Forum Network

Harriet Reisen is a former fellow in screenwriting at the American Film Institute, Reisen has written dramatic and historical documentary scripts for PBS and HBO, and radio commentary for *Morning Edition* and *Marketplace*. She has been interested in Louisa May Alcott since her childhood marathon reading of Alcott's eight young adult novels. She has written a documentary of the life of Louisa May Alcott to be aired on PBS, for which *Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women* is a companion biography.

Stephen Dubner is an award-winning writer and journalist whose work has appeared in numerous major publications over the years, including *The New York Times*, *The New Yorker*, and *The Washington Post*. His has written several previous books, including *Choosing My Religion: A Memoir of a Family Beyond Belief* (originally published as *Turbulent Souls*), *Confessions of a Hero-Worshiper* and the international bestseller *Freakonomics*, which he co-wrote with Steven Levitt. His awards include the inaugural Quill Award for best business book, a Visionary Award from the National Council on Economic Education, a BookSense Book of the Year Award , all for *Freakonomics*. He also had both *Turbulent Souls* and *Freakonomics* chosen as Notable Books of the Year by *The New York Times*, in 1998 and 2005 respectively.

Danuta Borchardt is an award-winning translator from Polish to English. After a lengthy career in clinical psychiatry she turned to translation with an English edition of Witold Gombrowicz's novel *Ferdydurke*, for which she was awarded the National Translation Award in 2001, from the American Literary Translators Association. She has also written short stories, which have been published in *Exquisite Corpse*.

Lisa Rosner is professor of history at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. She is the author of *The Most Beautiful Man in Existence: The Scandalous Life of Alexander Lesassier*.

D.D. Guttenplan, the author of The Nation: A Biography is the magazine’s longtime London correspondent and co-editor of the Nation’s 150th anniversary special issue. His previous book, American Radical:The Life and Times of I.F. Stone was awarded the 2010 Sperber Prize for Biography. His first book, The Holocaust on Trial, was described by the New Yorker as “a mixture of superb reportage and serious reflection.” He produced the acclaimed documentary film Edward Said: The Last Interview and is a frequent commentator on American culture and politics for the Guardian and the BBC.

Mary Karr is an award-winning poet and best-selling memoirist. She is the author of *Lit*, the sequel to her critically acclaimed and New York Times bestselling memoirs *The Liars' Club* and *Cherry*. A sought-after speaker, Karr has given distinguished talks at prestigious universities, libraries, and writers' festivals, including Harvard University, Oxford University, Princeton University, Brown University, Syracuse University ("On Salmon Rushdie" with Salmon Rushdie), the New York Public Library, the Los Angeles Public Library, the Folger Library (Poetry Society of America/Emily Dickinson Lecture), The New Yorker Literary Festival, PEN/Faulkner, and the Festival of Faith and Writing.

Michael Goldfarb has been one of public radio's most familiar voices from London: first as NPR's London correspondent and later bureau chief; then as the senior correspondent for the public radio program *Inside Out*. His book on the conflict, *Ahmad's War, Ahmad's Peace: Surviving Under Saddam, Dying in the New Iraq*, was named one of the *New York Times*' Notable Books of 2005. He has also received the Overseas Press Club's Lowell Thomas Award for Outstanding Radio Journalism, the duPont-Columbia Silver Baton and two Edward R. Murrow Awards.

Lidia Mattichio Bastianich is one of the best-loved chefs on public television, a best-selling cookbook author, restaurateur, and owner of a flourishing food and entertainment business. Her current PBS series, *Lidia's Italy*, has garnered numerous accolades, including the 2009 James Beard Award for Best Television Show. Her latest cookbook, the lushly illustrated *Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy*, complements the TV series and provides an appetizing look into the regional cooking of many lesser-known parts of Italy. Her previous public TV credits include *Lidia's Family Table*, *Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen*, and *Lidia's Italian Table*. A proud grandmother of five, Lidia's ebullient approach to life and cooking is summed in her signature line, "Tutti a tavola a mangiare!" or "Everybody to the table to eat!"

Rana Husseini is a Jordanian journalist and human rights activist whose work focuses on social issues with a special emphasis on violence against women. She has received numerous awards for her reporting, including a medal from HM King Abdullah II of Jordan for her reporting on so-called crimes of honor. Through her work she helped form the National Jordanian Committee to Eliminate So-Called Crimes of Honor, and she has served as a regional coordinator with the United Nations Development Fund for Women's campaign to eliminate violence against women in five Arab countries.

W. Kamau Bell is a comedian, writer, and educator based in San Francisco. He is credited with telling the first ever Barack Obama joke on Comedy Central and was honored as San Francisco's Comedian of the Year in 2008. He is featured regularly on radio as one half of the movie review team *Siskel & Negro*, and is published as a writer in *What Would Bill Hicks Say?* Bell is currently performing his acclaimed solo performance show, The *W. Kamau Bell Curve: Ending Racism in About an Hour*, at the New York International Fringe Festival.

Fergus M. Bordewich is a historian and journalist whose writing focuses primarily on the history of slavery and abolitionism, and ways in which the politics of slavery shaped and distorted the development of the United States. He enlarged on these themes in his two most recent books: *Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America*; and *Washington: The Making of the American Capital*. He is currently working on a book about slavery, western expansion, and the Compromise of 1850, to be titled *The Fires of Liberty: How the Greatest debate in American History Kept the Wild West Free, and Brought on the Civil War*. It will be published in 2111. Over four decades, he has have written for many national publications – including the *New York Times*, *Smithsonian Magazine*, *Atlantic Monthly*, *Harper’s*, *Wall Street Journal*, *Reader’s Digest*, and others – on history, human rights, political issues, economic development, and travel. His earlier books include: *Cathay: A Journey in Search of Old China*; *Killing the White Man’s Indian: Reinventing Native Americans at the End of the Twentieth Century*; and *My Mother’s Ghost: A Memoir*. As a journalist, he has worked and traveled widely in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, and lived for extended periods in Greece, Germany, and China, where he served as an advisor to the New China News Agency. He also worked as a press officer for the United Nations, at UN Headquarters, in New York. He currently lives in Washington, DC with his wife, Jean.