William Lee Adams is a Vietnamese-American broadcaster and journalist based in London, where he currently presents the BBC Minute — the flagship youth news program from the BBC World Service. He is best known as the founder and face of Wiwibloggs, the world’s most-followed independent Eurovision blog and YouTube channel. Wild Dances is his first book.

Emma Ahlqvist is an artist and writer born in Sweden and based in Scotland. She is a graduate of Edinburgh College of Art and mother to a four-year-old son, Tor, and two-year-old daughter, Runa. Her illustrations have appeared in The Guardian and elsewhere, and her work on motherhood, which she shares on Instagram at @emmajahlqvist, has been featured by myriad websites and social media feeds. In 2017, Emma published a graphic novel in Swedish, Ta mig härifrån (I'm Leaving Soon). Her first book in English is forthcoming from Princeton Architectural Press.

Muhammad Ali's core principles of confidence, conviction, dedication, giving, respect, and spirituality guided him and made him one of the most beloved symbols of peace and well-being in America and the world.First known for boxing, and later for his conscientious stance on the Vietnam War draft, Ali focused his awareness of the needs of his fellow citizens and those in the developing world to direct his good work. In addition to challenging racial and religious preconceptions at home, he served as a symbol of hope and a catalyst for constructive international dialogue, delivered sorely-needed medical supplies to an embargoed Cuba, provided more than 22 million meals to the world’s hungry, and helped secure the release of fifteen U.S. hostages from Iraq during the first Gulf War. The United Nations named him a Messenger of Peace, and he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, as well as Amnesty International’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In September 2012, he was the recipient of the prestigious National Constitution Center Liberty Medal.Among his many projects, Muhammad cofounded the Muhammad Ali Center with his wife Lonnie, and contributed substantially to the awareness and research efforts regarding Parkinson’s disease.

Keegan Allen is a star of the ensemble-cast show "Pretty Little Liars" on ABC Family, as well as multiple forthcoming films. An amateur photographer, poet, and musician, Allen resides in Los Angeles. Life.Love.Beauty is his first book.

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Author of the nationally-syndicated column "Ask a Mexican," Arellano is the editor of the OC Weekly. He has contributed to NPR’s Marketplace and The Los Angeles Times, and has appeared on The Today Show, Chelsea Lately, and The Colbert Report. He lectures widely and is represented by Verbatim.

With Superchunk bandmate Mac McCaughan, Laura Ballance founded the eminent independent label Merge Records, whose bands include Arcade Fire, Spoon, and Neutral Milk Hotel, among many others.

Platinum-selling singer-songwriter, Bareilles has been nominated for a Grammy Award five times. Her hit single “Love Song” reached number four on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2007. Bareilles also wrote the songs and music for the hit Broadway musical, Waitress.

Patricia Romanowski Bashe, MSEd., BCBA, is a certified special education teacher, early intervention provider, and Board Certified Behavior Analyst. Currently BCBA supervisor at a special-needs preschool, Romanowski worked for many years as senior education specialist at the Cody Center for Autism and Developmental Disabilities at Stony Brook Long Island Children’s Hospital, Stony Brook University. She is also the coauthor of twenty-three books and four national bestsellers. Her works range in topic from popular culture and celebrity autobiography to children’s issues, parapsychology/bereavement, psychology, and self-help. Before becoming a writer, she worked as an editor at Rolling Stone Press. She lives in Baldwin, NY.

A former reporter for WWD, Vogue editor, and editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar, Betts is a contributor to Time and The Daily Beast.

Will Birch is a former drummer and songwriter with the Kursaal Flyers (1976 UK hit ‘Little Does She Know’) and The Records (1979 US hit ‘Starry Eyes’). During the 1980s he moved into record production, working with artists such as Any Trouble, Dr Feelgood, Billy Bremner, and the Long Ryders. Throughout the 1990s he wrote many articles for Mojo and other music magazines and in 2000 published his first book, No Sleep Till Canvey Island: The Great Pub Rock Revolution (Virgin Books). His Ian Dury: The Definitive Biography was published in 2010 (Pan MacMillan). He is currently writing a biography of musician Nick Lowe. He lives near London, UK.

A bartender to the Hollywood elite, for whom he set up intimate social liaisons, Bowers was the author of Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywoodand The Secret Sex Lives of the Stars. Full Service, co-authored with Lionel Friedberg, was a New York Times Bestseller and a Los Angeles Times Bestseller.

