Festival Panels 2025
check back In January to view the panels for the 2025 Annapolis Book Festival.
Festival Panels 2024
- Katharine Hall
- Barn Commons
- Science & Library Center (Library)
- Science & Library Center (Rm 101-102)
- Farmhouse
- Manse Addition
Katharine Hall
Find the authors in Katharine Hall: Douglas Brinkley • Rhaina Cohen • Antonia Hylton • Jonathan M. Metzl • Michele Norris • Evan Thomas • Stephen Vladeck • Michael Waldman
Moderators: Andre M. Davis • Janice Hayes-Williams • JJ Janflone • Gerald Winegrad • Lizz Winstead • Stephen Wrage
10:00-11:00 a.m.
Jonathan M. Metzl - What We've Become: Living and Dying in a Country of Arms
In What We’ve Become, Jonathan M. Metzl reckons both with the long history of distrust of public health and the larger forces―social, ideological, historical, racial, and political―that allow mass shootings to occur on a near daily basis in America. Looking closely at the cycle in which mass shootings lead to shock, horror, calls for action, and, ultimately, political gridlock, he explores what happens to the soul of a nation―and the meanings of safety and community―when we normalize violence as an acceptable trade-off for freedom. Mass shootings and our inability to stop them have become more than horrific crimes: they are an American national autobiography.
Jonathan M. Metzl is the Frederick B. Rentschler II Professor of Sociology and Psychiatry and the director of the Department of Medicine, Health, and Society, at Vanderbilt University. The award-winning author of Dying of Whiteness and six other books, he hails from Kansas City, MO, and lives in Nashville.
Moderator: JJ Janflone is an accomplished educational content producer who has an impressive track record in audio storytelling. Since its inception, she has been the producer and co-host of the award-winning podcast, "Red, Blue, and Brady" (RBB), the only podcast of its kind, devoted to bringing the realities of gun violence to listeners across the US and beyond. In addition to her work on RBB, Ms. Janflone provides at-cost and pro-bono podcast producing and editing services for podcasts related to critical issues such as human trafficking, forced migration and racial justice. She is also passionate about creating educational resources and has written curriculum for teachers and activists seeking to do units on gun violence prevention work. In her free time, she enjoys reading, writing and running.
11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Evan Thomas - Road to Surrender: Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II
Henry Stimson had served in the administrations of five presidents, but as Oppenheimer’s work progressed, he found himself tasked with the unimaginable decision of determining whether to deploy the bomb. The new president, Harry S. Truman, thus far a peripheral figure in the momentous decision, accepted Stimson’s recommendation to drop the bomb. Army Air Force Commander Gen. Spaatz ordered the planes to take off. Like Stimson, Spaatz agonized over the command even as he recognized it would end the war. After the bombs were dropped, Japanese Foreign Minister Togo was finally able to convince the emperor to surrender. To bring these critical events to vivid life, bestselling author Evan Thomas draws on the diaries of Stimson, Togo and Spaatz, contemplating the immense weight of their historic decision. In “Road to Surrender,” an immersive, surprising, moving account, Thomas lays out the behind-the-scenes thoughts, feelings, motivations, and decision-making of three people who changed history.
Evan Thomas is the author of eleven books, including three New York Times bestsellers. He was a writer and editor at Time and Newsweek for thirty-three years and taught journalism and writing at Harvard and Princeton for ten years. Photo Credit - Osceola Thomas
Moderator: Stephen Wrage earned his B.A. in classics in 1974 at Amherst College, then taught for two years at Athens College, a school for Greek students. He also taught at St. Albans School in Washington, worked at the Brookings Institution, earned his master’s and doctorate at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and served as a dean at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Dr. Wrage was a Pew Faculty Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a Fulbright scholar at the National University of Singapore. He has published widely on ethics and American foreign policy.
12:00-1:00 p.m.
Michele Norris - Our Hidden Conversations: What Americans Really Think About Race and Identity
The prompt seemed simple: Race. Your Thoughts. Six Words. Please Send. The answers, though, have been challenging and complicated. In the twelve years since award-winning journalist Michele Norris first posed that question, over half a million people have submitted their stories to the Race Card Project inbox. The stories are shocking in their depth and candor, spanning the full spectrum of race, ethnicity, identity, and class. Even at just six words, the micro-essays can pack quite a punch, revealing fear, pain, triumph, and sometimes humor. Responses such as: You’re Pretty for a Black girl. White privilege, enjoy it, earned it. Lady, I don’t want your purse. My ancestors massacred Indians near here. Urban living has made me racist. I’m only Asian when it’s convenient. Many go even further than just six words, submitting backstories, photos and heirlooms: a collection much like a scrapbook of American candor you rarely get to see. Our Hidden Conversations is a unique compilation of stories, richly reported essays and photographs, providing a window into America during a tumultuous era. This powerful book offers an honest, if sometimes uncomfortable, conversation about race and identity, permitting us to eavesdrop on deep-seated thoughts, private discussions and long-submerged memories.
Michele Norris is one of America’s most trusted voices in journalism, earning several honors over a long career, including Peabody, Emmy, Dupont, and Goldsmith awards. She is a columnist for the Washington Post Opinion Section, the host of the Audible Original Podcast, “Your Mama’s Kitchen,” and from 2002 to 2012 she was a cohost of NPR’s “All Things Considered.” Ms. Norris is also the founding director of the Race Card Project, a Peabody Award–winning narrative archive where people around the world share their reflections on identity—in just six words. Her first book, The Grace of Silence, was named one of the best books of the year by the San Francisco Chronicle, the Christian Science Monitor and the Kansas City Star. Before joining NPR, Ms. Norris spent almost ten years as a reporter for ABC News covering politics, policy and the dynamics of social change. Early in her career, she also worked as a staff writer for the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times.
Photo Credit: Eli Turner Photography.
Lizz Winstead is a comedian, who, as co-creator and former head writer of the “Daily Show” and co-founder of Air America Radio, helped change the very landscape of how people get their news. She was not only a writer, creator and correspondent on the “Daily Show,” she co-founded Air America Radio, and co-hosted “Unfiltered,” Air America’s mid-morning show, with Chuck D and Rachel Maddow. Ms. Winstead’s book, Lizz Free Or Die: Essays, garnered incredible reviews. Ms. Magazine says, “Lizz Winstead is a sharp-witted truth-teller, and Lizz Free or Die will inspire anyone who has ever talked back to the television or wished they could come up with satire as insightful as the “Daily Show.” Currently, she spends most of her time helming Abortion Access Front (AAF), an intersectional reproductive rights organization she founded in 2015. AAF uses humor and outrage to expose anti-choice hypocrisy and mobilizes people to take action in all fifty states. Ms. Winstead also co-hosts “Feminist Buzzkills,” the weekly AAF podcast—which brings listeners all the latest news affecting reproductive health, rights and justice—delivered with her expertise and signature biting wit. New episodes drop Fridays wherever you get your podcasts.
All social media: @lizzwinstead
1:00-2:00 p.m.
Stephen Vladeck & Michael Waldman - Partisanship and Power: The Reshaping of the Supreme Court
In our Partisanship and Power: The Reshaping of the Supreme Court panel, you’ll have a chance to hear from two legal experts and authors—Stephen Vladeck and Michael Waldman. In The Shadow Docket, author Stephen Vladeck argues that the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has used the shadow docket to green-light restrictive voting laws and bans on abortion, and to curtail immigration and COVID vaccine mandates. But Americans of all political stripes should be worried about what the shadow docket portends for the rule of law. In this rigorous yet accessible book, Vladeck issues an urgent call to bring the Court back into the light. In The Supermajority, Michael Waldman explores the tumultuous 2021–2022 Supreme Court term. He draws deeply on history to examine other times the Court veered from the popular will, provoking controversy and backlash. And he analyzes the most important new rulings and their implications for the law and for American society. Waldman asks: What can we do when the Supreme Court challenges the country?
