine art collages in 2024 and has turned some of her collages into a line of bold and beautiful wallpaper and wearable art scarves, Storyboards by Melora Hardin, which can be found on her website www.Melora.com and on Instagram @storyboardsbymelorahardin and @MeloraDHardin.
Naomi Kritzer is a science fiction and fantasy writer living in St. Paul, Minnesota. Her 2023 short story “The Year Without Sunshine” won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, and her 2015 short story “Cat Pictures Please” was a Locus Award and Hugo Award winner, and was nominated for a Nebula Award. A subsequent short story collection of the same title followed in 2017. Kritzer’s novels include the Freedom series, Turning the Storm, Fires of the Faithful, and the young adult novelsChaos on CatNet and Catfishing on CatNet, which was honored with a Minnesota Book Award, an Edgar Award, and a Nautilus Silver. Her most recent book, Liberty’s Daughter, was published in 2023.
Ling Ma is the author of the novel Severance, which received the Kirkus Prize, a Whiting Award, the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, and the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award. Her story collection, Bliss Montage, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and The Story Prize. She is a 2024 MacArthur Fellow.
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
“Little Free Library,” by Naomi Kritzer, from Reactor Magazine (April 8, 2020). Copyright © 2020 by Naomi Kritzer. Used by permission of the author.
“Winner,” by Ling Ma, from The Yale Review (Volume 111, No. 4, December 11, 2023). Copyright © 2023 by Ling Ma. Abridged version of the text approved by the author and used by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux and The Wylie Agency.
