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Saba Silverman is a child of Lithuania holocaust survivors. She is also the founder of the Habima Theatre at the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta.

The work of photographer and filmmaker Norman Seeff has been focused on the exploration of human creativity and the inner dynamics of the creative process. Seeff graduated with honors in science and art at King Edward VII School in Johannesburg. At the age of 17, he was drafted as the youngest player in the South African national soccer league. Seeff qualified as a medical doctor in 1965. For three years he worked in emergency medicine at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto focusing on the management of traumatic shock. In 1969, he immigrated to the United States to pursue his creative passions and artistic abilities.

Carey Scott Wilkerson is a member of the English department at Columbus State University where he teaches composition, literature, and creative writing. His work has appeared in many publications including e-ratio, zafusy, Word/for Word, X-stream, and Amaryllis. He is a recipient of a 2009 residency fellowship from the Lillian E. Smith Center for Creative Arts and has been a visiting writer at Clayton State University. He is co-founder of Dead Academics Press, an independent publisher of avant-garde poetry and fiction. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte. His book of poems *Threading Stone* is published by New Plains Press, which will also publish his new collection in Spring 2011.

Barbara Almond is a psychotherapist and psychoanalyst in private practice, a member of the faculty at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis, and Emeritus Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor at Stanford University. She is coauthor of *The Therapeutic Narrative: Fictional Relationships and the Process of Psychological Change*.

Rachel Polonsky has written for *Prospect*, *The Guardian*,* The Times Literary Supplement*, and *The Spectator*, among other publications. She is also the author of *English Literature and the Russian Aesthetic Renaissance*.

Mira Bartok is a Chicago-born artist and writer and the author of twenty-eight books for children. Her writing has appeared in several literary journals and anthologies and has been noted in *The Best American Essays* series. She lives in Western Massachusetts where she runs *Mira's List*, a blog that helps artists find funding and residencies all over the world. *The Memory Palace* is Mira's first book for adults.

George LeMieux is currently the junior United States Senator from Florida. He was Chairman of the Florida-based law firm of Gunster Yoakley & Stewart, P.A. and served as Chief of Staff to Governor Charlie Crist, was former Deputy Florida Attorney General, and is credited with spearheading Crist's successful campaign for Governor. On August 28, 2009, Governor Crist announced that he would appoint LeMieux as senator, to replace Senator Mel Martinez, who weeks earlier announced he would resign as soon as Crist announced his successor.[3] At the age of 41, LeMieux is the youngest member of the U.S. Senate.

Seth Mnookin is a contributing editor at *Vanity Fair* and a former senior writer for* Newsweek*, where he covered media, politics, and popular culture. His writing has appeared in* The Washington Post*, *New York Magazine*, and many other publications. He is the author of *Feeding the Monster: How Money, Smarts*, and* Nerve Took a Team to the Top and Hard News: The Scandals at The New York Times and Their Meaning for American Media*.**

Allen Shawn is a pianist, a composer of chamber and orchestral music, and a professor at Bennington College. He was the recipient of a 1995 Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and an Academy Award in Music from the Academy in 2001. He is active as a pianist, and is the author of two previous books, *Arnold Schoenberg's Journey*, which won the 2003 ASCAP Deems Taylor Award, and *Wish I Could Be There*, as well as articles on contemporary music for the *Atlantic Monthly*, *The Musical Times*, and *The Times Literary Supplement*.

Gordana Rabrenovic, Ph. D is an associate professor of sociology and the director of the Brudnick Center on Violence and Conflict at Northeastern University. Her substantive specialties are in the area of community studies, urban education, and intergroup conflict and violence. Her publications include books such as Community Builders: A Tale of Neighborhood Mobilization in Two Cities (1996), Community Politics and Policy (1999), and Why We Hate (2004) as well as edited volumes of the American Behavioral Scientist special issue on Hate Crimes and Ethnic Conflict (2001) and Responding to Hate Violence: New Challenges and Solutions (2007). Her current work focuses on violence against immigrants in United States and Europe and on developing solutions to problems of hostility and violence arising from inter-group differences and social inequality.

Shirley Sherrod was the Georgia State Director of Rural Development for the United States Department of Agriculture and was forced to resign from her position when blogger Andrew Breitbart posted video excerpts of Sherrod's address at a March 2010 NAACP event to his website. The NAACP condemned her remarks, and U.S. government officials called on her to resign. However, upon review of the unedited video in context, the NAACP, White House officials, and Tom Vilsack, the United States Secretary of Agriculture, apologized and Sherrod was offered a new position.

Gordon Martin served as a trial judge in Massachusetts for 21 years. After working in the Deep South for the Civil Rights Division of Robert Kennedy's Justice Department, he returned to Massachusetts and became First Assistant US Attorney, later Special Assistant to Senator Edward M. Kennedy and then a Commissioner o the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination. He was appointed by Governor Dukakis to the Roxbury District Court.