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Patricia H. Sprinkle is a freelance writer whose nonfiction books includes *Children Who Do Too Little*. She is also a best-selling mystery writer and an active member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America. She is a frequent speaker at seminars and womens conferences and lives in Miami with her husband. They have two grown children.

Atlanta native Haywood Smith has returned to Georgia from Boston and now lives near her son, daughter-in-law, grandson, and two granddaughters. Besides writing, she enjoys gardening and attending Blackshear Place Baptist Church in Oakwood, Georgia. She is an active member of Georgia Romance Writers, and loves speaking for major women's charity fundraisers and large Red Hat Society gatherings. Her six successful historical novels, set in England and Scotland, won critical acclaim and many devout fans. But after a difficult divorce, she switched to writing *Hell Hath No Fury* hardback books about women who help each other to get over it and get better when their lives fall apart. *The Red Hat Club* was on *the New York Times* Bestseller List. *The Red Hat Club Rides Again* debuted at #26 on *the New York Times* Best Seller list. The paperback edition of Queen Bee of Mimosa Branch appeared on both *the USA Today'*s list and* the New York Times* Extended Bestseller List.

Jacques Andrani was born in Paris where he completed his studies. A graduate of Pariss Institut dEtudes Politiques (Sciences-Po), he was admitted to the Ecole Nationale dAdministration (ENA). Upon graduation from ENA, he chose the Foreign Service and was assigned to the French Embassy in Washington, where he served for five years as Embassy Secretary. He is the President of the U.S. section of the Association France-Amriques, Honorary Chairman of the Dante-Alighieri Society, Paris chapter, Chairman of the Amis de lInstitut Dominicain dEtudes Orientales du Caire, Honorary Chairman of the Alumni of Science-Po, member of the Board of the Foundation for the Memory of the Holocaust, Member of the Trilateral Commission, and he belongs to the Monaco Club, a private organization which brings together political, diplomatic and media personalities from countries on both sides of the Mediterranean. He is the Commander of the Lgion dHonneur and Commander of the Ordre national du Mrite and published *LAmrique et nou*s (Odile Jacob, 2000) and *Le Pige: Helsinki et la chute du communisme* (Odile Jacob, 2005).

Khwaja specializes in the areas of Victorian, romantic literature and postcolonial literature and also teaches courses in creative writing. He has published critical articles on English, Postcolonial, Urdu, and Punjabi writers and edited two anthologies of Pakistani literature, translating fiction and poetry from Urdu and Punjabi into English. He has also published three volumes of original poetry and a literary travelogue about his experience as a participant in the University of Iowa's International Writing Program. A native of Pakistan, he was a practicing lawyer, professor of law, and a regular columnist for the national papers before emigrating to the States in 1994.

_Ellen C. Temple Chair in Women’s History Emerita at the University of Texas_ Jacqueline Jones is the Ellen C. Temple Chair in Women’s History Emerita at the University of Texas at Austin, where she served as Director of Graduate Studies from 2010 to 2014 and Chair of the History Department from 2014 to 2020. She also taught at Wellesley College and Brandeis University. Her fields of study include U. S. labor, urban, southern, African American, and women’s history. She is the co-author of a U. S. history survey textbook and the author of ten books in history; two of them were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in History: _Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women and the Family from Slavery to the Present_ (1985; rev. ed. 2009) and _A Dreadful Deceit: The Myth of Race from the Colonial Era to Obama’s America _(2013). Among the many other awards for her work are the Bancroft Prize in American History; a MacArthur Fellowship (1999-2004); the Taft Prize in Labor History; finalist for the Frederick Douglass Prize; honorable mention for the Lincoln Prize; and fellowships from the NEH, ACLS, and SSRC. In 2021 she served as president of the American Historical Association.

Karin Slaughter is the number one international bestseller of several novels, including the Grant County series. A long-time resident of Atlanta, she splits her time between the kitchen and the living room.

James Ransom joined Arcapita in 2004 with eleven years of private equity, leveraged finance and corporate banking experience. His work focuses on the services and technology sectors. Ransom currently serves on the Boards of 3PD, Church's Chicken, PODS, and Yakima, and also works with Cypress Communications. Prior to joining Arcapita, Ransom spent six years in the Leveraged Finance group at Merrill Lynch in New York and in the Corporate Banking group at Wachovia in Charlotte. While at Merrill Lynch and Wachovia, Ransom focused on leveraged buyout, acquisition, and restructuring financings, as well as general strategic advisory work. Ransom holds a BS in Management from Washington & Lee University and an MBA from the Darden School at the University of Virginia.

Jeffery B. Baker was appointed Senior Vice President of Strategic Planning for Global Payments, Inc. in 2003 with responsibility for defining Global's direction, objectives and action plans for current and future growth strategies. Prior to that appointment, Baker served as Principal and Senior Research Analyst, U. S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray Corporation, where he performed comprehensive analysis of financial technology and service companies. Baker was also a Vice President and Senior Research Analyst with W. R. Hambrecht & Company and, in addition, served as a Director with SunTrust Equitable Securities, Inc. and as Assistant Vice President with Principal Financial Securities, Inc.

Laura Claridge has written books ranging from feminist theory to biography and popular culture, most recently Emily Post: Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mistress of American Manners (Random House), for which she received a National Endowment for the Humanities grant. This project also received the J. Anthony Lukas Prize for a Work in Progress, administered by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Born in Clearwater, Florida, Laura Claridge received her Ph.D. in British Romanticism and Literary Theory from the University of Maryland in 1986. She taught in the English departments at Converse and Wofford colleges in Spartanburg, SC, and was a tenured professor of English at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis until 1997. She has been a frequent writer and reviewer for the national press, appearing in such newspapers as The Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, and The Christian Science Monitor. Her books have been translated into Spanish, German, and Polish. She has appeared frequently in the national media, including NBC, CNN, BBC, CSPAN, and NPR and such widely watched programs as The Today Show.