Stephen Vladeck holds the Charles Alan Wright Chair in Federal Courts at the University of Texas School of Law, and is a nationally recognized expert on the federal courts and constitutional law. Mr. Vladeck is CNN’s Supreme Court analyst, author of the New York Times bestselling book, The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic, and editor of the popular weekly Supreme Court substack newsletter, “One First.” A 1997 graduate of Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, MD, Mr. Vladeck received his B.A. from Amherst College and his J.D. from Yale Law School.
Michael Waldman, author of The Supermajority: How the Supreme Court Divided America, is a constitutional lawyer and expert on the presidency and American democracy. He is president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, a nonpartisan law and policy institute focused on improving systems of democracy and justice. Mr.Waldman has served as a member of the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States in 2021, President Clinton’s director of speechwriting, and special assistant for policy coordination. He has written extensively on constitutional issues, including voting rights and the second amendment.
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Moderator: Andre Davis served for thirty years as a judge on four courts: the District Court of Maryland for Baltimore City; the Circuit Court for Baltimore City; the United States District Court for the District of Maryland; and finally, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Earlier in his career he served as law clerk to two federal judges, as an appellate attorney for the Civil Rights Division for the U.S. Department of Justice, as an assistant United States attorney and as an assistant law professor. Judge Davis received his BA from the University of Pennsylvania and his JD from the University of Maryland School of Law. He has received numerous commendations and awards for his leadership of community-based non-profits and attorney organizations. In September 2017, Judge Davis retired from the bench in 2017 and was appointed as Baltimore city solicitor to head the City Law Department. He retired in 2020.
2:00-3:00 p.m.
Rhaina Cohen - The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center
In The Other Significant Others, Rhaina Cohen invites us into the lives of people who have defied convention by choosing a friend as a life partner—these are friends who are home co-owners, co-parents or each other’s caregivers. Their riveting stories unsettle widespread assumptions about relationships, including the idea that sex is a defining feature of partnership and that people who raise kids together should be in a romantic relationship. Platonic partners from different walks of life—spanning age and religion, gender and sexuality and more—reveal how freeing and challenging it can be to embrace a relationship model that society doesn't recognize. And they show that orienting your world around friends isn't limited to daydreams and episodes of “The Golden Girls,” but actually possible in real life.
Rhaina Cohen is an award-winning producer for NPR’s documentary podcast, “Embedded.” Her work, which often focuses on social connection, has aired on numerous podcasts and radio shows, including “Hidden Brain,” “Invisibilia” and “Morning Edition,” and her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic and elsewhere. She received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities and is a graduate of Northwestern University and Oxford, where she was a Marshall Scholar. She lives in Washington, DC, with her husband, friends and her friends’ children. The Other Significant Others, a national bestseller, is her first book.
Moderator: Sigal Samuel is a senior reporter for Vox, where she writes primarily about the future of consciousness, tracking advances in artificial intelligence and neuroscience and their staggering ethical implications. Before joining Vox, Ms. Samuel was the religion editor at the Atlantic. She is also the author of two award-winning books. Osnat and Her Dove, a children’s book, tells the true story of the world’s first female rabbi. The Mystics of Mile End, a novel, tells the story of a dysfunctional family dealing with mysticism, madness and mathematics in Montreal.
3:00-4:00 p.m.
Antonia Hylton - Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum
In Madness, a work that details the ninety-three-year history of nearby Crownsville Hospital, Antonia Hylton traces the legacy of slavery to the treatment of Black people’s bodies and minds in our current mental healthcare system. It is a captivating and heartbreaking meditation on how America decides who is sick or criminal, and who is worthy of our care or irredeemable.
Antonia Hylton is a Peabody and Emmy-award winning journalist at NBC News reporting on politics and civil rights, and the co-host of the hit podcast “Southlake” and “Grapevine.” She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University, where she received prizes for her investigative research on race, mass incarceration and the history of psychiatry. She lives in Brooklyn.
Photo Credit: Mark Clennon
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Moderator:
Janice Hayes-Williams is an historian and a native of seven generations of immigrants to Annapolis and Anne Arundel County. As owner of Our Legacy Tours of Annapolis, Ms. Hayes-Williams specializes in the immigrant experience to America; the enslaved, the indentured and the free Black culture. She founded the Friends of the Crownsville Hospital Patient Cemetery (at the Hospital closing) after being introduced to the Crownsville Hospital Cemetery in 2001 and seeing cemetery headstones with numbers and no names. Driven, she found volunteers to assist her and found all 1,700+ names and has secured a memorial in their names with the help of the State of Maryland.
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4:00-5:00 p.m.
Douglas Brinkley - Silent Spring Revolution: John F. Kennedy, Rachel Carson, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and the Great Environmental Awakening
New York Times bestselling author and acclaimed presidential historian Douglas Brinkley chronicles the rise of environmental activism during the Long Sixties (1960-1973), telling the story of an indomitable generation that saved the natural world under the leadership of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon in his new book Silent Spring Revolution.
Douglas Brinkley is the Katherine Tsanoff Brown Chair in Humanities at Rice University, presidential historian for the New-York Historical Society, trustee of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, and a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. Six of his nonfiction books have made the New York Times Notable Book of the Year list. He is the recipient of such environmental leadership prizes as the Frances K. Hutchison Medal (Garden Club of America), Robin W. Winks Award for Enhancing Public Understanding of National Parks (National Parks Conservation Association), and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Lifetime Heritage Award. Dr. Brinkley's book The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast received the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. As a music producer, he earned two Grammy Awards for Presidential Suite (Large Jazz Ensemble) and Fandango on the Wall (Latin Jazz). His two-volume, annotated Nixon Tapes recently won the Arthur S. Link–Warren F. Kuehl Prize. He lives in Austin, TX.
Moderator: Gerald Winegrad served sixteen years in the Maryland Legislature, twelve as a senator managing most environmental legislation passing the Senate. He received numerous awards as Legislator or Conservationist of the Year from the Sierra Club and Audubon Society, and Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award. The Baltimore Sun called him the Senate’s “environmental conscience.” Tom Horton wrote: “More than anyone, he set Maryland’s environmental agenda for 16 years.” Senator Winegrad is an attorney, former naval officer and Maryland University professor teaching graduate courses he authored on Chesapeake Bay and wildlife management. He writes weekly environmental columns in the Capital Gazette newspaper.
Barn Commons
Find the authors in the Barn Commons: Stephanie Dray • Steve Drummond • Natalie Franke • Douglas Melville • Alex Prud’homme • James Risen • Thomas Risen • Deborah Jackson Taffa • Heather Webb • Alden Wicker
Moderators: Brian Boyd • J’nell Ciesielski • Dana Petersen Moore • Wendy Rabin • Christy Stanlake • Shannon Curley Tower
10:00-11:00 a.m.
Stephanie Dray & Heather Webb - Historical Fiction: Women Claiming Their Power
In our Historical Fiction: Women Claiming Their Power panel, you’ll get to know two critically acclaimed authors—Stephanie Dray and Heather Webb. Dray’s book, Becoming Madam Secretary is a captivating and dramatic new novel about an American heroine Frances Perkins, a workers-rights advocate who served as the fourth United States Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, the longest serving in that position. A member of the Democratic Party, Perkins was the first woman ever to serve in a presidential cabinet. Webb’s latest work, Queens of London, is a tale of dark glamour and sisterhood. It is a look at Britain's first female crime syndicate, the ever-shifting meaning of justice, and the way women claim their power by any means necessary.