Bill Brewster is a freelance writer, music consultant and DJ, specializing in dance music and football. He has worked for the British publications When Saturday Comes and Mixmag Update. His work has appeared in The Face, Mixmag, Muzik, Mail on Sunday, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, and The Big Issue.Frank Broughton is a freelance writer and editor, and author of the “Time Out New York Guide.” He has worked as an editor at iD,Mixmag US, and Blah Blah Blah, and his writing has also appeared in Details, HipHop Connection, Mixmag, NME, Rolling Stone, The Big Issue, and Time Out New York, where he was the founding Clubs Editor.Together they run DJhistory.com the world’s leading expert forum on back-catalogue dance music and through DJhistory.com have published a series of books: The Disco Files, The Complete Boys Own, Raving ’89 and Catch The Beat. They also co-authored The Manual for the Ministry of Sound Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton are based in London. They are represented in association with Lucas Alexander Whitley in the UK.

Kyle Buchanan is the Pop Culture reporter for the New York Times.

Sydney Bucksbaum is a writer and editor at Entertainment Weekly where she passionately covers all things pop culture — but TV is her one true love. Her work has previously been featured in Teen Vogue, The Hollywood Reporter, DC Comics, Mashable, and more. She graduated from Northwestern University’s Medill of School of Journalism and immediately traded the freezing temps of Chicago, IL for her current home of sunny Los Angeles, CA. In addition to her writing/editing at EW, she also co-hosts SiriusXM’s "Superhero Insider" radio show and is a member of the Television Critics Association and the Hollywood Critics Association.

Maggie Bullock is a journalist and former Condé Nast editor who covers the worlds of fashion, retail, and celebrity for The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Elle, and Vogue among many other national publications.

E. Jean Carroll has written the celebrated monthly advice column “Ask E. Jean” for Elle magazine for over 25 years. She has been a contributing editor at Esquire, Outside and Playboy, and has written for Rolling Stone and GQ and other publications. She also received an Emmy nomination for her writing on Saturday NightLive.

Ash Carter is a writer and the articles editor at Air Mail. His writing has appeared in Esquire, Air Mail, Vanity Fair, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Medium, WIRED, Town & Country, USA Today, and more. He lives in Brooklyn.

Anne Soon Choi is a historian and a gerontologist who specializes in immigration history at the California State University, Dominquez Hills. She has also held postdoctoral fellowships at Swarthmore College and UCLA. She earned her Ph.D. in History from the University of Southern California and her MPH and MSW from the University of California, Los Angeles.

According to a recent profile in The New Yorker, Robert Christgau is “not just the Dean of American Rock Critics…but one of America’s sharper public intellectuals of the past half century, and certainly one of its most influential.” A rock critic since 1967, he was a senior editor and the chief music critic at The Village Voice for over three decades. His Is It Still Good to Ya?: Fifty Years of Rock Criticism, 1967-2017 was a finalist for the 2018 National Book Critics Circle award in the category of criticism; he currently writes a music column for Vice.

Brandi Collins-Dexter is Senior Campaign Director at Color Of Change, the country’s largest racial justice and political organization, and a visiting fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center, one of the foremost academic institutions releasing cutting edge research on technology, disinformation, and social change. She has been named a “person to watch” by The Hill and one of the most influential African Americans (ages 25 to 45) by The Root; and, in 2020, she received an EPIC Champion of Freedom award from the Electronic Privacy Information Center, for her work on data privacy protections.

Tim Conway, legendary actor and comedian, is the author, with Jane Scovell, of the New York Times bestselling autobiography What’s So Funny? (Howard Books).

A travel, documentary, and portrait photographer, Cooper pursues images that reflect local cultures and people. Since 2015, his work has been exhibited in more than 25 juried group shows in the U.S. and Europe receiving Best in Show, Best Portrait, Director's Choice, Artistic Excellence and Honorable Mention awards.

Andy Corren spent decades in the entertainment industry as a successful talent manager for numerous high profile actors, eventually establishing his own firm. He is a published and produced playwright and performer.

Culture reporter at the New York Times, Coscarelli’s focus is on pop music and how emerging artists are discovered, made and marketed. He’s a regular co-host of the Times’ Popcast, a podcast about music news, and has worked at New York magazine and The Village Voice.

A long time music industry professional, Robyn Crawford worked with Whitney Houston, first as her assistant and then as her Creative Director, for 20 years. She now lives with her wife and two children in New Jersey.

Melissa Croce is originally from the Seattle area. She currently lives in New York City, where she works in children's publishing.

