Contributors

Named one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people, Tomi Adeyemi is a Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Nigerian-American writer and storyteller based in Los Angeles, CA. After graduating from Harvard University with an honors degree in English literature, she studied West African mythology, religion, and culture in Salvador, Brazil. Her first novel, Children of Blood and Bone, debuted at #1 on The New York Times Bestseller list and is being developed into a movie by Disney’s Fox & Lucasfilm. Its highly anticipated sequel, Children of Virtue and Vengeance, also debuted at #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list. When she’s not working or playing with puppies, Tomi can be found teaching creative writing on her website. In 2020, she was named one of Forbes 30 Under 30 in Media, and her website has been named one of the 101 best websites for writers by Writer’s Digest.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was born in Enugu, Nigeria in 1977. She grew up on the campus of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where her father was a professor and her mother was the first female Registrar. She studied medicine for a year at Nsukka and then left for the US at the age of 19 to continue her education on a different path. She graduated summa cum laude from Eastern Connecticut State University with a degree in Communication and Political Science.   She has a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing from Johns Hopkins University and a Master of Arts degree in African History from Yale University. She was awarded a Hodder fellowship at Princeton University for the 2005-2006 academic year, and a fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute of Harvard University for the 2011-2012 academic year. In 2008, she received a MacArthur Fellowship.   She has received honorary doctorate degrees from Eastern Connecticut State University, Johns Hopkins University, Haverford College, Williams College, the University of Edinburgh, Duke University, Amherst College, Bowdoin College, SOAS University of London, American University, Georgetown University, Yale University, Rhode Island School of Design, Northwestern University, University of Pennsylvania, Skidmore College and University of Johannesburg.   Ms. Adichie’s work has been translated into over thirty languages.   Her first novel, Purple Hibiscus (2003), won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and her second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun (2006), won the Orange Prize. Her 2013 novel Americanah won the US National Book Critics Circle Award and was named one of The New York Times Top Ten Best Books of 2013.   She has delivered two landmark TED talks: her 2009 TED Talk The Danger of A Single Story and her 2012 TEDx Euston talk We Should All Be Feminists, which started a worldwide conversation about feminism and was published as a book in 2014.   Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions, was published in March 2017.   Her most recent work, Notes On Grief, an essay about losing her father, was published in 2021.   She was named one of TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2015. In 2017, Fortune Magazine named her one of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders. She is a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.   Ms. Adichie divides her time between the United States and Nigeria, where she leads an annual creative writing workshop.

Masuma Ahuja is a freelance journalist reporting on gender, migration and human rights. She was previously a producer at CNN and national digital editor at the Washington Post. She uses words, photos and emerging media to report and tell stories about gender, migration and the impact of politics of people. Her projects have ranged from long-form stories to sending disposable cameras to women around the world to document their days to crowdsourcing voice mails from Americans about the impact of the 2016 election on their lives. She was part of a team that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2014. Her new book Girlhood: Teens Around the World in Their Own Voices is out now from Algonquin Young Readers.

Isabel Allende—novelist, feminist, and philanthropist—is one of the most widely-read authors in the world, having sold more than 77 million books. Chilean born in Peru, Isabel won worldwide acclaim in 1982 with the publication of her first novel, The House of the Spirits, which began as a letter to her dying grandfather. Since then, she has authored more than twenty six bestselling and critically acclaimed books, including Daughter of Fortune, Island Beneath the Sea, Paula, The Japanese Lover, A Long Petal of the Sea and her most recent memoir, The Soul of a Woman. Translated into more than forty two languages, Allende’s works entertain and educate readers by interweaving imaginative stories with significant historical events.   In addition to her work as a writer, Allende devotes much of her time to human rights causes. In 1996, following the death of her daughter Paula, she established a charitable foundation in her honor, which has awarded grants to more than 100 nonprofits worldwide, delivering life-changing care to hundreds of thousands of women and girls. More than 8 million have watched her TED Talks on leading a passionate life.   She has received fifteen honorary doctorates, including one from Harvard University, was inducted into the California Hall of Fame, received the PEN Center Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Anisfield-Wolf Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2014, President Barack Obama awarded Allende the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, and in 2018 she received the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation. She lives in California.