Stephanie Dray is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author of historical women’s fiction. Her award-winning work has been translated into many languages and tops lists for the most anticipated reads of the year. She lives in Maryland with her husband, cats and history books.
Photo Credit: Kate Furek
Heather Webb is the USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of ten historical novels, including Queens of London, a novel of the first all-female crime syndicate and the first female inspector at Scotland Yard in 1925 London. Her other most recent novels are The Next Ship Home: A Novel of Ellis Island and Strangers in the Night. In 2015, Rodin’s Lover was a Goodread’s Top Pick, and in 2018, Last Christmas in Paris won the Women’s Fiction Writers Association STAR Award. Meet Me in Monaco was selected as a finalist for the 2020 Goldsboro RNA award in the UK, as well as the 2019 Digital Book World’s Fiction prize. Three Words for Goodbye was a Prima Magazine 2022 Book of the Year. To date, Ms. Webb’s books have been translated to seventeen languages. She lives in New England with her family and two mischievous kittens.
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Moderator: J’nell Ciesielski is a bestselling author who has a passion for heart-stopping adventure and sweeping love stories while weaving fresh takes into romances of times gone by. When not creating dashing heroes and daring heroines, she can be found dreaming of Scotland, indulging in chocolate of any kind, or watching old black and white movies. She is a member of the Tall Poppy Writers and lives in Virginia with her husband, daughter and lazy beagle.
11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Alden Wicker - To Dye For: How Toxic Fashion Is Making Us Sick—and How We Can Fight Back
In To Dye For, Alden Wicker reveals how clothing manufacturers have successfully swept consumers’ concerns under the rug for more than 150 years, and why synthetic fashion and dyes made from fossil fuels are so deeply intertwined with the rise of autoimmune disease, infertility, asthma, eczema, and more. In fact, there’s little to no regulation of the clothes and textiles we wear each day—from uniforms to fast fashion, outdoor gear, and even the face masks that have become ubiquitous in recent years. Wicker explains how we got here, what the stakes are, and what all of us can do in the fight for a safe and healthy wardrobe for all.
Alden Wicker is an award-winning investigative journalist and author of To Dye For: How Toxic Fashion Is Making Us Sick—and How We Can Fight Back (Putnam). She splits her time between managing her internationally recognized platform on safe and sustainable fashion, EcoCult.com, and contributing to publications such as the New York Times, Vox, Wired, Vogue, and more. She’s made expert appearances on NPR’s “Fresh Air,” the BBC, and Al Jazeera to speak on the big ideas around sustainability and chemical safety in consumer products.
Photo Credit: Justin N. Lane
Moderator: Wendy Rabin, a fashion industry veteran and passionate wardrobe expert, believes that personal style is deeply personal. She advises her clients to develop and nurture a distinctive approach to style that transcends time and trend. Her highly tailored, immersive approach to wardrobe consulting and wardrobe management emboldens her clients to express self-confidence in every aspect of their lives.
Photo Credit: Heather Crowder Photography
12:00-1:00 p.m.
Alex Prud’homme - Dinner with the President: Food, Politics, and a History of Breaking Bread at the White House
Some of the most significant moments in American history have occurred over meals, as U.S. presidents broke bread with friends or foe: Thomas Jefferson’s nation-building receptions in the new capital, Washington, D.C.; Ulysses S. Grant’s state dinner for the king of Hawaii; Teddy Roosevelt’s groundbreaking supper with Booker T. Washington; Jimmy Carter’s cakes and pies that fueled a détente between Israel and Egypt at Camp David. In his book Dinner with the President, Alex Prud’homme invites readers into the White House kitchen to reveal the sometimes curious tastes of twenty-six of America’s most influential presidents, how their meals were prepared and by whom, and the ways their choices affected food policy around the world.
Alex Prud’homme has written for the New York Times, the New Yorker and Vanity Fair, and has authored nine books. He is best known for co-writing Julia Child’s memoir My Life in France, a #1 New York Times bestseller that inspired half the film Julie & Julia. His latest work, Dinner with the President: Food, Politics, and a History of Breaking Bread at the White House, is a narrative history of America through the meals of twenty-six presidents— from George Washington starving at Valley Forge to Trump’s burgers and Biden’s ice cream. He lives in Brooklyn with his family.
Photo Credit: Michael Lionstar
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Moderator: Brian Boyd is a member of the Key School Humanities Department and has been teaching at the independent school and collegiate levels for the past thirty years. In addition to his work with the students at Key, he also co-created and facilitates the Seminar Series for Adults that provides adults in the wider community the opportunity to participate in discussions of great works of literature.
1:00-2:00 p.m.
Steve Drummond, James Risen & Thomas Risen - Honest Men: The Unsung Heroes of Democracy
In the Honest Men: The Unsung Heroes of Democracy panel, you’ll hear from three award-winning journalists—Steve Drummond, James Risen and Thomas Risen. Steve Drummond’s book The Watchdog is the story of how a little-known junior senator from Missouri fought wartime corruption and, in the process, set himself up to become vice president and ultimately President Harry Truman. In James and Thomas Risen’s book The Last Honest Man, the journalists examine Senator Frank Church from Idaho , the man at the center of numerous investigations into the abuses of power within the American government.
Steve Drummond is an author, educator and, for more than twenty years, a journalist at NPR in Washington. As a senior editor there, his work has been recognized with many of journalism’s highest honors. Before coming to NPR, he was a reporter in Florida and in Michigan, and has written for many publications. A three-time graduate of the University of Michigan, Mr. Drummond lives in Bethesda, MD, and teaches journalism at the University of Maryland.
James Risen is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author. Throughout his career, his explosive investigative reporting has triggered a series of political firestorms. Among his best-selling books are State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration and Pay Any Price: Greed, Power and Endless War. His latest book is The Last Honest Man: The CIA, the FBI, the Mafia, and the Kennedys—and One Senator's Fight to Save Democracy (coauthor Thomas Risen).
Photo Credit: Bill Risen
Thomas Risen is a journalist who has spent years reporting on U.S. politics and national security, including the intelligence community, digital surveillance and the War on Terror. His first book as coauthor is The Last Honest Man: The CIA, the FBI, the Mafia, and the Kennedys—and One Senator's Fight to Save Democracy (coauthor James Risen).
2:00-3:00 p.m.
Douglas Melville - Invisible Generals: Rediscovering Family Legacy, and a Quest to Honor America's First Black Generals
Invisible Generals, the amazing true story of America’s first Black generals, Benjamin O. Davis Sr. and Jr., a father and son who helped integrate the American military and created the Tuskegee Airmen, is “the book Black America needs in this moment,” according to Eboni K. Williams, lawyer and cohost of “State of the Culture.”
Doug Melville is a celebrated author, a three-time TEDx speaker, and one of today’s most innovative and sought-out voices in international equity and inclusion. He has been featured prominently in the media, including "CBS Saturday Morning," TIME, the "Daily Show," the Guardian, the "Breakfast Club," and the Washington Post, and is also a Forbes.com contributor. A fifth-generation leader, Doug Melville’s first book, Invisible Generals: Rediscovering Family Legacy, and a Quest to Honor America’s First Black Generals (Simon & Schuster) debuted November 2023 as an Amazon #1 Best-Selling New Release, and has since become the subject of a PBS "NewsHour" Classroom Daily News Lesson. Throughout his career, he has served as the global head of equity for Richemont, a luxury holding company in Geneva, Switzerland and TBWA, a top ten global ad agency, on Madison Ave in New York. He has traveled to over forty countries to better understand this topic globally.
Photo Credit: Keith Major @DougMelville
3:00-4:00 p.m.
