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Since 1964, Twelfth Baptist Church has been led by Michael E. Haynes, a Roxbury native. Dr. Haynes has served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and as a member of the state Parole Board. He serves on the board of directors of several organizations including Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Christianity Today, and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. He also is a member of the U. S. Board of Daystar University, Nairobi.

Richard Moe, the seventh president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, brings a lifelong interest in history and a career-long commitment to public service to the position. As president, Moe leads the organization in its mission to save the nation's diverse historic places and create more livable communities for all Americans. Under his direction, the National Trust has greatly strengthened its financial base, reaffirmed its commitment to expanding and diversifying the organized preservation movement, become an outspoken and effective advocate of controlling sprawl and encouraging smart growth, and launched innovative initiatives to demonstrate preservation's effectiveness as a tool for community revitalization and as a key element in the fight against climate change. A member of the board of the Ford Foundation, Moe was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Maryland in 1998 and an honorary doctorate from the University of Minnesota in 2005. He was named an honorary member of The American Institute of Architects in 2003 and was the recipient of the Vincent Scully Prize from the National Building Museum in 2007. He is co-author of Changing Places: Rebuilding Community in the Age of Sprawl, a study of the causes of urban decline and the use of historic preservation as a tool for revitalization, published in 1997; and author of The Last Full Measure: The Life and Death of the First Minnesota Volunteers , a Civil War history published in 1993. A native of Duluth, Minnesota, Moe graduated from Williams College and received a law degree from the University of Minnesota Law School. He held administrative positions in government at the city, state and federal levels and practiced law in Washington, DC, before assuming the presidency of the National Trust in 1993.

Lucy Worsley was born in Reading, studied Ancient and Modern History at New College, Oxford, and later recieved a PhD in art history from the University of Sussex. Her first job after leaving college was at a historic house called Milton Manor in Oxfordshire. Soon after that she moved at the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, in the job of administrator of the Wind and Watermills Section. Here Lucy helped to organise that celebrated media extravaganza, National Mills Day. Worsley departed for English Heritage in 1997, first as an Assistant Inspector and then as an Inspector of Ancient Monuments and Historic Buildings; Bolsover Castle, Hardwick Old Hall, and Kirby Hall. In 2002 she made a brief excursion to Glasgow Museums before coming down to London as Chief Curator of Historic Royal Palaces in 2003.

Mark Dimunation was appointed chief of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress in March 1998. As Chief, Mr. Dimunation is responsible for the development and management of the Rare Book Collection, the largest collection of rare books in North America. He acquires materials, develops programs of lectures and presentations, and oversees the operations of the division. He came to the Library of Congress from Cornell University, where he had served since 1991 as curator of Rare Books and associate director for Collections in the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, and taught in the English Department. Mr. Dimunation had his start with rare books when he was appointed the assistant chief of Acquisitions at The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley. He served in this position from 1981 until 1983, when he was hired to be the Rare Book Librarian and Assistant Chief for Special Collections at Stanford University. Mr. Dimunation did his undergraduate work at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. Following some course work at Christ Church College in Oxford, Mr. Dimunation entered the graduate program in American History at the University of California, Berkeley. It was the experience of doing his research at The Bancroft Library that prompted Mr. Dimunation to pursue a career in Rare Book Librarianship. He specializes in 18th and 19th century English and American printing and has considerable experience working with antiquarian materials as well as fine press and contemporary artists books. He has lectured extensively about book collections and has authored a number of exhibition catalogs, including a recent study of Andrew Dickson White as a nineteenth-century book collector. Mr. Dimunation is a member of the Grolier Club, IFLA, and the ESTC Board and is currently chair of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS) of ACRL/ALA.

