WRussell Banks is an American writer of fiction and poetry. As a novelist, Banks is best known for his "detailed accounts of domestic strife and the daily struggles of ordinary often-marginalized characters". His stories usually revolve around his own childhood experiences, and often reflect "moral themes and personal relationships".
WLouis Székely, best known by his stage name Louis C.K., is an American stand-up comedian, writer, actor, and filmmaker. C.K. won a Peabody Award in 2012 and has received six Primetime Emmy Awards, as well as numerous awards for The Chris Rock Show, Louie, and his stand-up specials Live at the Beacon Theater (2011) and Oh My God (2013). He has won the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album twice. Rolling Stone ranked C.K.'s stand-up special Shameless number three on their "Divine Comedy: 25 Best Stand-Up Specials and Movies of All Time" list and ranked him fourth on its 2017 list of the 50 best stand-up comics of all time.
WJane K. Cleland is a contemporary American author of mystery fiction. She is the author of the Josie Prescott Antiques Mysteries, a traditional mystery series set in New Hampshire and featuring antiques appraiser Josie Prescott, as well as books and articles about the craft of writing. In addition, Cleland runs seminars and workshops on various fiction writing and business communications topics. She also delivers keynote speeches. Cleland has been nominated for and has won numerous awards for her writing.
WBrad Falchuk is an American television writer, director, and producer, best known for co-creating with Ryan Murphy the comedy-drama television series Glee, the drama series Pose, the horror-drama anthology series American Horror Story, and the horror comedy Scream Queens. He was also a writer and executive producer for the television series Nip/Tuck and is married to actress Gwyneth Paltrow.
WFlorida Friebus was an American writer and actress of stage, film, and television. Friebus's best-known roles were Winifred "Winnie" Gillis, the sympathetic mother of Dwayne Hickman's character Dobie Gillis on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, and Mrs. Lillian Bakerman on The Bob Newhart Show.
WStephen Jay Greenblatt is an American Shakespearean, literary historian, and author. He has served as the John Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University since 2000. Greenblatt is the general editor of The Norton Shakespeare (2015) and the general editor and a contributor to The Norton Anthology of English Literature.
WAlexander Karpovsky is an American director, actor, screenwriter, producer and film editor. He is best known for playing Ray Ploshansky on the HBO comedy-drama series Girls and Craig Petrosian on the Amazon series Homecoming.
WKaren Kondazian is an American actress and author. She is a recipient of the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award's Best Actress award and is a four-time Drama-Logue Awards winner. She had a regular starring role in Shannon, as well guest-starring roles on Wiseguy, Frasier, NYPD Blue, and others.
WJohn Burke Krasinski is an American actor and filmmaker. He is the recipient of a number of accolades, including four Primetime Emmy Award nominations and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. He was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2018.
WBarry Louis Levy is an American screenwriter best known as the writer of the 2008 film Vantage Point.
WHari Nef is an American actress, model and writer. Nef made her runway debut at New York Fashion Week Spring 2015, walking for both Hood By Air and Eckhaus Latta, and subsequently became the first openly transgender woman signed to IMG Models. Nef became the first openly transgender women to appear on the cover of a major British magazine. She has written extensively on fine art, film, sex, and gender and trans identity.
WBenjamin Joseph Manaly Novak is an American actor, writer, comedian, and director. Novak was one of the writers and executive producers of The Office (2005–2013), in which he also played Ryan Howard. He also appeared as PFC Smithson "The Little Man" Utivich in the film Inglourious Basterds (2009), Robert B. Sherman in Saving Mr. Banks (2013), and Harry J. Sonneborn in The Founder (2016).
WAmy Meredith Poehler is an American actress, comedian, writer, producer, and director. After studying improv at Chicago's Second City and ImprovOlympic in the early 1990s, she co-founded the improvisational-comedy troupe Upright Citizens Brigade. The group moved to New York City in 1996 where their act became a half-hour sketch comedy series on Comedy Central in 1998. Along with other members of the comedy group, Poehler is a founder of the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre.
WRam Dass, also known as Baba Ram Dass, was an American spiritual teacher, psychologist, and author. His best known book, Be Here Now (1971), has been described as "seminal", and helped popularize Eastern spirituality and yoga with the baby boomer generation in the West. He authored or co-authored twelve more books on spirituality over the next four decades, including Grist for the Mill (1977), How Can I Help? (1985), and Polishing the Mirror (2013).
WLeo Rafael Reif is a Venezuelan-American electrical engineer, writer and academic administrator. He is the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, succeeding Susan Hockfield on July 2, 2012. Reif previously served as the Institute's provost, as the head of MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and as the director of the MIT Microsystems Technology Laboratories.
WLee Aaron Segel (1932–2005) was an applied mathematician primarily at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the Weizmann Institute of Science. He is particularly known for his work in the spontaneous appearance of order in convection, slime molds and chemotaxis.
WPercy Goldthwait Stiles was an American physiologist and writer.
WElizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward was an early feminist American author and intellectual who challenged traditional Christian beliefs of the afterlife, challenged women's traditional roles in marriage and family, and advocated clothing reform for women.
WEmily J. Yoffe is an American journalist and contributing writer for The Atlantic. From 1998 to 2016 she was a regular contributor to Slate magazine, notably as Dear Prudence. She has also written for The New York Times; O, The Oprah Magazine; The Washington Post; Esquire; The Los Angeles Times; Texas Monthly; and many other publications. Yoffe began her career as a staff writer at The New Republic before moving on to other publications.