Deborah Jackson Taffa - Whiskey Tender: A Memoir
Reminiscent of the works of Mary Karr and Terese Marie Mailhot, Whiskey Tender is a memoir of family and survival, coming-of-age on and off the reservation, and of the frictions between mainstream American culture and Native inheritance; assimilation and reverence for tradition.
Deborah Jackson Taffa is the director of the MFA Creative Writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her memoir Whiskey Tender (HarperCollins), was named one of the most anticipated books in 2024 by Zibby Media. Ms. Taffa has won fellowships from PEN America, MacDowell, Hedgebrook, Rona Jaffe, Tin House, A Public Space, Ellen Meloy, and the NY State Summer Writers Institute. She earned her MFA in Iowa City, and her writing can be found in Salon, Best of Brevity, Los Angeles Review of Books, the Best Nonrequired Reading, etc. Ms. Taffa comes from the Kwaatsan (Yuma) Nation and Laguna Pueblo and edits River Styx Literary Magazine.
Christy Stanlake is an English professor at the United States Naval Academy. A Native ally and scholar/practitioner of Native American Theatre, she’s published Native American Dramaturgy: A Critical Perspective (Cambridge 2009) and Critical Companion to Native American and First Nations Theatre and Performance, co-authored with Jaye Darby and Courtney Elkin-Mohler (Bloomsbury Methuen Drama 2020). Currently, the three are developing an anthology of new Native plays for Bloomsbury. Dr. Stanlake has applied Native performance theories to direct several shows, including the national production of JudyLee Oliva’s Te Ata. She also serves as the faculty representative for the U.S. Naval Academy’s Native American Heritage Club.
4:00-5:00 p.m.
Natalie Franke - Gutsy: Learning to Live with Bold, Brave, and Boundless Courage
Gutsy is your guidebook to uncovering the audacious courage within you and making an impact on this world that only you can make. This book will help you learn to turn off the expectations of others, ask for what you deserve, stick your neck out, and be brave enough to take that next step. From navigating a benign brain tumor diagnosis to undergoing neurosurgery to battling infertility for years, Natalie Franke has faced her fears time and time again. Her lived experiences have shaped her understanding of courage and inspired her to write Gutsy: Learning to Live with Bold, Brave, and Boundless Courage from a place of true vulnerability.
Natalie Franke is a writer, entrepreneur, community builder, and mama bear for small business. She is also the head of community at Flodesk where she champions a community of over 100,000 independent business owners. From navigating a benign brain tumor diagnosis, to undergoing neurosurgery, to battling infertility for years, Ms. Frank has faced her fears time and time again. Her lived experiences have shaped her understanding of courage and inspired her to write Gutsy: Learning to Live with Bold, Brave, and Boundless Courage from a place of true vulnerability. She currently lives in Annapolis with her husband and two small children. When she isn’t writing, she can be found doodling, drinking more caffeine than is appropriate, and rocking out to the Paw Patrol soundtrack with her kids.
Shannon Curley Tower partners with non-profit leaders to maximize performance, impacting the missions of their organizations. She has spent the past twenty-five years working with non-profit organizations as a board member, volunteer, frontline fundraiser, consultant, and coach. Ms. Tower is the founder of Tower Philanthropy, a coaching and consulting firm, and she is a professional certified coach (PCC). She serves on the board of trustees for the Key School, and she lives in Annapolis with her husband and two children.
Science & Library Center (Library)
Find the author in the Science & Library Center (Library): Raymond Arsenault • E.A. Aymar • Liv Constantine • John Eisenberg • Mary Haverstick • Wesley Lowery • Alice McDermott • Bethany McLean • Liza Mundy • Pamela Ryckman
Moderators: John Beed • Peter Blauner • Toby Gordon • Cara LaPointe • Leeya Mehta • Clarence Page • Greg Yette
10:00 - 11:00 a.m.
Bethany McLean - The Big Fail: What the Pandemic Revealed About Who America Protects and Who It Leaves Behind
Why and how did America become the world leader in COVID deaths? In this page-turning economic, political and financial history, veteran journalist Bethany McLean (co-authorJoe Nocera) offers fresh and provocative answers. With laser-sharp analysis and deep sourcing, she investigates both what really happened when governments ran out of PPE due to snarled supply chains and the shock to the financial system when the world's biggest economy stumbled. The book zeros in on the effectiveness of wildly polarized approaches, with Governors Andrew Cuomo of New York and Ron DeSantis of Florida taking infamous turns in the spotlight. And it traces why thousands died in hollowed-out hospital systems and nursing homes run by private equity firms to maximize shareholder value.
Bethany McLean is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, a contributor at Business Insider, and a contributor at CNBC. She’s the co-host, along with University of Chicago economist Luigi Zingales, of the podcast "Capitalisn’t." Ms. McLean is the co-author of the Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron and All the Devils are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis. Her newest book, which she co-authored with Joe Nocera, is The Big Fail: What the Pandemic Revealed About Who America Helps and Who it Leaves Behind.
Moderator: John Beed is the chief partnership officer for LifeRamp, a nextgen global talent development company providing transformational leadership and career coaching for thousands of young and diverse professionals. A former U.S. diplomat who led innovative international development, education and health programs in ten countries on five continents, Mr. Beed served as a three-time USAID mission director (India, Guatemala, Paraguay), and as the senior U.S. development counselor in Japan. He is a former faculty member of the National Defense University, and Congressional staff member. He is a Tulane University graduate and lives in Annapolis with his wife Christine. Linkedin
11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Raymond Arsenault & Wesley Lowery - The Cycle of Racial Progress from John Lewis to Barack Obama
In our Cycle of Racial Progress from John Lewis to Barack Obama panel, you’ll get to know two prize-winning authors—Raymond Arsenault and Wesley Lowery. For six decades John Lewis was a towering figure in America’s Civil Rights struggle. As an activist and progressive congressman, he was renowned for his unshakable integrity, indomitable courage and determination to get into "good trouble." In this biography of Lewis, Arsenault traces Lewis's upbringing in rural Alabama, his activism, his championing of voting rights and anti-poverty initiatives, and his decades of service as the "conscience of Congress." In American Whitelash, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and best-selling author Wesley Lowery charts the return of a blood-stained trend, showing how the forces of white power retaliated against Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential victory—and both profited from and helped to propel, the rise of Donald Trump. Interweaving deep historical analysis with gripping firsthand reporting on both victims and perpetrators of violence, Lowery uncovers how this vicious cycle is carrying us into ever more perilous territory, how the federal government has failed to intervene, and how we still might find a route of escape.
Raymond Arsenault is the John Hope Franklin Professor of Southern History emeritus at the University of South Florida. Educated at Princeton and Brandeis, he is one of the nation’s leading civil rights historians and the author of several widely acclaimed and prize-winning books, including Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice (2006), The Sound of Freedom: Marian Anderson, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Concert That Awakened America (2009), and Arthur Ashe, A Life (2018). His most recent book, published in January 2024 as a volume in Yale University Press’s new Black Lives series, is John Lewis: In Search of the Beloved Community. The 2011 PBS American Experience documentary Freedom Riders, based on his book, won three Emmys and a George Peabody Award. He has also served as a consultant for numerous civil rights museums and documentary film projects, including the 2022 PBS American Masters documentary Marian Anderson: The Whole World in Her Hands.
Photo Credit: Sudsy Tschiderer
Wesley Lowery is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author who primarily covers issues of race and justice.
Photo Credit: Antoine Lyers
Moderator: Clarence Page, winner of the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, is a nationally syndicated columnist and editorial writer for the Chicago Tribune. His other honors include lifetime achievement awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and the National Press Foundation. Photo Credit: Chicago Tribune
12:00-1:00 p.m.
