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Moderators and Interviewers

  • Marie Arana

    Marie Arana, a Peruvian-American author of nonfiction and fiction, is the literary director of the Library of Congress, a writer-at-large for The Washington Post and a former editor-in-chief of The Post’s Book World. Her most recent book, “Silver, Sword and Stone” was the 2019 Adult Nonfiction winner of the American Library Association Booklist’s Top of the List and was longlisted for the 2020 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence. Arana has served on the board of directors for the National Book Critics Circle and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. She is on the board of the American Writers Museum and a member of the Scholars Council at the Library of Congress. She has directed events at the Kennedy Center, chaired juries for the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Awards and is an active spokesperson on Latin America, Hispanic Americans and biculturalism.

  • Kai Bird

    Kai Bird is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist, best known for his biographies of political figures. His most recent book, “The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames,” a biography of a CIA officer, was a New York Times bestseller. He is the co-author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer,” which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Duff Cooper Prize for History in London. He has written about the Vietnam War, Hiroshima, nuclear weapons, the Cold War, the Arab-Israeli conflict and the CIA. He has received fellowships from the Thomas J. Watson, Alicia Patterson Journalism and Guggenheim foundations. In 2017 he was appointed executive director and distinguished lecturer of CUNY Graduate Center’s Leon Levy Center for Biography. He is an elected member of the prestigious Society of American Historians.

  • Rob Casper

    Rob Casper is the head of the Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress. He was the founding publisher of the literary magazine Jubilat, and previously worked at the Poetry Society of America and the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses. Casper has also served as the poetry chair of the Brooklyn Book Festival Poetry Committee, as a member of the Poetry Coalition, Lit Net and the National Writers Museum National Advisory Council, and as a judge-panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts’ Poetry Out Loud competition and the Great American Read initiative.

  • Ron Charles

    Ron Charles is an award-winning fiction book critic for The Washington Post. He also hosts “Totally Hip Video Book Review,” a performative video book review series for The Post. Prior to his work as a book critic, Charles taught American literature and critical theory, and then edited for the book section of The Christian Science Monitor. Charles served on the jury for the 2014 Pulitzer Prize. Among the awards and honors he has received for his work are the Louis Shores Award for excellence in reviewing from the American Library Association, first place in Arts & Entertainment Commentary by the Society for Features Journalism, and the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing from the National Book Critics Circle.

  • Maureen Corrigan

    Maureen Corrigan is a book critic for NPR's “Fresh Air,” a columnist for The Washington Post and the Nicky and Jamie Grant Distinguished Professor of the Practice in Literary Criticism at Georgetown University. She is the winner of the 1999 Edgar Award for Criticism and was awarded the 2018 Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing by the National Book Critics Circle. Corrigan served as a juror for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in fiction. She is the author of “So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures” and “Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading!” Corrigan’s reviews and essays have been published in Salon, The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Philadelphia Inquirer, among others.

  • Eric Deggans

    Eric Deggans is NPR’s first full-time TV critic and a media analyst-contributor for MSNBC and NBC News. A journalist for over 20 years, he has written for the St. Petersburg Times and Asbury Park Press, and is the author of “Race-Baiter: How the Media Wields Dangerous Words to Divide a Nation.” He is a contributor to “The New Ethics of Journalism.” Deggans received the Florida Press Club’s first-ever Diversity award, the Legacy award from the National Association of Black Journalists’ A&E Task Force and the Excellence in the Reporting of Social Justice Issues Award from the American Sociological Association. He currently serves as a chair of the Media Monitoring Committee for the National Association of Black Journalists.

  • Jonathan Eller

    Jonathan Eller has served as the director of the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies at Indiana University since retiring from his two-decade-long career in the U.S. Air Force. His interest in American literature and textual studies with an emphasis on the work of Ray Bradbury led him to co-found the Bradbury Center in 2007. Eller has also written or co-written multiple books about the life of Bradbury, including “Ray Bradbury: The Life of Fiction,” “Becoming Ray Bradbury” and “Ray Bradbury Unbound.”

  • Carla Hayden

    Carla Hayden was sworn in as the 14th Librarian of Congress on Sept. 14, 2016. Hayden, the first woman and the first African American to lead the national library, was nominated to the position by President Barack Obama. Prior to this, she served, since 1993, as CEO of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore. Hayden was a member of the National Museum and Library Services Board, and she was deputy commissioner and chief librarian of the Chicago Public Library from 1991 to 1993. Hayden was president of the American Library Association from 2003 to 2004. In 1995, she was the first African American to receive Library Journal’s Librarian of the Year Award in recognition of her outreach services at the Pratt Library, which included an after-school center for Baltimore teens offering homework assistance and college and career counseling.