Mia Alvar’s collection of short stories, In the Country, won the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction, the University of Rochester’s Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, and the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award. Mia has been a writer in residence at the Corporation of Yaddo, the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and the Blue Mountain Center for the Arts. She has received fellowships from the Sewanee, Bread Loaf, and Sirenland Writers’ Conferences. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, One Story, The Missouri Review, the Cincinnati Review, and elsewhere. Born in the Philippines and raised in Bahrain and the United States, Mia graduated from Harvard College and the School of the Arts at Columbia University. She lives in California.

Hala Alyan was born in Carbondale, Illinois. She grew up in Kuwait, Oaklahoma, Texas, Maine, and Lebanon. She holds a BA from the American University of Beirut, an MA from Columbia University, and a PsyD from Rutgers University.   Alyan is the author of four books of poetry, including The Twenty-Ninth Year (Mariner Books, 2019); Hijra (Southern Illinois University, 2016), winner of the 2016 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry; and Atrium (Three Rooms Press, 2012), winner of the 2013 Arab American Book Award. Her debut novel, Salt Houses (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017) was the winner of the Layton Literary Peace Prize.   Alyan was awarded a Lannan Foundation Fellowship, and works as a clinical psychologist and as an adjunct assistant professor at New York University. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Sophia Amoruso is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs, side-hustlers and founders-to-be build their dream businesses. Over the past 14 years, she has built big companies and failed hard on the grand public stage. When Sophia was 22, she started a little eBay store selling vintage out of the back of an ‘87 Volvo and named it Nasty Gal. Over the years, she scaled the business to $100,000,000 in revenue and wrote a New York Times Bestselling book about the whole thing and named it #GIRLBOSS. So they put her on the cover of Forbes and made a Netflix series based on her life. Needless to say, it’s been a pretty wild ride. Through her businesses, books, and podcasts she's mentored thousands of people on how to dream up and build profitable businesses they’re proud of. Today, Sophia publish a weekly newsletter, share her thoughts and knowledge on her Instagram, and through her downloadable E-Book, the Side Hustle Bible, as well as free resources like her Bio Bible and her in-depth online course, Business Class.

Laurie Halse Anderson is a New York Times-bestselling author known for tackling tough subjects with humor and sensitivity. Her most recent book is SHOUT. Two of her books, Speak and Chains, were National Book Award finalists, and Chainswas also short-listed for the United Kingdom's Carnegie medal. She was selected by the American Library Association for the Margaret A. Edwards Award for her significant contribution to young adult literature. Laurie has also been honored for her battles for intellectual freedom by the National Coalition Against Censorship and the National Council of Teachers of English. She is a member of RAINN's National Leadership Council and frequently speaks about sexual violence.

