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Stephen Dunn was born in New York City in 1939. He earned a B.A. in history and English from Hofstra University, attended the New School Writing Workshops, and finished his M.A. in creative writing at Syracuse University. Dunn has worked as a professional basketball player, an advertising copywriter, and an editor, as well as a professor of creative writing. Dunn's other honors include the Academy Award for Literature, the James Wright Prize, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. Dunn is currently Richard Stockton College of New Jersey Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing and lives in Port Republic, New Jersey.

Katie Fawcett received her PhD from the University of Edinburgh where she studied the behavior and ecology of chimpanzees living in the Budongo Forest, Uganda. At Karisoke, she oversees various activities, including daily monitoring of and research on three groups of gorillas, which represent a third of the remaining Virunga mountain gorilla population. She also manages research programs on the biodiversity of the Volcanos National Park, education programs aimed at increasing the knowledge about gorillas and biodiversity conservation, and the care of 10 confiscated orphaned gorillas.

Edward Ball was born in Savannah, Georgia; graduated from Brown University; and was a writer for *The Village Voice*. His first book, *Slaves in the Family*, won the National Book Award. He is also the author of *The Sweet Hell Inside*. Edward Ball is the son of an Episcopal priest from an old Southern family in Charleston. His mother was a bookkeeper raised in New Orleans. When he learned that his ancestors once owned many thousands of slaves, he decided to research his family's unsavory past. The result was his first book *Slaves in the Family*.

Amy Chua is the John M. Duff Professor of Law at Yale Law School. Her first book, *World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability*, a *New York Times* bestseller, was selected by *The Economist* as one of the best books of 2003. Her second book, *Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance—and Why They Fall*, was a critically acclaimed *Foreign Affairs* bestseller.

**Susan Faludi** is a journalist and author who has written extensively on gender issues. In 1991 she was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism for a piece on the leverage buyout of Safeway Stores, focusing on the “human cost of high finance.” After graduating from Harvard University, where she wrote for The Harvard Crimson, she was a contributor to the New Yorker, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Nation, as well as many other publications. In the 1980s Faludi wrote several pieces on the feminist movement and the resistance to it, resulting in her 1991 book, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, for which she won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction. She went on to write Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man, The Terror Dream, and, most recently, The Darkroom, which was inspired by her father’s transsexuality. She was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies in the 2008-2009 academic year and a 2013-2014 Tallman Scholar in the Gender and Women’s Studies Program at Bowdoin College.

Giacomo Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire. Some of his arias, such as "O mio babbino caro" from Gianni Schicchi, "Che gelida manina" from La bohème, and "Nessun dorma" from Turandot, have become part of popular culture.

Elvira Puccini was Italian composer, Giacomo Puccini's, wife.

One of America's most admired and respected composers, John Adams is a musician of enormous range and technical command. His works, both operatic and symphonic, stand out among contemporary classical compositions for their depth of expression, brilliance of sound, and the profoundly humanist nature of their themes. Over the past 25 years, Adams's music has played a decisive role in turning the tide of contemporary musical aesthetics away from academic modernism and toward a more expansive, expressive language, entirely characteristic of his New World surroundings. Adams' On the Transmigration of Souls, composed for the New York Philharmonic in 2002, to commemorate the first anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks, received the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Music, and the recording on Nonesuch won a rare triple crown of Grammy Awards: Best Classical Recording, Best Orchestral Performance, and Best Classical Contemporary Composition. Adams has also received critical acclaim for his creative programming at the most important music venues in the world. In April and May of 2003, Lincoln Center presented a festival titled John Adams: An American Master, the most extensive festival that the venue has ever devoted to a living composer.

David L. Richards is Assistant Director of the Northwood University Margaret Chase Smith Library in Skowhegan, Maine. He earned his Ph.D. in History from the University of New Hampshire.

The music of Lior Navok emerges from reflections on nature and humankind. Described by the Boston Globe as "colorful, haunting, accomplished and exciting", Navok's music takes listeners into revealing journeys through sound. With a work-catalog spanning more than sixty works for stage music, orchestral music, chamber music, choral music, vocal music and solo, Navok has earned his place as one of the most innovative, fresh and communicative composers of the younger generation. Contemporary classical music develops into an emotional experience rather than an intellectual one. Navok has spent many years in Boston, Paris as well as Berlin, and Israel - his native land. Lior Navok has been commissioned by classical music performers, soloists, conductors, ensembles and orchestras throughout the world, bringing his music to venues such as Carnegie Hall in New York. Some of his past collaborations include the Philharmonie Hannover NDR, Israel Philharmonic, The Borromeo String Quartet, Rascher Saxophone Quartet among many others.