Alice McDermott - Absolution
American women—American wives—have been mostly minor characters in the literature of the Vietnam War, but in Absolution they take center stage. Tricia is a shy newlywed, married to a rising attorney on loan to Navy Intelligence. Charlene is a practiced corporate spouse and mother of three, a beauty and a bully. In Saigon in 1963, the two women form a wary alliance as they balance the era’s mandate to be “helpmeets” to their ambitious husbands with their own inchoate impulse to “do good” for the people of Vietnam.
Alice McDermott’s latest novel, Absolution, was published in October 2023 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Her eight previous novels have been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her novel Charming Billy won the National Book Award for fiction. Ms. McDermott is also the author of What About the Baby? Some Thoughts on the Art of Fiction. Her stories and essays have appeared in the New Yorker, Harpers, the New York Times, Commonweal, and elsewhere. For over two decades she was the Richard A. Mackey Professor of the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University and a member of the faculty of the Sewanee Writers Conference.
Photo Credit: Beowulf Sheehan
Moderator: Leeya Mehta is a fiction writer, essayist and prize-winning poet, and author of The Towers of Silence and A Story of the World Before the Fence. She directs the Alan Cheuse International Writers Center, a home for international and American writers who face out into the world. By enriching public life through reading, writing and translation, the Cheuse Center actively pursues a just society.
Photo Credit: Michaela Hackner
1:00-2:00 p.m.
E.A. Aymar & Liv Constantine - Edge-of-Your-Seat Thrillers with a Female Twist
In our Edge-of-Your-Seat Thrillers with a Female Twist panel, you’ll get to know two bestselling authors—E.A. Aymar and Liv Constantine. In When She Left, Melissa Cruz falls hard for a dreamy-eyed photographer named Jake and she can’t resist the urge to run away with him. The problem is she already has a boyfriend, a rising star in his family’s crime organization. Betrayed and humiliated, Chris isn’t going to just let her go. Riveting, fast-paced and full of unbelievable twists, The Senator’s Wife is a psychological thriller that upends the private lives of those who walk the halls of power. Because when you have it all, you have everything to lose.
E.A. Aymar is a multiple Anthony Award-nominated writer whose most-recent thriller, When She Left, was called by New York Times bestseller Wendy Corsi Straub, “crime fiction at its finest.” His previous thriller, No Home for Killers, received praise from the New York Times, Kirkus and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, and was an instant Amazon bestseller. A frequent contributor to the Washington Post, he is a former member of the national board of the International Thriller Writers and is an active member of Crime Writers of Color and Sisters in Crime. Mr. Aymar was born in Panama and now lives and writes in, and generally, about the DC/MD/VA triangle.
Photo Credit: Marian Lozano Photography
Valerie Constantine writes with her sister, Lynne, under the pen name Liv Constantine. Together they are Wall Street Journal and USA Today international bestselling authors with over one and a half million copies sold worldwide and are Library Reads Hall of Fame authors. Their books have been translated into twenty-nine languages, are available in thirty-four countries, and are in development for both television and film. Their books have been praised by the Washington Post, USA Today, the Sunday Times, People Magazine, and Good Morning America, among many others. Their debut novel, The Last Mrs. Parrish, is a Reese Witherspoon Book Club selection.
Moderator: Peter Blauner is the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of nine novels, including Slow Motion Riot and The Intruder. He has written for such TV shows as “Law & Order: SVU” and “Blue Bloods.” His most recent novel Picture in the Sand, praised as "a tour de force" by Stephen King, has just been published in paperback.
Photo Credit: Michael Parmelee
2:00-3:00 p.m.
Pamela Ryckman - Candace Pert: Genius, Greed, and Madness in the World of Science
Candace Pert: Genius, Greed, and Madness in the World of Science, is the story of maverick scientist Candace Pert, whose groundbreaking research and book “Molecules of Emotion” introduced the world to the mind-body connection, opioid receptors and peptide T, and her fight for recognition in a toxic healthcare system.
Pamela Ryckman is an Emmy-winning producer, writer and thought leader. She is the author of the biography Candace Pert: Genius, Greed, and Madness in the World of Science (Hachette, 2023), of which Publishers Weekly said: “Riveting…nuanced portrait…Readers will be engrossed.” Her first book, Stiletto Network (HarperCollins Leadership, 2013), received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. Ms. Ryckman has been featured widely in the press, appearing on the TODAY Show, Rock Center with Brian Williams, Good Day New York, Bloomberg TV, and MSNBC, and in publications such as the Chicago Tribune, New York Post, Forbes, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Inc., and Entrepreneur.
Moderator: Toby Gordon
3:00-4:00 p.m.
Mary Haverstick & Liza Mundy - Spies, Double Identities & Espionage: Women in the CIA
In A Woman I Know independent filmmaker Mary Haverstick thought she’d stumbled onto the project of a lifetime—a biopic of aviation pioneer Jerrie Cobb, the key figure in a group of extraordinary women who in 1960 passed the same tests as the legendary male astronauts of the Mercury 7 but never went to space. As she dug deeper, she discovered that Jerrie’s life shadowed that of a mysterious CIA agent named June Cobb, whose espionage career traced an arc of intrigue from the jungles of South America to Fidel Castro’s Cuba, to the communist literary circles in Mexico City—and ultimately into the dark heart of the Kennedy assassination in Dallas. The Sisterhood recounts how the Central Intelligence Agency, created in the aftermath of World War II, relied on women even as they attempted keep them down. Liza Mundy details how women sent cables, made dead drops and maintained the agency’s secrets. Despite discrimination—even because of it—women who started as clerks, secretaries or unpaid spouses rose to become some of the CIA’s shrewdest operatives.
Mary Haverstick is a director, writer and cinematographer. Her most notable work as director was for the 2009 movie Home, which starred Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden. She is currently chronicling the turbulent political landscape of her home state, Pennsylvania, for her documentary, Tipping Point, PA.
Website • Threads • Instagram • X
Liza Mundy is an award-winning journalist and the New York Times bestselling author of five books, including Code Girls and her latest work, The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA. A former staff writer for the Washington Post, Ms. Mundy writes for the Atlantic, Politico and Smithsonian, among other publications.
Photo Credit: Nina Subin
Moderator: Cara LaPointe
4:00-5:00 p.m.
John Eisenberg - Rocket Men: The Black Quarterbacks Who Revolutionized Pro Football
Acclaimed sportswriter John Eisenberg offers an inside look at the Black quarterbacks whose skill and grit transformed the NFL. In “Rocket Men,” Eisenberg offers a definitive history of Black quarterbacks in the NFL—men who shaped not only the history of football but the cause of civil rights in America.
John Eisenberg is one of the country’s most acclaimed sportswriters. A native of Dallas, TX, and graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, he started out working for the now-defunct Dallas Times Herald in 1979 before joining the staff of the Baltimore Sun in 1984. For the next twenty-three years, he wrote columns in the Sun and won more than twenty writing awards. Mr. Eisenberg has also authored eleven best-selling books, including The League: How Five Rivals Created the NFL and Launched a Sports Empire, and Rocket Men: The Black Quarterbacks Who Revolutionized Pro Football. He has also written for Sports Illustrated and Smithsonian Magazine. He lives in Baltimore.
Photo Credit: Phil Hofmann
Moderator: Greg Yette has been a back judge for the NFL since 2010. He attended Howard University where he played football and participated in ROTC. He was an Army infantry lieutenant and, since 2003, he has owned and operated Acquisition, Research & Logistics, Inc., an engineering company that provides professional services to DHS, DoD and the Department of Energy. Mr. Yette is the proud father of two boys and resides in Bowie, MD.