  • David Ignatius

    David Ignatius, a prize-winning columnist for The Washington Post, has been covering the Middle East and the CIA for more than 25 years. He has also written 11 spy novels, including his most recent, “The Paladin: A Spy Novel” (Norton). “The Paladin” follows CIA operations officer Michael Dunne as he seeks vengeance for an undercover mission infiltrating a cyber organization that went terribly wrong, landing him in jail and destroying his life.

  • Crosby Kemper

    A self-described bibliophile, Crosby Kemper is the director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Previously, Kemper served as executive director of the Kansas City Public Library. His work to establish the library as a cornerstone of the community earned the library several awards, including IMLS’s National Medal for Museum and Library Service in 2008. Prior to his involvement in the library, Kemper held the position of CEO of UMB Financial Corporation and then co-founded the Show-Me Institute. He has also served on the board of the Kansas City Symphony, the Black Archives of Mid-America and the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival. Kemper has been awarded the William F. Yates Medallion for Distinguished Service from William Jewell College and the 2010 Harmony Humanitarian Hoffman Legacy Award for his service to his community. Kemper is the editor of and a contributor to “Winston Churchill: Resolution, Defiance, Magnanimity, Good Will.”

  • Anna Laymon

    Anna Laymon is the executive director of the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission (WSCC), an organization created by Congress to coordinate the nationwide celebration of the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment. Prior to joining the WSCC, Laymon worked as the director of Partnerships and Public Programs for the National Woman’s Party. While there, she built a coalition of women’s historians and women-centered nonprofits to lift up women’s history and explore issues of women’s equality today. Laymon has an M.A. in women’s, gender and sexuality studies from the University of Cincinnati and has spent her career in women-centered organizations across the country.

  • Lisa Lucas

    Lisa Lucas is the executive director of the National Book Foundation and a senior vice president of Knopf Doubleday. Prior to these roles, she was the publisher of Guernica, a nonprofit online magazine focusing on the intersection of art and politics with an international and diverse focus. Lucas previously held positions as director of education at the Tribeca Film Institute, on the development team at Steppenwolf Theater Company and as a consultant for the Sundance Institute, San Francisco Film Society, the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards and ReelWorks Teen Filmmaking. Lucas also serves on the literary council of the Brooklyn Book Festival.

  • Michel Martin

    Michel Martin is the weekend host of NPR’s “All Things Considered” and former host of “Tell Me More.” Her prior work has included ABC News’s “Nightline,” political coverage for The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. She has also been a regular panelist on the PBS series “Washington Week” and a contributor to “NOW with Bill Moyers.” Martin has received several honors, including the Candace Award for Communications from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, the Joan Barone Award for Excellence in Washington-based National Affairs/Public Policy Broadcasting from the Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association and a 2002 Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association. Martin won an Emmy for a story she covered for ABC newsmagazine “Day One” and was nominated for three additional Emmys. In 2019, Martin was elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for outstanding achievement in journalism.

  • Everdeen Mason

    Everdeen Mason is The Washington Post's audience editor, specializing in search and editorial digital strategies. She also writes a monthly column highlighting the best new science fiction and fantasy books. She joined The Post in 2015. Her journalism has also been published in The Wall Street Journal and Refinery29. She has given talks about search engine optimization, audience strategy and digital storytelling at SXSW and Lesbians Who Tech. She is part of the 2018 class of the Leadership Academy for Women in Digital program.

  • Andrea Mitchell

    Andrea Mitchell, a pioneering woman in broadcast news, is the chief foreign affairs correspondent of NBC News and anchor of “Andrea Mitchell Reports.” During her time at NBC, she has served as chief White House correspondent as well as chief congressional correspondent. Mitchell has worked in international journalism, reporting on the Reagan-Gorbachev arms control summits, the Iran nuclear negotiations and the diplomatic normalization with Havana. For her contributions to journalism, she has received the 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Women’s Media Foundation and the Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism from the John F. Kennedy School of Government. Mitchell is the author of the bestselling memoir “Talking Back,” about her experiences in broadcast journalism.

  • Ydalmi Noriega

    Ydalmi Noriega is the director of community and foundation relations at the Poetry Foundation. She has worked to make poetry welcoming and accessible to the public through the foundation’s readings, book clubs and workshops. For her contributions to the community of poets and writers in Chicago, Noriega was awarded the Adam Morgan Literary Citizen Award by the Chicago Review of Books in 2019. Of her work at the foundation, Noriega says, “We aim to make poetry exciting and accessible to everyone: on the page, in performance, in community.”

  • Joe Palca

    Joe Palca is a science correspondent for NPR. He is currently working on the series “Joe’s Big Idea” in which he explores the minds and motivations of scientists and inventors. He is also the founder of NPR Scicommers, a science communications collective.  He previously worked as a health producer for the CBS affiliate in Washington, D.C., a Washington news editor for “Nature” and a senior correspondent for Science Magazine. For six months, he served as a science writer in residence at the Huntington Library. Palca is the co-author of “Annoying: The Science of What Bugs Us.” He has won numerous awards, including the National Academies Communications Award, the Science-in-Society Award of the National Association of Science Writers, the American Association for the Advancement of Science Journalism Prize and the Victor Cohn Prize for Excellence in Medical Writing. In 2019, Palca was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for outstanding achievement in journalism.

