Ken Ackerman is the author of “Young J. Edgar: Hoover and the Red Scare, 1919-1920″ (Viral History Press) , a book that partly inspired the recent film J. Edgar, directed by Clint Eastwood.  Ackerman has authored three previous books, including one on Boss Tweed, and another on President James Garfield.  Ken Ackerman, a writer and attorney in Washington, D.C., a 35-year veteran of senior positions in Congress, the executive branch, financial regulation, and private law.

Humorist and journalist Henry Alford is the author of a book about manners called “Would It Kill You to Stop Doing That? A Modern Guide to Manners” (Twelve). His previous books include How to Live: A Search for Wisdom from Old People (While They Are Still on This Earth), and Big Kiss: One Actor’s Desperate Attempt to Claw His Way to the Top, which won a Thurber Prize. He has written for the New Yorker, and currently writes for Vanity Fair and the New York Times.

Cathy Alter’s feature articles, essays, and reviews have appeared in local and national newspapers and magazines including The Washington Post, Washingtonian, The Atlantic, The Huffington Post, Self, McSweeney’s, and SMITH Magazine. Her book, “Virgin Territory: Stories from the Road to Womanhood” was released in 2004 and her memoir, “Up for Renewal: What Magazines Taught Me About Love, Sex, and Starting Over,” was released in July 2008. She holds an M.A. from Johns Hopkins University, where she is currently a faculty member and nonfiction advisor.

Buzz Bissinger is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of four books, including the New York Times bestseller “3 Nights in August” and “Friday Night Lights”, which has sold two million copies and spawned a film and TV franchise. He is a contributing editor for Vanity Fair and a sports columnist for The Daily Beast. He has written for the New York Times, The New Republic,Time and many other publications.

His upcoming book is “Father’s Day: A Journey Into the Mind and Heart of My Extraordinary Son” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).

Buzz Bissinger’s twin sons were born three minutes—and a world—apart. Gerry, the older one, is a graduate student at Penn, preparing to become a teacher. His brother Zach has spent his life attending special schools. He’ll never drive a car, or kiss a girl, or live by himself. He is a savant, challenged by serious intellectual deficits but also blessed with rare talents: an astonishing memory, a dazzling knack for navigation, and a reflexive honesty which can make him both socially awkward and surprisingly wise. One summer night, Buzz and Zach hit the road to revisit all the places they have lived together during Zach’s 24 years. Zach revels in his memories, and Buzz hopes this journey into their shared past will bring them closer and reveal to him the mysterious workings of his son’s mind and heart.

Donna Britt is the author of “Brothers (and Me): A Memoir of Loving and Giving” (Little, Brown and Company).  She is a former syndicated columnist for the Washington Post. Ms. Britt has won awards from the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the National Association of Black Journalists, and she has been featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, C-Span, and National Public Radio.

Dr. Jill Chasse is an author, health administrator, pregnancy counselor and perinatal psychology consultant. Jill has worked in perinatal wellness and public health for over 15 years and has written several books including “Baby Magic,” which has sold in 8 countries, “Womb Wonders,” “The Babysitter’s Survival Guide,“ and her popular children’s book, “Mommy’s Lap.”  She is the founder of Baby-Empowered Birth Education (BEBE). Jill lives with her husband and two young children in Brookeville, MD.

Steve Coll is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winning author and journalist, whose latest book, “Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power” (Penguin Press), investigates the notoriously secretive ExxonMobil Corporation, revealing the true extent of its power.

Coll is president of New America Foundation, and a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine. Previously he spent 20 years as a foreign correspondent and senior editor at The Washington Post, serving as the paper’s managing editor from 1998 to 2004.  He has authored seven books, including “Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001,” which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, among several others, in 2004.

Mr. Coll graduated Phi Beta Kappa, Cum Laude, from Occidental College in 1980 with a degree in English and history. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Julia Duin is a contributing writer for the Washington Post magazine and the former religion editor for The Washington Times where she was nominated three times for a Pulitzer prize. She’s also written in the past year for the Economist and the Wall Street Journal. She’s published five books, the most recent being “Quitting Church” and “Days of Fire and Glory,” which tells of an investigation she undertook while reporting for The Houston Chronicle. She has a master’s degree in religion, has won numerous journalism awards and teaches religion reporting at the University of Maryland.

