Debra Dean

DEBRA DEAN creates heartbreaking beauty in her bestselling debut novel, The Madonnas of Leningrad. Awards for the novel included The New York Times Editors’ Choice, Borders Original Voices, number one Book Sense Pick, Booklist Top Ten Novels and American Library Association Notable Book of the Year. Her collection of short stories, Confessions of a Falling Woman, came out to critical acclaim in 2008.

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Jennifer Cody Epstein

The Painter from Shanghai is JENNIFER CODY EPSTEIN’s debut novel about the real life of Pan Yuliang, China’s foremost female post-Impressionist painter. The novel delineates Pan’s love story – for her country, artistic principles and the man who helps her realize herself as an artist. Epstein has written for Self, The Wall Street Journal and the Chicago Tribune and teaches at Columbia University.

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Jane Hamilton

A native of the Midwest, JANE HAMILTON “writes with affection and insight about the darker side of apparently ordinary Midwestern folks.” In her six novels, including the bestselling A Map of the World, Hamilton writes with empathetic humor about the tragedies that bind families and the human ability to rebound from disastrous choices. Her latest novel is Laura Rider’s Masterpiece, a satire.

Kay Redfield Jamison

KAY REDFIELD JAMISON is an internationally acclaimed professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. In 1995 she published her groundbreaking and exquisitely wrought memoir, An Unquiet Mind which chronicles her struggle with bipolar disorder. Other bestselling works include, Night Falls Fast and Touched With Fire. Her latest book, Nothing Was the Same, has just been released.

Joan Silber

Novelist and short story writer JOAN SILBER received the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for her first book, Household Words, and was a National Book Awards finalist. Her stories have been published in The New Yorker, Ploughshares, Paris Review and other magazines. Her most recent books are Ideas of Heaven and The Size of the World. She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College.

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Padma Viswanathan

PADMA VISWANATHAN’s bestselling debut novel The Toss of a Lemon, was inspired by family history. It takes the reader into the private world of a Brahmin clan in early twentieth century India, a turbulent time of social and political change. At the novel’s heart is Sivakami, a young widow bound by rigorous rules, which she observes – with the exception of a single defiant act.

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Jincy Willet

JINCY WILLETT is a Southern California author living in Escondido. Her novel, The Writing Class is a clever mystery set in a writing class comprised of adult students with varying degrees of writing ability. The reader learns a lot about the craft of writing while laughing at the hilarious situations and wry, witty writing. Willett’s other books include Winner of the National Book Award and Jenny and the Jaws of Life.

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