Science & Library Center (Rm 101-102)
Find the author in the Science & Library Center (101-102): Schuyler Bailar • Jane Delury • Peter J. Emanuel Jr. • John W. Frece • Terah Shelton Harris • Meghan Riordan Jarvis • Leah Lax • Kate Myers
Moderators: BJ Armstrong • Lauren Cashion • Vanessa Gutierrez • Robert McCarthy • Gary D. Reiner • Melody Wukitch
10:00 - 11:00 a.m.
Peter J. Emanuel Jr. - Course Change: The Whaleship Stonington in the Mexican-American War
Using the logbook of the whaleship Stonington together with other primary and secondary sources, historian Peter J. Emanuel Jr. tells the story of a whaleship unlike any other in the annals of whaling. Readers with an interest in maritime/naval/military history, as well as those who just enjoy an exciting adventure story, will sail along with the Stonington as it assists in the retaking of San Diego, then serves as a supply ship, a troop ship and even a gunship for the U.S. Navy. The captain and his crew interact with central figures in the U.S. war effort in California, including Commodore Robert F. Stockton, John C. Frémont, Ezekiel Merritt, and General Stephen W. Kearny.
Peter J. Emanuel Jr. has been an educator and musician in New London County, CT, since 1978. From that time, he has been a piano teacher, accompanist and pianist/vocalist. Mr. Emanuel earned a bachelor of science degree in education from the University of Connecticut in 1977 and a master of arts degree in history from American Public University in 2012. He began teaching at the Williams School, a private college preparatory school in New London, in 1991 as the director of music, but his course load always included at least one history class. In 2009, Mr. Emanuel began working on a master’s degree in history and, in 2014, his course load shifted completely to history. From 2017 to 2020, it was his distinct honor to serve as history department head. He retired from the Williams School in 2020.
Photo Credit: Christine Donovan Photography Facebook
Moderator: BJ Armstrong is a naval officer currently serving as the deputy dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the U.S. Naval Academy. A former search and rescue helicopter pilot, Captain Armstrong earned his Ph.D. from King's College London and has published seven books on naval history, strategy, and leadership, including Small Boats and Daring Men: Maritime Raiding, Irregular Warfare, and the Early American Navy (University of Oklahoma Press, 2019) and Naval Presence and the Interwar U.S. Navy and Marine Corps: Forward Deployment, Crisis Response, and the Tyranny of History (Routledge, 2023).
11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Jane Delury, Terah Shelton Harris & Kate Myers - Novels: Stories of Friendship, Betrayal & Redemption
The Festival’s Novels: Stories of Friendship, Betrayal & Redemption panel introduces you to three novelists—Jane Delury, Terah Shelton Harris and Kate Myers. Deeply moving and impossible to put down, Hedge is an unforgettable portrait of a woman’s longing to be a good mother while still answering the call of her soul and mind. When One Summer in Savannah begins, it's been eight years since Sara Lancaster left her home in Georgia. Eight years since her daughter, Alana, came into this world, following a terrifying sexual assault that left deep emotional wounds Sara would do anything to forget. But when Sara's father falls ill, she's forced to return home and face the ghosts of her past. Excavations finds four women on a remote archeological site in Greece, the mythic home of the first Olympics, when they discover an unusual artifact. It’s a piece of history that definitely shouldn’t exist. And for the head archaeologist in charge, a relic himself, it means something’s gone horribly wrong.
Jane Delury is the author of the novels Hedge, a Summer 2023 People Magazine pick, and The Balcony, which won the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her short stories have appeared in Granta, the Georgia Review, the Yale Review, the PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, and other publications. She is a professor of creative writing at the University of Baltimore, where she directs the B.A. in English.
Terah Shelton Harris is an author, librarian and former freelance writer who now writes upmarket fiction with bittersweet endings. Her debut novel, One Summer in Savannah was a Target Book Club Pick. Her second book, Long After We Are Gone, will be published in May 2024.
Kate Myers is the bestselling author of Excavations, her first novel. The book was a pick for Oprah's summer reading list, an Apple Books Best Books of July, one of Good Housekeeping's best books of the summer, and a USA Today bestseller. The book has been optioned for TV with NBCUniversal and Amy Poehler. Ms. Myers studied archaeology at Penn State, lived in New York, LA and DC, and worked for CBS in TV development, CollegeHumor and BuzzFeed. She is currently at work on her second novel and lives in Annapolis with her husband, daughter and dog.
Photo Credit - Mary Kate McKenna
Moderator: Melody Wukitch is the founder and CEO of MW Novel Concepts which includes the independent bookstore called, Park Books & LitCoLab and the Community Space that hosts authors year round. She is also the founder of Words in Action, an activism-based book subscription box, Novel Concepts Collaborative, a book provider and publicity company, and she’s currently developing a coffee-wine café called Speak Easy. Ms. Wukitchis a former teacher and English instructor at the United States Naval Academy. She’s a bookish gal who doesn’t drink enough water but certainly has plenty of time for red wine and a fun book club.
Facebook & Instagram: parkbooksmd
12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Schuyler Bailar - He/She/They: How We Talk About Gender and Why It Matters
Anti-transgender legislation is being introduced in state governments around the United States in record-breaking numbers. Trans people are under attack in sports, healthcare, school curriculum, bathrooms, bars, and nearly every walk of life. He/She/They clearly and compassionately addresses fundamental topics, from why being transgender is not a choice and why pronouns are important, to more complex issues including how gender-affirming healthcare can be lifesaving and why allowing trans youth to play sports is good for all kids. With a relatable narrative rooted in facts, science, and history, Bailar helps restore common sense and humanity to a discussion that continues to be divisively co-opted and politicized.
Schuyler Bailar (he/him) is an educator, author and advocate. He is also the first transgender athlete to compete in any sport on an NCAA Division I men’s team. Mr. Bailar’s exemplary work has earned him numerous honors including NYC Pride Grand Marshall, the Out100, LGBTQ Nation’s Instagram Advocate of the Year, and the Harvard Director’s Award. He holds a degree in cognitive neuroscience and evolutionary psychology from Harvard and works in four research labs focusing on trans health. He’s the author of He/She/They: How We Talk About Gender and Why It Matters.
Photo Credit: Violetta Markelou
Instagram • Website • Facebook • X
Moderator: Vanessa Gutierrez
1:00 - 2:00 p.m.
Leah Lax - Not From Here: The Song of America
When asked to write an opera based on immigrant stories, Leah Lax spent a year listening to riveting accounts of upheaval, survival, migration, and arrival told to her in confidence by new Americans from around the globe. In Not From Here, while relating seven of these amazing stories, Lax discovers the story of her own Jewish family with its astounding parallels. The immigrant experience, she says, is the story of America.
Leah Lax is an author and librettist who has worked with some of America’s premiere composers. Her award-winning memoir Uncovered was the first gay memoir to come out of the Jewish ultra-Orthodox world and became an opera by composer Lori Laitman. Ms. Lax’s opera The Refuge for the Houston Grand Opera, based on immigrant stories by Christopher Theofanidis, was acclaimed by the New York Times and broadcast nationally on NPR. Her book Not From Here: The Song of America (Pegasus, 2024) details the impact of her year of listening to immigrant stories and on her sense of this country and of herself as an American.
Facebook • Website
Moderator: Gary D. Reiner - is a Holocaust educator and author of Counting on America, a nonfiction Holocaust memoir. The memoir is a powerful reminder of America's image as a nation of freedom to all seeking a better life. He is currently collaborating with Citizen Film, to make the book into a documentary. Mr. Reiner has appeared at the Annapolis Book Festival as a featured author (Counting on America) in 2019 and as a panel moderator in 2023. He is the founder and administrator of the Facebook social media site “Family Holocaust Stories, Documentaries and Videotapes,” which has 59,000 followers. Mr. Reiner is a member of the Holocaust Committee, Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington.
