Omkari L. Williams is the Gold Nautilus award-winning and bestselling author of Micro Activism: How You Can Make a Difference in the World (Without A Bullhorn). Her book helps readers identify their “activist archetype" and map a personal action plan for engaging in small, change-making activities with potentially big impacts.

Andrea Freeman is an author, law professor, and Fulbright scholar. She is a national and international expert on the intersections of race and food policy, health, and consumer credit. Much of her work explores her pioneering theory of food oppression, which examines how food law and policy, influenced by corporate interests, disproportionately harms marginalized communities. Freeman is the author of Ruin Their Crops on the Ground: The Politics of Food in the United States, from the Trail of Tears to School Lunch, Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in History and Winner of the James Beard Media Award in Food Issues and Advocacy (Metropolitan 2024), and Skimmed: Breastfeeding, Race, and Injustice (Stanford University Press 2019), in addition to book chapters, law review articles, and op-eds. Skimmed is currently in development for a documentary with Topic Pictures.

Susan Abulhawa speaks widely on the subjects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the power of storytelling, particularly for marginalized communities. Susan is the founder of Playgrounds for Palestine, a non-profit organization dedicated to upholding the Right to Play for Palestinian children under Israeli occupation and in refugee camps outside of Palestine. Susan is one of the most widely-read Arab authors. Her debut novel, Mornings in Jenin, is a multigenerational family epic spanning five countries and more than sixty years. With an unflinching look at the Palestinian question, it was translated into thirty languages and became an international bestseller. Her latest novel, Against the Loveless World, won the Arab American Book Award.

Nicholas Buccola is a political philosopher who specializes in American political thought. He is also a writer, lecturer, and teacher, and author of One Man’s Freedom: Goldwater, King, and the Struggle over an American Ideal (Princeton University Press in October 2025). His previous books include The Fire Is upon Us: James Baldwin, William F. Buckley Jr., and the Debate over Race in America (Princeton University, 2019), which won the Frances Fuller Victor Award for General Nonfiction, and The Political Thought of Frederick Douglass: In Pursuit of American Liberty (New York University Press, 2012).

Bridgett M. Davis is the author of the memoir Love, Rita: An American Story of Sisterhood, Joy, Loss, and Legacy, published by Harper Books in spring 2025. This moving memoir examines the vivacious life of Bridgett’s older sister Rita. It is full of joy and heartbreak, family history and American history, and uses Rita’s life as a lens to examine the persistent effects of racism in the lives of Black women. Her first memoir, The World According To Fannie Davis: My Mother’s Life In The Detroit Numbers, was a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a 2020 Michigan Notable Book, named a Best Book of 2019 by Kirkus Reviews, BuzzFeed, NBC News and Parade Magazine, and featured as a clue on the quiz show Jeopardy!. The upcoming film adaptation will be produced by Plan B Entertainment and released by Searchlight Pictures. Davis is also the writer and director of the 1998 award-winning feature film Naked Acts, newly restored by Milestone Films and released in 2024 to critical acclaim, and screening in theaters across the US as well as international venues.

Patricia Engel is the author of five works of fiction. Her most recent book, a short story collection titled The Faraway World, was a finalist for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, longlisted for The Story Prize, and named a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a Washington Post Notable Book of the Year, and a Boston Globe Best Book of the Year. Her novel Infinite Country, a New York Times bestseller, won the New American Voices Award, a Florida Book Award, was a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award and the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. It was also named a Washington Post Notable Book of the Year, a Reese’s Book Club pick, an Indie Next pick, Entertainment Weekly’s #1 Best Book of the Year, and more. Patricia has been awarded the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature, fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and an O. Henry Award. Her books have been translated into many languages and selected as an NEA Big Read. Born to Colombian parents and raised in New Jersey, Patricia is a graduate of New York University and earned her MFA at Florida International University. She is a Professor of English in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Miami.