Authors & Moderators 2026
Kwame Alexander
Kwame Alexander is a #1 New York Times bestselling author of 47 books, including Why Fathers Cry at Night, Black Star, a Coretta Scott King Author Honor book, J vs K, an illustrated novel he penned with Jerry Craft, and the motivational primer for graduates, creatives, and professionals, entitled Say Yes, and The Crossover, his Newbery-Medal winning novel-turned Emmy® Award-winning Disney+ TV series, his latest release and first chapter book The Mighty Macy and the upcoming first book in his new Brainstormerz series. He is also the co-creator and executive producer of the Emmy®-nominated Acoustic Rooster and his Barnyard Band and Acoustic Rooster: Jazzy Jams, a PBS KIDS special and series of shorts produced by GBH Kids based on his beloved children’s book of the same name. He regularly shares his passion for literacy, books and the craft of writing around the world, including Ghana, West Africa, where he opened the Barbara E. Alexander Memorial Library and Health Clinic. A recipient of the 2025 NAACP Image Award, Kwame is a 2026 Sine 250+ Fellow at American University and the founder of the literacy non-profit, One Word at a Time.
Lois Cahall
Lois Cahall is the author of four novels including her most recent Maybe Marilyn (Post Hill/Simon & Schuster, May 2026). Her debut, Plan C: Just In Case (Bloomsbury) was a #1 best-seller in the UK remaining in the top three fiction for 2012. Lois spent her early career writing women’s, men’s, food and culture articles for Hearst and Conde Nast publications. She is the former Creative Director of Development for James Patterson Entertainment and founder of both the Cape Cod Book Festival (2024) and the Palm Beach Festival (2015). Both bring in NYT best-selling authors.
Victoria Christopher Murray
Victoria Christopher Murray is the New York Times and USA Today best selling author of The Personal Librarian and The First Ladies, both of which she co-authored with Marie Benedict. She attended Hampton University, and received her MBA from New York University Stern School of Business. With more than 30 titles and 3 million books in print, Victoria has won ten African American Literary Awards, and has five NAACP Image Award nominations, where she won in 2016. Five of her novels have been made into movies for Lifetime.
Joseph Finder
Joseph Finder is the New York Times bestselling author of 17 novels, most recently The Oligarch’s Daughter. His books have won numerous awards, including the ITW Thriller Award, the Strand Critics Award, and the Barry Award. Two of his novels have been made into major motion pictures, High Crimes and Paranoia.
Isaac Fitzgerald
Isaac Fitzgerald is the New York Times bestselling author of Dirtbag, Massachusetts. He is also the author of the bestselling children’s book How to Be a Pirate as well as the co-author of Pen & Ink: Tattoos and the Stories Behind Them and Knives & Ink: Chefs and the Stories Behind Their Tattoos (winner of an IACP Award). He appears frequently on The Today Show, and his writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Esquire, GQ, The Guardian, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, and numerous other publications. He lives with his wife on the North Fork of Long Island.
Kristin Harmel
Kristin Harmel is the New York Times bestselling author of more than a dozen novels, including The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau, The Paris Daughter, The Forest of Vanishing Stars,The Book of Lost Namesand Meet Me in Paris. She is published in more than thirty languages and is the cofounder and cohost of the popular web series, Friends & Fiction. She lives with her husband and son in Orlando, Florida.
Ariel Lawhon
Ariel Lawhon is an award-winning, critically acclaimed, New York Times best-selling author of historical fiction. Her books have been translated into over thirty languages and have been Good Morning America, Library Reads, and One Book One County selections. She lives in the rolling hills outside Nashville, Tennessee, with her husband and four sons. Ariel splits her time between the grocery store and the baseball field.
Bruce Nichols
Bruce Nichols grew up in a Unitarian household, twenty minutes from Concord, Massachusetts. During an almost forty-year career in publishing, he served as publisher of both Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) and Little, Brown and Company, the original publishers of Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Louisa May Alcott. At HMH, he regularly reissued Thoreau’s works.
Nathaniel Philbrick
Nathaniel Philbrick is the author of In the Heart of the Sea, winner of the National Book Award; Mayflower, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; Valiant Ambition, winner of the George Washington Prize; Bunker Hill, winner of the New England Book Award; Travels with George; Away Off Shore; Second Wind; Sea of Glory; and The Last Stand.
Hank Phillippi Ryan
Hank Phillippi Ryan is the USA Today bestselling author of 17 thrillers including All This Could Be Yours, the 2026 Mary Higgins Clark Award winner, and Mother Daughter Sister Stranger. She’s won every major mystery award, and her thrillers are translated into multiple languages worldwide. Her fiction is inspired by a lifetime of investigating true crime as an on-air reporter for Boston’s WHDH-TV, winning multiple journalism honors, including an unprecedented 37 Emmys. A TedX speaker and in-demand literary moderator, national reviewers call her “a superb and gifted storyteller. ” A Chicago native with Indianapolis roots, Ryan lives in Boston.
John Searles
John Searles is a New York Times bestselling and award-winning author. He appears regularly on NBC’sToday show to discuss his favorite book selections and has written for The New York Times, Oprah Daily, and The Washington Post. He spent more than two decades as a top editor at Cosmopolitan, first hired by Helen Gurley Brown. His latest novel, Single Girls, was named a Best Book of Summer by Oprah Daily, Harper’s Bazaar and Boston Globe and has been praised by the LA Times as “seductive, witty and heartfelt” and Publishers Weekly as a “glorious smash!”