The New York Times bestselling author behind Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain, Room Full of Mirrors: A Biography of Jimi Hendrix, and more, Charles R. Cross has written for hundreds of newspapers and magazines, from Rolling Stone to TheTimes of London. As the editor of Seattle’s The Rocket from 1986 through 2000, Cross chronicled the rise of the Northwest music scene during the heyday of grunge; he now lectures at colleges about journalism and pop culture, and often appears on radio and television as an expert.

Ashley Cullins is a multi-faceted journalist with more than a decade of experience, and is currently Senior Business Editor for esteemed entertainment industry trade The Hollywood Reporter. After graduating with a Master's Degree in Journalism from Northwestern University's prestigious Medill School, Ashley began her career in broadcast news before moving to Los Angeles and making the jump to print. Over the years, she has covered everything from high-stakes litigation and emerging business trends to human interest features. In 2021, she published two oral histories on “Scream” and Wes Craven to celebrate the film's 25th anniversary.

A stand-up comedian, an actor, and a writer, Davidoff co-starred in the film Invincible and is a frequent guest on Chelsea Lately.

Designer and reality TV host Tamara Day seeks to make the aspirational attainable for her clients and fans of her renovation projects. Tamara restores neglected Kansas City homes on her show, Bargain Mansions. Bargain Mansions, which originated on DIY and then spent two seasons on HGTV, has now found its home on Magnolia Network, and is going into its fourth season. When Tamara is not in front of the camera, she is committed to her family design business, located in Kansas City. Her style, coined "Laid Back Luxe," blends glamour, comfort, and family into the spaces she designs – something she personally prioritizes. As a busy mother of four, Tamara believes that home should be both beautiful and low maintenance because life is stressful enough. To keep up with Tamara and her projects, follow @tamaraday on Instagram.

Anthony DeCurtis is a contributing editor to Rolling Stone, where his work has appeared for more than thirty years. A Grammy Award recipient, he has three times been recognized with the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for excellence in writing about music. A former on-air correspondent and editorial director at VH1, he has contributed to a myriad of television specials and programs; he teaches in the writing program at the University of Pennsylvania.

Hopwood DePree is a writer, actor, and producer who moved from Hollywood to Middleton, England to try to save from ruin his ancestors’ 600 year old estate, Hopwood Hall.

Kevin Dettmar is a literary, music, and cultural critic whose scholarship specializes in British and Irish modernism and contemporary popular music. He has written for academic anthologies as well as The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly and The Chronicle of Higher Education. Dettmar is the co-editor for the Oxford University Press book series Modernist Literature & Culture, general editor of the Longman Anthology of British Literature, and author of the 33 1/3 book Gang Of Four: Entertainment! He is the W.M. Keck Professor of English at Pomona College, and is based in California.

Ani DiFranco is a Grammy Award-winning singer, multi-instrumentalist, poet, songwriter, activist, businesswoman, and New York Times bestselling author. She has released more than 20 albums, and is one of the first independent musicians to create her own label, Righteous Babe Records (based in Buffalo, NY). She is widely known as an activist and feminist icon, and the Righteous Babe Foundation supports causes ranging from abortion rights to gay visibility.

Jared Diamond is the national baseball reporter for the Wall Street Journal, where in the past he has covered the Mets and the Yankees. He appears regularly on the MLB Network and is the co-creator of the journalism newsletter “The -30-.”

A stand-up comedian and humor lecturer, Diffee is a cartoonist for The New Yorker.

Kate Dobson is a former Assistant Comics Editor for the Washington Post and head writer for Brown University’s humor magazine. Her hobbies include serving food to her small children and, later, vacuuming that same food up off the floor.

J.D. Dobson is a former U.S. Senate aide, federal lobbyist, and crisis communications consultant. He and his wife, Kate, founded the political humor website Hottest Heads of State, which is basically just what it sounds like. When he’s not writing, he is a semi-professional novelty candlemaker.

A long-time contributor of cartoons and writing to The New Yorker and the New York Times, Donnelly is also resident cartoonist at CBS News. Donnelly is the creator of a new form of journalism, digital live-drawing. She’s also a frequent public speaker and gave a internationally popular TED talk about using humor to change the world.

Karen Duffy is the author of the New York Times bestseller Model Patient: My Life as an Incurable Wise-Ass. She is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, Glamour, Esquire, and the New York Daily News, and has played parts in the movies Dumb and Dumber, Celebrity, and Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox.She was also the face for Revlon's "Charlie’s Girl" and a VJ for MTV. She resides in New York with her husband and son.