2:00 - 3:00 p.m.
John W. Frece - Self-Destruction: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of U.S. Senator Daniel B. Brewster
Hollywood-handsome Daniel B. Brewster had it all: inherited wealth, stellar education, combat Marine, prestigious horse farm, gorgeous and talented wife, and two young sons—even a seat in the United States Senate. He was called "the Golden Boy of Maryland Politics." In 1964, as a stand-in for Lyndon Johnson in Maryland's Democratic Presidential Primary, Brewster defeated the segregationist George C. Wallace, a victory that was credited with clearing the way for congressional passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. But then, debilitated by alcoholism, Brewster self-destructed only to rise again.
Self Destruction is listed as a finalist for history best book of 2023 by Forward Reviews, an organization helps booksellers and librarians discover great books from indie presses.
John W. Frece, author of Self-Destruction: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of U.S. Senator Daniel B. Brewster, spent half of his career as a newspaper reporter and half working for the state and federal governments. Knowledgeable about Maryland political history, he has written three previous books, including co-writing the autobiographies of former Maryland Governor Harry Hughes and former Maryland U.S. Senator Joseph D. Tydings. Mr. Frece is a 1969 graduate of William & Mary and served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army. He lives in Annapolis with his wife, the children’s book author, Priscilla Cummings. They have two grown children.
Website • Senator Daniel Brewster
Moderator: Robert McCarthy has taught in Key School’s Upper School Humanities department, which he also chairs, for over 20 years. He teaches Comparative Literature, American Civilization and electives including Economics, Psychology, and International Film. Before Key he taught philosophy at a variety of colleges in the Boston area.
3:00 - 4:00 p.m.
Meghan Riordan Jarvis - End of the Hour: A Therapist's Memoir
A brave story of confronting life’s hardest moments with emotional honesty, End of the Hour is for anyone who has experienced the unpredictable, lasting power of grief―and wondered how they’d ever get through it.
Meghan Riordan Jarvis is an author, podcast host, two-time Tedx speaker, and psychotherapist specializing in trauma and grief and loss. After the deaths of both of her parents within two years of each other, Ms. Jarvis began speaking on a larger scale about the importance of supporting grievers. Founder of MRJ Consulting, she and her team consult regularly with companies addressing grief in the workplace. Her podcast “Grief Is My Side Hustle” and grief writing workshop “grief mates” can be found at www.meghanriordanjarvis.com. Ms. Jarvis’s memoir, End of the Hour, was published in November 2023 by Zibby Books and Can Anyone Tell Me Why: Essential Questions About Grief and Loss will be published by Sounds True Media in 2024.
Photo Credit: Author
Moderator: Lauren Cashion is a double board-certified adult and child/adolescent psychiatrist committed to enhancing the mental health of individuals and communities through direct practice and advocacy. In her private practice, Dr. Cashion employs a trauma-informed, collaborative approach, empowering families towards self-efficacy and well-being. An advocacy liaison for the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, she has partnered with various agencies statewide to improve mental health outcomes. Dr. Cashion completed her medical education at the University of Maryland and a Master’s in Public Health at George Washington University. An Annapolis native and lover of matcha lattes, Dr. Cashion is a Key School alumna as well as a Key parent.
Farmhouse
Find the author in Farmhouse: Jack Campbell • Mark Hendricks • Victoria Kelly • Claudia Kousoulas • Johannes Lichtman • Stewart Moss • Amanda Newell • Jennifer A Sutherland • Charlie Redden
Moderators: John Beed • Jordan Loch Crabtree • Kate Curry • Ryan Curry • Doug Norton • Brian Michaels
10:00 - 11:00 a.m.
Jack Campbell - Rendezvous with Corsair: A Lost Fleet Collection
Science fiction and steampunk meets high fantasy. Author John G. Hemry writes under the pen name Jack Campbell. Rendezvous with Corsair, the latest book in his New York Times bestselling The Lost Fleet sci-fi adventure series,
transports readers out of this world and into the heat of battle. Packed with military action as well humor and humanity, his book is a must-read for all science fiction fans.
John G. Hemry writes under the pen name Jack Campbell. He is a retired US Navy officer who writes the “Doomed Earth” series, the New York Times best-selling “Lost Fleet” series, the “Genesis Fleet" series, the “Lost Stars" series, and steampunk meets high fantasy “Pillars of Reality” series. His latest books are The Lost Fleet - Outlands - Implacable, In Our Stars, The Empress of the Endless Sea trilogy, and Rendezvous at Corsair.
Moderator: Doug Norton writes international thrillers, drawing on twenty-six years of seagoing and diplomatic service in the navy, from Vietnam to Desert Storm. Armed with plot ideas and characters from adventures spanning most of the cold war, he first wrote Code Word: Paternity. Next in the series is Code Word: Pandora. The latest is Code Word: Persepolis [2021]. His current project is Code Word: Pluto. A graduate of the Naval Academy and of the University of Washington, Captain Norton commanded two warships, was a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow, and Director of International Studies at the Naval Academy.
11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Mark Hendricks - The Central Appalachians: Mountains of the Chesapeake
Mark Hendricks is an award-winning photographer, writer and author. His newest book captures the beautiful and wild Central Appalachians of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. Not only are these images stunning, but they aim to bring more understanding of the environmental importance of the area, which is a hotspot for biodiversity. Don’t miss this chance to view gorgeous photography and learn more about our beautiful region.
Mark Hendricks is an award-winning photographer, writer and author. His first book, Natural Wonders of Assateague Island, was a 2018 Foreword Reviews award winner. His images and articles have been featured in National Geographic, the Guardian, the Washington Post, Living Bird, and many others. Mr. Hendricks is a fellow in the International League of Conservation Writers, a member of the ethics committee for the North American Nature Photography Association, and a faculty member at Towson University where he serves as a lecturer in the Department of Psychology and adjunct in the Department of Biological Sciences.
Photo Credit: Kodi Bowers
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Moderator: Brian Michaels is the Upper School Head at Key School, and has spent a great deal of time camping, paddling and hiking with students across the Chesapeake and Appalachian region.
12:00-1:00 p.m.
Claudia Kousoulas - Private Gardens of the Potomac & Chesapeake
Spring brings thoughts of gardening! Join author Claudia Kousoulas and embark on a captivating garden journey spanning the vast expanse from Washington, DC, metro area to the serene Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Private Gardens of the Potomac & Chesapeake delves into the enchanting realm of fifteen exquisite gardens, carefully crafted by renowned designers, who spotlight the captivating landscape style of the Capital region. Claudia Kousoulas worked as a land-use planner in the Capital region for more than twenty years. Now, as a freelance writer and editor, she explores the region's history, land use and culinary traditions.
Claudia Kousoulas worked as a land use planner in the Capital region for more than twenty years. Now, as a freelance writer and editor, she explores the region's history, land use and culinary traditions. She is the author of Bread & Beauty, A Year in Montgomery County's Agricultural Reserve, A Culinary History of Montgomery County, Contemporary Architecture in Washington, D.C., and other books. She has spoken at the National Building Museum and the U.S. State Department, and to many local history, environment and community groups.
Moderator: Jordan Loch Crabtree founded LOCH Collective in 2016. He is an award-winning landscape architect who has designed and spoken internationally. His passion and curiosity in art, landscapes and the environment have led him to design in various ecosystems ranging from New York City to the Patagonia Region of Chile. Mr. Crabtree is known for his minimalistic design of spaces set into carefully crafted natural landscapes. LOCH designs high-end residential gardens and estates alongside urban and institutional projects. Publications include Architectural Digest, Southern Living, and Garden and Gun. He has previously spoken at Harvard Graduate School of Design and the International Federation of Landscape Architect’s global conference in Nairobi. He lives in Annapolis with his wife, Megan, and three children. Instagram
1:00-2:00 p.m.
