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Henry Alfred Kissinger was the 56th Secretary of State of the United States from 1973 to 1977, continuing to hold the position of Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs which he first assumed in 1969 until 1975. After leaving government service, he founded Kissinger Associates, an international consulting firm, of which he is chairman.

Salman Rushdie is the author of ten novels: Grimus, Midnight’s Children (which was awarded the Booker Prize in 1981), Shame, The Satanic Verses, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, The Moor’s Last Sigh, The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Fury, Shalimar the Clown and The Enchantress of Florence. He is also the author of a book of stories, East, West, and three works of non-fiction - Imaginary Homelands, The Jaguar Smile, and Step Across This Line. He is the co-editor of Mirrorwork, an anthology of contemporary Indian writing, and of the 2008 Best American Short Stories anthology.

Billie Letts is the author of numerous short stories. Her first novel won the Walker Percy Award and the 1996 Oklahoma Book Award. She lives in Oklahoma with her husband, Dennis. With her prizewinning #1 New York Times bestseller,* Where the Heart Is*, and her acclaimed second novel, *The Honk and Holler Opening Soon*, Billie Letts joined the ranks of America's best-loved storytellers.* Where the Heart Is* was also selected as an Oprah's Book Club pick and Billie tells what it was like to receive the phone call from Oprah in her article, "The Call That Changed My Life."

Carl Hiaasen , a graduate of the University of Florida, at age 23 he joined *The Miami Herald* as a general assignment reporter and went on to work for the paper's weekly magazine and later its prize-winning investigations team. Since 1985 Hiaasen has been writing a regular column, which at one time or another has pissed off just about everybody in South Florida, including his own bosses. He has outlasted almost all of them, and his column still appears on most Sundays in *The Herald's* opinion-and-editorial section. For his journalism and commentary, Hiaasen has received numerous state and national honors, including the Damon Runyon Award from the Denver Press Club. His work has also appeared in many well-known magazines, including *Sports Illustrated*, *Playboy*, *Time*, *Life*, *Esquire* and, *Gourmet*.

Charles McNair is the author of Land O'Goshen.

Deborah G. Johnson is the Anne Shirley Carter Olsson Professor of Applied Ethics in the Department of Science, Technology, and Society in the School of Engineering and Applied Science of the University of Virginia. Professor Johnson has taught courses on ethical theory; information technology, ethics, and policy; engineering ethics; and values and policy. During 1992-93 she was a Visiting Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering and Operations Research of Princeton University where she worked on a National Science Foundation project on ethics and computer decision models. In 1994 and 1995 she received National Science Foundation funding to conduct workshops to prepare undergraduate faculty to teach courses and course modules on ethical and professional issues in computing. Professor Johnson received the John Barwise prize from the American Philosophical Association in 2004; the ACM SIGCAS Making a Difference Award in 2000; and the Sterling Olmsted Award from the Liberal Education Division of the American Society for Engineering Education in 2001.

Joshua Rubenstein has been professionally involved with human rights and international affairs for 30 years as an activist, scholar and journalist with particular expertise in Soviet affairs. A long-time Fellow of Harvard's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, he has made many research trips to Moscow and other Russian cities. He has lectured and written widely on the Soviet human rights movement, including a series of lectures in Russian at the Mendeleev Institute in Moscow in the fall of 1990 and in the spring of 1991. His first book, *Soviet Dissidents, Their Struggle for Human Rights *(1980), was based on research and interviews in Western Europe, the Soviet Union, Israel, and the United States. Mr. Rubenstein's book, *Tangled Loyalties, The Life and Times of Ilya Ehrenburg*, a biography of the controversial Soviet writer and journalist, was published after thirteen years of research and writing, including two months examining newly available material in Russian archives and libraries. Mr. Rubenstein has also contributed articles and reviews on Russian and international affairs to many publications including *Commentary*, *The New Republic*, *The Wall Street Journal*, *The Nation*, *The Columbia Journalism Review*, *The New York Times* and *The Boston Globe*. Since 1975, Mr. Rubenstein has been the Northeast Regional Director of Amnesty International USA, overseeing Amnesty's work in New England, New York and New Jersey. His responsibilities have been wide-ranging. They include acting as an official Amnesty spokesman on radio, television and in the print media; maintaining extensive press contacts and initiating editorial board meetings on breaking human rights stories; organizing public forums and benefits; establishing Amnesty chapters in high schools, colleges and the community; directing a staff of five people and many volunteers in the Northeast Regional Office located in Boston; and participating in numerous human rights activities at the national and international level.

Professor Rivers is the author of many books, including *Slick Spins* and *Fractured Facts: How Cultural Myths Distort the News*; *Indecent Behavior*; a collaboration with Rosalind Barnett *She Works, He Works: How Two Income Families are Happy, Healthy and Thriving*; and her latest book,* Camelot*, a novel set in the Kennedy administration. Her television drama *A Matter of Principal* won a Gabriel Award as one of the best television dramas of the year. Professor Rivers contributes regularly to *The Boston Globe*, *Los Angeles Times*, *Philadelphia Inquirer*, *Newsday*, and other major US newspapers. She is a frequent public affairs panelist on Boston television stations and is considered an expert on the Kennedy family.