John Feinstein is a national best-selling author and one of America’s most prolific and beloved sports writers. His books, “A Season on the Brink” and “A Good Walk Spoiled,” are two of the biggest-selling non-fiction sports books in publishing history. His latest book,”One on One: Behind the Scenes with the Greats in the Game” (Putnam Adult), shares details of his interviews and experiences in the professional sports world. Feinstein is a regular commentator on radio and television sports programs, including ESPN’s “The Sports Reporters”, NPR’s “Morning Edition,” and the Golf Channel. His columns appear in The Washington Post, where he spent a number of years as a staff reporter.  Feinstein has written over 20 books on sports and the athletes who play them, as well as a mystery series for children.

Timothy M. Gay is the author of the upcoming, “Assignment to Hell: The War Against Nazi Germany with Correspondents Walter Cronkite, Andy Rooney, A.J. Liebling, Homer Bigard, and Hal Boyle” (NAL Hardcover).  He has written two previous books, “Tris Speaker: The Rough-and-Tumble Life of a Baseball Legend” and “Satch, Dizzy & Rapid Robert:  The Wild Saga of Interracial Baseball Before Jackie Robinson.” Tim’s essays on politics, public policy, history, and sports history have appeared in the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, USA Today, and many other publications.  He is a graduate of GeorgetownUniversity and lives in Vienna,Virginia, with his wife Elizabeth and three children.

Judy Gelman and Vicki Levy Krupp are cooks, book enthusiasts and friends. They wrote “The Book Club Cookbook” (Tarcher), a guide to integrating delicious food and food-related discussion into your book club, over stacks of books and endless cups of coffee at a local sandwich shop. The revised edition of “The Book Club Cookbook,” released in March 2012, features twenty newer titles, along with recipes and insights from authors Kathryn Stockett, Abraham Verghese, Sara Gruen, and many more.

Judy and Vicki’s other books are “The Kids’ Book Club Book” and “Table of Contents,” featuring book related recipes from fifty of today’s most popular authors.

Their website, bookclubcookbook.com, features book recommendations from book clubs around the country, author recipes, book giveaways, author blogs, and newsletters.

Judy and Vicki live with their families in the Boston area.

Clint Hill was a Secret Service Agent assigned to the White House and served Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford.  He was in the motorcade in Dallas on November 22, 1963, assigned to protect First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, when President Kennedy was assassinated.  He is credited with saving Mrs. Kennedy’s life. After rising through the ranks of the Secret Service, he retired in 1975 as Assistant Director, responsible for all protective forces.  Hill remains in contact with the current U.S. Secret Service and is actively involved in training activities.

Adam Hochschild is an award-winning historian, whose latest book, “To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918″ (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), focuses on the now largely-forgotten opposition to World War 1. The late Christopher Hitchens, reviewing it in the New York Times, called it a “moving and important book,” and that it “is a book to make one feel deeply and painfully, and also to think hard.”  (Update – 1/22/2012: To End All Wars is a finalist for the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award)

Adam Hochschild has written for The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Atlantic, The New York Review of Books, and many other magazines, and is the author of seven books. “King Leopold’s Ghost: a Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa” was a finalist for the 1998 National Book Critics Circle Award; “Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves,” was a finalist for the 2005 National Book Award and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

Gregg Jones is the author of “Honor in the Dust: Theodore Roosevelt, War in the Philippines, and the Rise and Fall of America’s Imperial Dream” (NAL Hardcover).  A Missouri native, Jones was a Pulitzer Prize-finalist investigative reporter and foreign correspondent before writing books full time. He has been a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, Dallas Morning News and Atlanta Journal-Constitution. His work has also appeared in the Washington Post and Boston Globe, as well as the British Guardian and Observer newspapers. After living in Bangkok, Manila, Mexico City and northern California, he now calls Texas home.