Geoff Edgers is TheWashington Post’s national arts reporter, covering everything from fine arts to popular culture. In the last year he’s profiled Bill Murray, the Eagles and told the story of making Run-DMC’s version of Walk This Way.

James Egner is the Television Editor for the New York Times.

Fredrik Eklund is New York City’s top real estate broker, star of Bravo TV’s “Million Dollar Listing,” and author of the highly anticipated The Sell: The Secrets of Selling Anything to Anyone.

Banning Eyre is a respected broadcaster, journalist, musician and radio/film producer, and author of the highly acclaimed In Griot Time, An American Guitarist in Mali (Temple University Press 2000). Over 25 years, Eyre has researched music and culture in Mali, Congo, Morocco, Egypt and beyond. He is based in Connecticut.

Founder and CEO of VentureMark Inc., a Chicago-based real estate investment firm, Falanga has taught at Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management and holds a Ph.D. in Urban Planning from the University of Michigan.

Jim Farber wrote his first piece for Rolling Stone when he was 17 years old and he has been writing about music ever since. For 25 years, he served as Chief Music Critic of the New York Daily News. Since leaving in the fall of 2015, he has written for The New York Times,The Guardian,Time Magazine, Yahoo! Music, Mojo and many other publications. He was a contributor to The Rolling Stone Book of the ’70s, and the Rolling Stone Rock Encyclopedia. Farber is a two time winner of the Deems Taylor-ASCAP Music Award. He is based in New York City.

Alison Fensterstock is a New Orleans-based writer and editor. A contributor to NPR Music since 2016, she’s written and edited for Turning the Tables and appeared on NPR programs including All Things Considered, World Café and Word of Mouth; her writing about popular music and culture has appeared in Rolling Stone, the NewYork Times, the Oxford American and MOJO, among others.

Neal E. Fischer is an award-winning filmmaker, writer, and pop culture fanatic. He is the author of Being Patrick Swayze: Essential Teachings from the Master of the Mullet (Chronicle Books, 2022) and Behind the Screens: llustrated Floor Plans and Scenes from the Best TV Shows of All Time (Chronicle Books, 2023), a collaboration with artist Iñaki Aliste Lizarralde.

Katy is a cartoonist and comedian based in LA. She is the artist behind the popular Instagram account @sex_is_weird and a contributor to the New Yorker and McSweeney’s.

John Fogerty is a true American treasure. As the leader of Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR), Fogerty forged a distinctive, groundbreaking sound all his own, equal parts blues, country, pop, rockabilly, R&B, swamp boogie, and Southern fried rock ‘n’ roll, all united by his uniquely evocative lyrical perspective. Fogerty is a Grammy winner and has been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as well as the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Ben Folds is widely regarded as one of the major music influencers of our generation. He's created an enormous body of genre-bending music that includes pop albums with Ben Folds Five, multiple solo albums, and numerous collaborative records.

He is currently serving as the first ever Artistic Advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center.

Ben Fong-Torres began writing for Rolling Stone in 1968, and joined as news editor in 1969. He contributed to the magazine for 23 years and was portrayed as himself in the Cameron Crowe film Almost Famous. Fong-Torres, who also served as a weekend DJ on KSAN radio in San Francisco from 1970 to 1981, has written for dozens of magazines including Esquire, GQ, Parade, Playboy, Sports Illustrated, Travel & Leisure, MOJO, andHarper’s Bazaar. He is the radio columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and has won three Emmy awards for his work on television. He lives in San Francisco.

An NAACP Image Award–winning actress and producer, Fox is best known for her roles in the films Kill Bill: Volume 1, Kill Bill: Volume 2, Set It Off, and Independence Day, and on the television series Curb Your Enthusiasm and Empire.

A documentary filmmaker and a Primetime Emmy Award-winner, Friedberg has had his work appear on CBS, PBS, and The History Channel, among other television outlets.

Mayte Garcia is an internationally acclaimed dancer, actress, singer, and choreographer. She has appeared in numerous films and starred in the VH1 reality series Hollywood Exes, as well as Army Wives, Psych, The Closer, and Nip/Tuck. She lives in Los Angeles with her young daughter.

Richard Gehr has been writing about music, books, film, television and other aspects of popular culture for more than two decades. He edited artists such as David Lynch and Gary Panter at the Los Angeles Reader in the ‘80s, and has published scores of articles about comics for Artforum, Metropolis, and The Village Voice. He also has written for Rolling Stone, Blender, Vibe, O, The New York Times Book Review and Spin, and has contributed to several books. He is based in New York City.