Gerald Graff is one of his generation's most influential commentators on education, not only as a historian and theorist, but also through his impact on the classroom practice of teachers. His 1987 book, *Professing Literature: An Institutional History*, is widely regarded as a definitive work. This book also helped launch Graff's argument, subsequently developed in *Beyond the Culture Wars: How Teaching the Conflicts Can Revitalize American Education* (1992), that schools and colleges should respond to curricular and disciplinary conflicts by "teaching the conflicts," incorporating debates, for example, about literature, history, and how these fields should be studied into courses themselves. Graff's idea of teaching the conflicts has also inspired two widely used "Critcial Controversy" textbooks, editions of Twain's *Adventures of Huckleberry Finn* and Shakespeare's *The Tempest*, both edited by Graff and James Phelan. Graff (and now Graff and Birkenstein) has given lectures and workshops at many schools and colleges, and Graff's work has been the topic of three special sessions at Massachusetts Library Association conferences. Graff's career has culminated in his election as President of MLA in 2008.

Alice Walker was born on February 9, 1944, in Eatonton, Georgia, the eighth and last child of Willie Lee and Minnie Lou Grant Walker, who were sharecroppers. When Alice Walker was eight years old, she lost sight of one eye when one of her older brothers shot her with a BB gun by accident. In high school, Alice Walker was valedictorian of her class, and that achievement, coupled with a "rehabilitation scholarship" made it possible for her to go to Spelman, a college for black women in Atlanta, Georgia. After spending two years at Spelman, she transferred to Sarah Lawrence College in New York, and during her junior year traveled to Africa as an exchange student. She received her bachelor of arts degree from Sarah Lawrence College in 1965. Alice Walker was active in the civil rights movement of the 1960's, and in the 1990's she is still an involved activist. She has spoken for the women's movement, the anti-apartheid movement, for the anti-nuclear movement, and against female genital mutilation. Alice Walker started her own publishing company, Wild Trees Press, in 1984. She currently resides in Northern California with her dog, Marley. She received the Pulitzer Prize in 1983 for *The Color Purple*. Among her numerous awards and honors are the Lillian Smith Award from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rosenthal Award from the National Institute of Arts & Letters, a nomination for the National Book Award, a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship, a Merrill Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Front Page Award for Best Magazine Criticism from the Newswoman's Club of New York. She also has received the Townsend Prize and a Lyndhurst Prize.

Jesper Juul is a video game researcher at the Singapore-MIT Game Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts and the author of numerous articles and reviews about video games. Born in 1970 in Denmark, he earned his PhD in information technology in 2004 from the University of Copenhagen.

Margaret H. Myer was born in New Haven, Connecticut, and graduated from Wellesley College in 1950. She received her master's degree in social work and worked in child psychiatry at Tufts New England Medical Center, where she was Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry. She became a lecturer on psychology at Harvard Medical School while working at Cambridge Hospital and developing a private practice.

Liza Ketchum has been making up stories ever since she was a little girl. She lived on a dirt road in Vermont with few other children nearby. Not having a television until she was much older, Liza had to make her own entertainment. During her junior year at Sarah Lawrence College, she studied with a wonderful writing teacher named Harvey Swados. He sent his students on strange, exciting assignments in New York City, wandering all over the city, taking notes on conversations and soaking up smells, textures, and tastes. From the class, Liza learned that some of the best writing comes from experience. She also studied education in college, and ran her first writing workshop for children. After graduation, Liza worked in special education in Washington, D.C., then lived in England and wrote a book about some of their most exciting schools. When she returned to Vermont, Liza started my own pre-school, using some of the teaching ideas she had seen in England. Her first novel, *West Against the Wind* was published in 1987 and she has been writing for young readers ever since. Liza also carry on her love of teaching by visiting schools, and by running writing workshops for students of all ages. In 2001, she joined the faculty of the Vermont College MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults, where she considers herself privileged to teach adult writers who are also creating stories for young readers.

Jack Gantos was born in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania. While in college, he and an illustrator friend, Nicole Rubel, began working on picture books. After a series of well-deserved rejections, they published their first book, *Rotten Ralph*, in 1976. *Rotten Ralph* was a success and marked the beginning of Jack's career as a professional writer. This surprised a great many people who thought he was going to specialize in rehabilitating old bookmobiles into housing for retired librarians. Jack continued to write children's books and began to teach courses in children's book writing and children's literature. He developed the masters degree program in children's book writing at Emerson College and the Vermont College M.F.A. program for children's book writers. He now devotes his time to writing books and educational speaking.