Ambassador Nicole Avant served as the 13th U.S. Ambassador to The Bahamas after being nominated by President Barack Obama and unanimously confirmed by The U.S. Senate, becoming the youngest as well as the first African American woman to hold the position. During her tenure, Avant pursued five key initiatives: Economic & Small Business Development, Education, Women’s Empowerment, Alternative Energy, and raising awareness about the challenges facing people with disabilities. Through her many successes and key partnerships, Ambassador Avant was able to further cement and celebrate the relationship between The U.S. and The Bahamas, which earned her a nomination for the Sue M. Cobb Award for Exemplary Diplomatic Service. In 2019, Ambassador Avant produced the critically acclaimed and award-winning documentary, “The Black Godfather” for Netflix. Directed by Reginald Hudlin, the film charts the exceptional and unlikely rise of her father Clarence Avant, the ultimate, uncensored mentor and behind-the-scenes dealmaker in music, film, TV, and politics. Ambassador Avant pursued the project after collecting stories about her father’s influence from dozens of the world’s most high profile entertainers, athletes and politicians including Bill Withers, Quincy Jones, Muhammad Ali, Hank Aaron, and Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, to name a few. The film was nominated for the prestigious Grierson Documentary Award, an Emmy Award, two NAACP Image Awards and was named one of the Top 5 Documentaries of 2019 by the National Board of Review. In 2021, Avant executive produced another critically acclaimed and award-winning film, “Trees of Peace” which garnered over 9.3 million hours of viewer time in the first few days of its release. Currently, she is a producer on Tyler Perry’s next film Six-Triple-Eight, the true story of the first all-black female battalion to serve in Europe during WWII.  Throughout her career, Ambassador Avant has also pursued an array of businesses focused on female and minority owned enterprises as well as philanthropic ventures that honor her mother, Jacqueline Avant’s legacy. She recently commemorated the unveiling of the Jacqueline Avant Children and Family Center, formerly the MLK Child and Family Center, for her mother’s lifelong commitment to the community.  Ambassador Avant has been an active board member for multinational companies and philanthropic organizations, including Best Buddies International, The Bogart Pediatric Research Center, Revlon, LACMA, Soho House, Universal Music Group, and A Sense of Home. She has also served as an Academic Counselor at the Neighborhood Academic Initiative—a daily mentorship program for high school students sponsored by the University of Southern California.  Ambassador Avant has been recognized with several prestigious awards for her diplomatic and humanitarian work. She was recognized at the 20th Annual Trumpet Awards for her dedication to Public Diplomacy and was also given the Humanitarian Award by BESLA in October 2011. A former board member of Girls Inc., she was honored with their Women of Achievement award in 2014 and recently was awarded the Spirit of Compassion Award by UNICEF in 2018. Ambassador Avant lives in Los Angeles with her husband Ted Sarandos, Co-CEO of Netflix, her 92-year-old father, Clarence Avant, their two Labradors, and is the proud stepmother of Tony and Sarah.

Christine Ball started her career in publishing in publicity and then marketing. She is now SVP, Publisher at Dutton, Putnam, and Berkley, three imprints within the Penguin division of Penguin Random House where she has been since 2005. Dutton is the proud publisher of the Girls Write Now anthology for the last three years.

Born in Harlem New York, storytelling has been a part of Thembi Banks’ DNA since she can remember. She received her MFA from USC’s Film & TV Production program where she worked on several award-winning films. She was most recently a co-producer on Home Before Dark, an upcoming hour-long drama set to premiere on Apple’s streaming platform in 2019. Previously, she wrote for SMLF, Daytime Divas and Step Up and is currently writing a feature for Universal Studios with Malcolm D. Lee attached to produce and direct. She will be making her feature film directorial debut with YOUNG. WILD. FREE. written by Juel Taylor. Thembi was a 2017 directing fellow at Project Involve: Her film Suitable has screened in over twenty five festivals and won the Award of Excellence. Special Mention in the 2018 IndieFEST competition and the Audience Award at the Black Harvest Film Festival. The film was also licensed by HBO to air on its online platforms.

Grace is a journalist and multimedia storyteller with a passion for amplifying underrepresented voices. She thrives on creating and developing authentic, relevant, multi-platform content—digital, podcasts, print, video—that deeply engages audiences and propels people to action. Most recently, she was appointed the editor in chief of Parents, a national media brand founded in 1926. Her innate understanding of women and families across different demographics is an invaluable asset that has also positioned her as a thought leader on a variety of stages. She has moderated and guested on panels, presented at conferences, and shared her opinion on live television. Most recently, she co-hosted and served as a producer on a podcast geared towards mothers that led to a guest-hosting opportunity at NPR. While she is passionate about creating immersive audio stories, she loves the written word and has contributed to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and New York magazine, among other publications. She lives in Brooklyn with my husband and young daughters. In her free time, she serves as an ambassador for the Good+ Foundation, a nonprofit working to break the cycle of family poverty.