Marvin and Deborah Kalb are a father-daughter journalism team who joined forces to write their new book, “Haunting Legacy: Vietnam and the American Presidency from Ford to Obama” (Brookings Institution Press). Marvin Kalb’s journalism career covers 30 years of award-winning reporting and commentary for CBS and NBC News, including a stint as host of Meet the Press. He is a Guest Scholar in the Foreign Policy Program at Brookings and the Edward R. Murrow Professor of Practice (Emeritus) at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Deborah Kalb followed in her father’s footsteps as a journalist and has reported for the Gannett News Service, Congressional Quarterly, U.S. News & World Report and The Hill.

Marc Kaufman is a journalist and author of “First Contact: Scientific Breakthroughs in the Hunt for Life Beyond Earth” (Simon and Schuster).  A science writer with the Washington Post, Kaufman traveled the world while reporting “First Contact” to speak with scientists on the cutting edge of the burgeoning field of astrobiology — the hunt for life beyond Earth. Marc has been a journalist for more than three decades, mostly at the Post and the Philadelphia Inquirer. He believes that his many years as a foreign correspondent taught him how to be a good translator of science (and scientists.) He lives with his wife, Lynn Litterine, in Silver Spring.

Linda Killian, author of “The Swing Vote: The Untapped Power of Independents” (St. Martin’s Press), is a Washington journalist and a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. She is a columnist and national political writer for The Atlantic, Newsweek/The Daily Beast and has also written for Politico, Politics Daily and U.S. News & World Report.com. Her television appearances include MSNBC, Fox News, C-SPAN, CNN, and ”Hardball.” She is the former senior editor of National Public Radio’s ”All Things Considered” and has a master’s degree from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

Before turning to narrative nonfiction with “City of Scoundrels” and “The White Cascade,” Gary Krist published three novels and two short-story collections. He has written reviews for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Salon, and the Washington Post, and his articles and stories have appeared in National Geographic Traveler, GQ, Esquire, and on NPR. He has been the recipient of The Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Lowell Thomas Gold Medal for Travel Journalism, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He lives in Bethesda.

Jen Lancaster is the New York Times bestselling author of five memoirs published by NAL, and most recently, the novel “If You Were Here.” Her newest memoir, “Jeneration X: One Reluctant Adult’s Attempt to Unarrest Her Arrested Development, or Why It’s Never Too Late for Her Dumb Ass to Learn Why Froot Loops are Not Dinner,” comes out this May.

Jen’s loyal fans have followed her as she recounts the woes of job loss, sucky city living, weight loss attempts and 1980s nostalgia in her hilarious memoirs, including, “Bitter is the New Black,” “Such A Pretty Fat,” and “My Fair Lazy.” A nationally syndicated monthly columnist for Tribune Media Services’ Humor Hotel, Jen Lancaster lives outside Chicago .  She still blogs at the blog where it all started: www.jennsylvania.com.

Jen Lancaster will be appearing in conversation with author Sarah Pekkanen.

Jenny Lawson (aka The Bloggess) is the author of the #1 New York Times best-seller, “Let’s Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir)” (Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam) as well as a columnist and blogger. Her personal blog (www.thebloggess.com) is extremely popular, averaging over a half million page views per month and continuing to grow. She is one of the most popular bloggers on twitter (with over 225,000+ followers and growing daily). Jenny has been a regular contributor to the online Houston Chronicle since 2006 and also writes a popular advice column and satirical sex column. Jenny lives in Texas Hill Country with her husband and daughter.

Jim Lehrer is best known as the former news anchor for “NewsHour” on PBS and for his role as a frequent debate moderator during presidential elections. He has written 28 non-fiction and fiction books, drawing from his experiences and interests in history and politics. In his latest book, “Tension City: Inside the Presidential Debates, from Kennedy-Nixon to McCain-Obama” (Random House), he tells the inside story of what he calls the “major moments” and “killer questions” that defined major televised debates both in front of the camera and behind the scenes.