  • Steven Pearlstein

    Steven Pearlstein is a Pulitzer Prize-winning business and economics columnist for The Washington Post. Previously, he was The Post’s defense industry reporter, economics correspondent and Canada correspondent. In 2011, he won a Gerald R. Loeb Award for lifetime achievement in business and financial journalism. Also in 2011, he became the Robinson Professor of Political and International Affairs at George Mason University, where he helped launch the interdisciplinary Politics, Philosophy and Economics concentration for majors in those departments. Pearlstein has written the books “Moral Capitalism: Why Fairness Won't Make Us Poor” and “Can American Capitalism Survive?” He has appeared frequently as a commentator on national television and radio programs.

  • Lee Ann Potter

    Lee Ann Potter is the director of the Learning and Innovation Office at the Library of Congress. She leads a team committed to developing educational programs and materials based on primary sources. Before coming to the Library, she created and directed education and volunteer programs at the National Archives and Records Administration for 16 years. Prior to that, she worked at the Smithsonian on a project to build museum-school partnerships, and before that, was a high school social studies teacher. During the 2009-10 school year, she served as a Fulbright Roving Scholar of American Studies in Norway. She has conducted hundreds of presentations and is the author of more than 100 articles promoting teaching with primary sources.

  • David Rubenstein

    David Rubenstein is an award-winning philanthropist and co-founder of The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s most successful private equity firms. Rubenstein also serves as chairman of the Boards of trustees of the Council on Foreign Relations, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the James Madison Council of the Library of Congress. His new book, “How to Lead: Wisdom from the World's Greatest CEOs, Founders and Game Changers” (Simon & Schuster), explores decision making, failure, innovation, crisis and other topics through revealing conversations with Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Warren Buffet, Oprah and more of today’s most pioneering agents of change. Rubenstein is also co-chairman of the Library of Congress National Book Festival.

  • Colleen Shogan

    Colleen Shogan is senior vice president and director of the David Rubenstein Center for White House History at the White House Historical Association. She is the vice chair of the Women's Suffrage Centennial Commission and an adjunct professor of government at Georgetown University, where she teaches a graduate seminar on American political development. Shogan previously worked for more than a decade at the Library of Congress, serving most recently as the assistant deputy librarian for Collections and Services. She has published research articles in Perspectives on Politics,  Presidential Studies Quarterly, Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Women & Politics, White House Studies  and Social Movement Studies, among others, as well as short essays in Roll Call and The Washington Post. Shogan is also a mystery writer and has published five novels.

  • Moira Shourie

    Moira Shourie serves as the executive director of Zócalo Public Square. With an emphasis on open communication and accessibility, Shourie hosts free, public events that discuss important and culturally relevant topics, from race relations to politics and democracy. According to Shourie, “At a time when Americans are craving common ground, Zócalo Public Square seeks to build community by connecting people to ideas and to each other. That’s our mission, and it is more important now than ever before.”

  • Oscar Villalon

    Oscar Villalon is the managing editor of the literary journal ZYZZYVA and a contributing editor of Literary Hub. He is a former board member of the National Book Critics Circle and the former book editor at the San Francisco Chronicle. Villalon’s writing has appeared widely, including in the Virginia Quarterly Review, The Believer, The Millions, The Daily Beast, NPR.org, and KQED’s “The California Report.”

  • Hope Wabuke

    Hope Wabuke is a widely acclaimed Ugandan poet and writer. She is the author of the chapbooks “her,” “The Leaving” and “Movement No. 1: Trains,” and her work has been published in an array of media, including The Guardian, Los Angeles Times Review of Books and NPR. She has also received numerous accolades from the National Endowment for the Arts, The New York Times Foundation and the Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation, among others. She currently works as an assistant professor of English and creative writing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

  • Judy Woodruff

    Judy Woodruff has worked in broadcast news for almost five decades. She began her political news career in PBS as the chief Washington correspondent for the “MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour” and then moved on to anchor PBS’s award-winning series “Frontline with Judy Woodruff.” Following her time at PBS, Woodruff worked as anchor and senior correspondent for CNN for 12 years, returning to the PBS “NewsHour” in 2007. In 2013, she and Gwen Ifill became the first two women to co-anchor a national news broadcast. After Ifill’s death in 2016, Woodruff became, and remains, the sole anchor of the “NewsHour.” Her contributions to journalism have been widely recognized and have earned her the Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award and the Poynter Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism, among many others. Woodruff has been an advocate for many women’s organizations; she is one of the founders of the International Women’s Media Foundation and currently serves on its advisory council.