After graduating from the University of California at Santa Cruz, Amy Berkower took a job at Writers House. A year later, she was promoted to agent and started the children’s book division, which today is one of the preeminent children’s departments in the business. In 1991, Al Zuckerman, the founder of Writers House, offered Amy a full partnership, and in 2012, she became the agency’s chair.   Amy’s diverse clientele includes Newbery Award-winning authors Sharon Creech, Jack Gantos, and Ann Martin, National Book Award winner Kimberly Willis Holt, popular series such as Choose Your Own Adventure, Sweet Valley High, The Baby-Sitters Club, Junie B Jones, Captain Underpants and Dog Man, and such modern-day classics as Bunnicula and Frindle Her adult list includes the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., bestselling author Nora Roberts, and Pulitzer Prize-winner Dave Barry.   Amy has is a long standing board member of Poets & Writers, a non-profit whose mission is to foster the professional development of poets and writers, and to create an environment in which literature can be appreciated by the widest possible public.   Publishing is a family business: her husband, Dan Weiss, was the founder of 17th Street Productions and publisher of SparkNotes, her daughter, Sara, is a Senior Editor at Ballantine, and her son Matt, is the author of two children’s books, Please Be Nice to Sharks and Clownfish Aren’t So Funny.

Rachel Bloom is best known as the co-creator and star of the CW musical dramedy, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (2015-2019). For her performance as “Rebecca Bunch,” Rachel won the 2016 Golden Globe for Best Actress in a TV Series – Musical or Comedy, the 2016 Critics’ Choice Award for Best Actress in a TV Comedy, and the 2016 TCA Award for Individual Achievement in Comedy. In 2019, she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics alongside songwriting partners Jack Dolgen and the late Adam Schlesinger for, Antidepressants Are So Not a Big Deal. Rachel aired Death, Let Me Do My Special on Netflix in October. In 2019, Rachel sold out Radio City Music Hall performing Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: Live as part of a multi-show tour. In the same year she also starred in her own solo tour, What Am I Going to Do with My Life Now? which included a week-long residency at Just For Laughs. Rachel recently co-starred in the Critics’ Choice nominated Hulu comedy series, Reboot (2022), alongside Keegan-Michael Key, Johnny Knoxville, and Paul Reiser. Her upcoming projects include guest starring in season 2 of HBO’s Julia as well as appearing in the new Muppets Mayhem Musical Series on Disney+. She has also appeared in numerous films including co-starring in IFC’s Bar Fight! (2022) and SXSW’s Most Likely to Murder (2018). Her voice acting resume includes the role of “Silver” in The Angry Birds Movie 2 (2019) opposite Jason Sudeikis, “Queen Barb” in Trolls World Tour 2 (2020) opposite Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake, and “Op” in the movie Extinct (2021) opposite Adam Devine and Ken Jeong. She’s also done VO work for television including The Simpsons and Bojack Horseman. Other notable TV & film guest star credits include: Portlandia (2018), iZombie (2018), iCarly (2022), Rupaul’s Drag Race (2020), and The Tony Awards (2018). Rachel got her start performing at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater at which she put up two live musical sketch comedy shows, RACHEL BLOOM IS A TRIPLE THREAT!!! and SING OUT LOUD, LOUISE. Her 2010 music video, Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury, went viral and was nominated for a Hugo Award. In 2012, she performed in the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal in the New Faces: Characters showcase. Before her breakout role in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, she self-released two albums of comedy music: PLEASE LOVE ME (a compilation of old/new hits) and SUCK IT, CHRISTMAS!!! (A CHANUKAH ALBUM). She currently resides in Los Angeles with her husband, writer/director Dan Gregor, their daughter, and dog, Wiley.

Kardea Brown is a contemporary Southern Chef, author of the New York Times bestseller The Way Home, and the creator of the New Gullah Supper Club pop-up, where her menu pays homage to dishes her grandmother and mother passed down to her. She is the host of the hit show Delicious Miss Brown and Kids Baking Championship. She is also a resident judge on Spring Baking Championship and co-hosted seasonal specials, including Kids Baking Championship Thanksgiving in 2023. Kardea lives in Charleston, South Carolina with her husband Bryon and their fur baby Rhubarb.

Andi Buchanan is a New York Times bestselling author whose latest book is the novel Five-Part Invention. Her memoir The Beginning of Everything was a finalist for the 2019 PEN/E.O. Wilson Award for Literary Science Writing. Her other work includes the internationally bestselling Daring Book for Girls and her essay collection on early motherhood, Mother Shock, along with eight other books. Before becoming a writer, Andi trained as a pianist, earning a bachelor of music degree in piano performance from the Boston Conservatory of Music and a master's in piano performance from the San Francisco Conservatory