David J. Linden, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His laboratory has worked for many years on the cellular substrates of memory storage in the brain and a few other topics.  He has a longstanding interest in scientific communication and serves as the Chief Editor of the Journal of Neurophysiology.  He is the author of two books on the biology of behavior for a general audience, ”The Accidental Mind” (Harvard/Belknap, 2007) and “The Compass of Pleasure” (Viking Press, 2011) which, to date, have been translated into 12 languages.

 He lives in Baltimore, Maryland with his two pleasure-seeking children.

Sarah McCoy is the author of “The Baker’s Daughter” (Crown/RH),

“A beautiful, heart-breaking gem of a novel written just the way I like them, with the past coming back to haunt the present, endearing heroines and a sunny, hopeful ending. You’ll wolf it up in one delicious gulp.”
–Tatiana de Rosnay, international bestselling author of Sarah’s Key and A Secret Kept

This is Sarah’s second novel, the first being “The Time It Snowed In Puerto Rico” (RH). She has taught English writing at Old Dominion University and at the University of Texas at El Paso. She currently lives with her husband and dog, Gilbert, in El Paso, where she is working on her next novel. Sarah can be reached on her website, Twitter, Facebook and Goodreads.

Laura Rhoton McNeal is the author of “Dark Water” (Knopf Books for Young Readers), a 2010 finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the San Diego Book Award in young people’s literature.  She holds an MA in fiction writing from Syracuse University and is the author, with her husband Tom, of four young adult novels published by Knopf: “Crooked” (winner of the California Book Award in Juvenile Literature), “Zipped” (winner of the Pen Center USA Literary Award in Children’s Literature), “Crushed”, and “The Decoding of Lana Morris”.  She and Tom live with their sons Sam and Hank near San Diego.

Caroline Miller, an internationally-known life coach and motivational speaker, is the author of “Creating Your Best Life” (Sterling).  The book is the outgrowth of her capstone project in the University of Pennsylvania’s Masters in Applied Positive Psychology program.  It breaks new ground by giving the mass market audience an evidence-based, engaging guide on how to set and accomplish your goals with research-tested tools.

Luis Carlos Montalván is the author of the New York Times best-seller, “Until Tuesday: A Wounded Warrior and the Golden Retriever Who Saved Him” (Hyperion).  Montalván served in the U.S. Army for 17 years, earning the Combat Action Badge, two Bronze Stars and the Purple Heart. Montalván has a Master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. His articles have appeared in publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, and The Baltimore Sun.  Luis resides in New York City with Tuesday, his faithful service dog.

Timothy Noah writes the TRB column for the New Republic. He wrote for Slate for a dozen years, and previously worked at the Wall Street Journal, U.S. News & World Report, and the Washington Monthly. Noah received the 2011 Hillman Prize for public service magazine journalism for the series in Slate that forms the basis of his new book “The Great Divergence” (Bloomsbury Press).

Garrett Peck is a literary journalist and a self-described “history dork,” and leads the Temperance Tour of Prohibition-related sites in Washington, DC. He was involved with the DC Craft Bartenders Guild in lobbying the DC City Council to have the Rickey declared Washington’s native cocktail in 2011. He will speak about his latest two books, “Prohibition in Washington, D.C.: How Dry We Weren’t,” and “The Potomac River: A History and Guide.”

Joel Peckham is the author of “Resisting Elegy: On Grief and Recovery” (Academy Chicago Publishers).  Peckham is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Cincinnati—Clermont College. In 2003-2004, he won a Fulbright teaching scholarship to the University of Jordan, and in 2011. He is also the author of three collections of poetry: “Nightwalking,” ”The Heat of What Comes,” and “Movers and Shakers,” and his literary essays on grief and recovery have appeared in a number of publications, including River Teeth, The North American Review, Under the Sun and Brevity. Joel lives with his son, Darius, and his second wife, Rachael, in Huntington, WV.

