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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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

Brent Wolfingbarger is the author of “The Dirty Secret” (Smallridge Publishing), a political thriller about two star-crossed former lovers from opposite sides of the political fence who are drawn back together by a legal battle over the closest presidential election in history, where the difference between victory and defeat in the Electoral College comes down to 259 votes in West Virginia.

He has been practicing law for almost two decades, representing both Democrats and Republicans in closely contested, high-profile election law battles.  Wolfingbarger lives in Washington, DC where he continues to work as a prosecutor.