Victoria Kelly - Homefront: Stories (Battle Born)
Inspired by Victoria Kelly’s experiences as the wife of a fighter pilot during three wartime deployments, this collection of stories follows women whose lives have been impacted by war and military service as they struggle with their fragile ideas of home. The compelling stories offer readers an intimate, eye- opening look into the sacrifices and steadfastness of military family members.
Victoria Kelly is the author of Homefront, When the Men Go Off to War, and Mrs. Houdini. She is married to a former Marine sniper platoon commander and is a graduate of Harvard and the Iowa Writers' Workshop.
Moderator: Kate Curry is a 500-hour E-RYT yoga instructor with over two decades of experience. She has developed and led multiple 200-hour and 300-hour yoga teacher trainings and is a Yoga Alliance Continuing Education Provider. In addition to directing yoga teacher training, Ms. Curry leads group classes, meets with private clients, and mentors other yoga teachers. Her history with the Annapolis Book Festival includes co-chairing the Festival from 2020 until 2022 and co-chairing the Hospitality Committee since 2017. Ms. Curry, along with her husband Ryan, are proud parents of a Key School student and are based in Annapolis.
2:00-3:00 p.m.
Johannes Lichtman - Calling Ukraine: A Novel
National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree Johannes Lichtman joins the Festival with a novel that is strikingly relevant to our times—about an American who takes a job in Ukraine in 2018, only to find that his struggle to understand the customs and culture is eclipsed by a romantic entanglement with deadly consequences. Calling Ukraine reimagines the American-abroad novel, moving effortlessly between the comic and the tragic as it illuminates the inevitable complexities of doing right by others.
Johannes Lichtman’s debut novel, Such Good Work, was chosen as a 5 Under 35 honoree by the National Book Foundation. His second novel, Calling Ukraine, was named a best fiction book of 2023 by Library Journal and was recently released in paperback. His stories and essays have appeared in Tin House, the Sun, Travel + Leisure, Los Angeles Review of Books, Oxford American, and elsewhere. He lives in Washington, DC.
Moderator: Ryan Curry is a retired Marine Corps helicopter test pilot with over twenty-four years of military service. He had a career as an organizational development consultant and is now an associate director for Collins Aerospace. Mr. Curry holds an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and an MA in leadership studies from Marshall University and is a U.S. Naval Academy alum. He has several patents and started a business for his invention, the Cover Keeper. He is a Key School parent, a fan of Key’s theater program, and has volunteered at the Annapolis Book Festival for the last six years.
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3:00-4:00 p.m.
Amanda Newell, Stewart Moss & Jennifer A Sutherland - The Making of a Poem
Three gifted poets will discuss the craft of poetry writing. Award-winning poet and native Marylander, Amanda Newell, is the author of Postmortem Say. The poems in Stewart Moss’s work Arrivals and Departures were written over many years and set in locales in both America and abroad. The poems explore the phenomena of arriving and departing physically, metaphysically and spiritually. Jennifer A Sutherland’s Bullet Points considers an American courthouse shooting, tracing a woman trial lawyer's experiences of violence—from the intimate and domestic to the national.
Amanda Newell is the author of Postmortem Say (Červená Barva 2024), I Will Pass Even to Acheron, a 2021 winner of the Rattle Chapbook Prize, and Fractured Light (Broadkill Press), winner of the 2010 Dogfish Head Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Barrow Street, Bellevue Literary Review, Cimarron Review, Gargoyle, Scoundrel Time, and elsewhere. A graduate of Warren Wilson's MFA Program for Writers, she has received scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and the Frost Place and a fellowship from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She is an associate editor at Plume.
Stewart Moss has taught literature and creative writing in both the U.S. and abroad; Scotland, Greece, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, and Nepal are among the countries in which he has lived and worked. Most recently, he directed a large literary center serving the Washington, DC, community and beyond. His poems and essays have been published in journals and books. His chapbook, For Those Whose Lives Have Seen Themselves (Finishing Line Press), was published in 2021. He has also been featured in "The Poet and the Poem" podcasts at the Library of Congress and, in 2022, was the recipient of an Independent Artist Award from the Maryland State Arts Council. A native of Boston, he resides in Annapolis.
Moderator & Panelist: Jennifer A Sutherland is an attorney and an educator in Baltimore. Her work has appeared in Hopkins Review, Best New Poets, Denver Quarterly, I-70 Review, Parhelion, Hollins Critic, and elsewhere. Bullet Points: A Lyric is her first book. Read about the event that led to the creation of Bullet Points in the Baltimore Banner.
4:00 - 5:00 p.m.
Charlie Redden - Necessary Goodness: Delicious Cuisine for Gathering and Entertaining
In Necessary Goodness, Charlie Redden, who was a White House chef, imparts experience and winsome gained from decades of cooking. The book is especially useful to people who lead busy lives and seek ways to make everyday life as simple and enjoyable as possible for their families and loved ones. Chef Redden will share his love for good food and fo cooking during this not-to-be-missed panel.
Charlie Redden is retired Navy and the first certified executive chef in the history of the White House Presidential Food Service Program. He is also the author of two books, Following the Tides to Nourish your Soul and Sculpted.
Manse Addition
Children's Book Authors
10:00 - 11:00 a.m.
Jonathan Roth - Rover and Speck: Splash Down!
Jonathan Roth writes and illustrates the graphic novel series Rover and Speck (Kids Can Press, 2022+), the chapter book series Beep and Bob (Aladdin/S&S, 2018+), and the upcoming non-fiction picture book Almost Underwear: How a Piece of Cloth Traveled from Kitty Hawk to the Moon and Mars (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2024). Though his books are often space-themed, he loves Earthly activities like hiking, canoeing and cycling. He lives in Rockville, MD and teaches elementary art.
Photo Credit: Tamzin Smith
12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Timothy Young - Mac and the Millstone of Time
Timothy Young, as a child, always wondered who made the toys he played with, who wrote and illustrated the books he read, and who made the cartoons he watched. He grew up to be someone who got to do all of them. Mr. Young has worked in animation, television and toy industries and his career has included being the head model-maker for the Penny cartoons on "Pee-Wee’s Playhouse," building Muppets for Jim Henson, and sculpting the first Simpsons toys. He is the author/illustrator of sixteen books including I Hate Picture Books!, The Angry Little Puffin and his newest, Mac and the Millstone of Time.
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11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Meg Eden Kuyatt - Good Different
Meg Eden Kuyatt teaches creative writing at colleges and writing centers. She is the winner of the 2021 Towson Prize for Literature for her poetry collection Drowning in the Floating World. Her children’s novels include Good Different (2023 ALA Schneider Family Book Award Honor) and the forthcoming The Girl in the Wall (Scholastic, 2025).
Photo Credit - Vincent Kuyatt
Instagram • Facebook • Website • X
1:00 - 2:00 p.m.
Tracy C. Gold - Call Your Mother
Tracy C. Gold loves writing about families and nature. She is a writer, freelance editor and mom living in Baltimore. Her published and forthcoming picture books include Everyone’s Sleepy but the Baby, Call Your Mother, Trick or Treat, Bugs to Eat, and Hide and Seek, Nuts to Eat. Ms. Gold earned her M.F.A. in creative writing and publishing arts at the University of Baltimore and earned her B.A. in English from Duke University. When she’s not writing or editing, she’s playing with her toddler or hanging out with horses and dogs.
Instagram • Website • Facebook • Threads