Robert C. Plumb is the author of “Your Brother in Arms: A Union Soldier’s Odyssey.”  Plumb served in the Navy as an officer in the Atlantic Fleet, and later commanded a patrol boat in Vietnam.  Following military service, he held marketing executive positions in two Fortune 500 companies working in both U.S. and international markets. His work appeared in the Washington Post Style, Home, Travel and Editorial sections. Plumb is a member of the Civil War Trust and the Society of Civil War Historians. He and his wife Louise live in Potomac, Maryland.

David O. Stewart is a historian whose third book, “American Emperor: Aaron Burr’s Challenge to Jefferson’s America” (Simon & Schuster), tells the story of America’s third Vice President as a daring, and perhaps deluded, figure who shook the nation’s foundations in its earliest, most vulnerable decades. The book follows his well-received books, “The Summer of 1787” and “Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln’s Legacy.”  Stewart is a Washington, D.C.-based constitutional lawyer; and it is his love of the intricacies of the law drew him to write non-fiction books on the subjects in American history that have shaped or tested the constitution

Sara Mansfield Taber is the author of “Born Under an Assumed Name: The Memoir of a Cold War Spy’s Daughter” (Potomac Books Inc).  Her previous books include “Dusk on the Campo: A Journey in Patagonia” and “Bread of Three Rivers: The Story of a French Loaf.”  Sara’s essays, commentary, and travel pieces have appeared in literary journals and the Washington Post, and been produced for public radio. A free-lance editor and teacher, she has taught writing at Johns Hopkins University, the Vermont College of Fine Arts, the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and in private workshops in the U.S. and abroad.

Baratunde Thurston is the author of “How to Be Black” (Harper).   He is the director of digital at The Onion, the cofounder of Jack & Jill Politics, a stand-up comedian, and a globe-trotting speaker. Thurston was named one of the 100 most influential African Americans of 2011 by The Root, one of the 100 most creative people in business by Fast Company magazine, and will be giving the opening keynote address at SXSW Interactive 2012. Then-Senator Barack Obama called him “someone I need to know.” Baratunde resides in Brooklyn and lives on Twitter (@baratunde).

Eric Weiner is author of “Man Seeks God: My Flirtations With the Divine” (Twelve) and, previously, the New York Times best-seller “The Geography of Bliss,” which has been translated into eighteen languages. A former correspondent for NPR and the New York Times, Weiner has reported from more than three dozen countries. His work has appeared in the New Republic, Slate, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Foreign Policy, The New York Times Magazine, and the anthology Best American Travel Writing. He divides his time between Starbucks and Caribou.

Tim Wendel is the author of “Summer of ’68: The Season That Changed Baseball – and America – Forever” (Da Capo Press), due out in March 2012. Wendel’s writing has appeared in Esquire, GQ, Gargoyle, The New York Times, The Washington Post and USA Today, where he is on the op-ed page’s board of contributors. Wendel has written nine books and is a journalist and teacher at John Hopkins University, as well as a Pen/Faulkner visiting writer to the Washington, D.C., Public Schools.

CW Whitehair is the author of “Escape Across the Potomac,” a Civil War story.  A descendant of one of the last nine hostages held by John Brown during the Harpers Ferry raid in October, 1859, Whitehair has spent 18 years in both civilian and military roles in Civil War reenactments.

CW is a contributing writer for the Civil War Courier and the Camp Chase Gazette. He has co-authored two novels with his wife Rhonda-Lee, “Northern Fire,” and “The Bloody Harvest.”  He is a guest speaker at Civil War Round-tables, historical associations, schools, Civil War re-enactments, civic organizations, book festivals, and libraries.

John Wiley, Jr. is the co-author of “Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind” (Taylor Trade Publishing), a history of how GWTW became an international phenomenon that has sustained the public’s interest for 75 years. Wiley is one of the world’s foremost authorities on Margaret Mitchell and her novel. He owns an immense collection of related memorabilia, including more than 800 different editions of the novel, and has been interviewed by USA Today, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the London Times and NPR. Wiley publishes The Scarlett Letter, a quarterly newsletter for GWTW fans, and served as artistic adviser for a 1999 U.S. postage stamp featuring the novel.