Lois Lowry

Recorded on Thursday, September 21, 2023

Lois Lowry is an American author known for writing about difficult subject matter within works geared towards children. She has explored such complex issues as racism, terminal illness, murder, and the Holocaust, among other challenging topics. Her books have varied in content and style. Yet it seems that all of them deal, essentially, with the same general theme: the importance of human connections. Among her numerous accolades, she has twice been awarded a Newbery Medal, once for her book Number the Stars and a second time for her bestseller The Giver, which was adapted into a feature film in 2014. Learn more about her work at loislowry.com.

Kathryn D. Sullivan and Michael J. Rosen

Recorded on Thursday, May 25, 2023

Kathryn D. Sullivan is the first American woman to walk in space and a veteran of three shuttle missions. Dr. Sullivan has served as Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere as well as Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In 2020, she made history by becoming the first woman to visit the deepest spot in the oceans, the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, seven miles below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. She hosts the podcast Kathy Sullivan Explores.

Michael J. Rosen is a creator of art in many forms. Best known as the author of a wide variety of more than 150 books for both adults and young readers, he has worked in the field of art, design, and illustration since first publishing drawings in The New Yorker and Gourmet while he was in graduate school. Learn more about his work at michaeljrosen.com.

Brad Meltzer

Recorded on Monday, March 27, 2023

Brad Meltzer is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Lightning Rod, The Escape Artist, and eleven other bestselling thrillers. He also writes non-fiction books like The Nazi Conspiracy, about a secret plot to kill FDR, Stalin, and Winston Churchill at the height of WWII, and the Ordinary People Change the World kids’ book series, which he does with Chris Eliopoulos. His books have spent over a year on the bestseller lists, and have been translated into over 25 languages, from Hebrew to Bulgarian. Oh, and yes, Brad was recruited by the Department of Homeland Security to brainstorm different ways that terrorists might attack the United States. Brad supports many worthy causes including putting mentors in underserved public schools with City Year, fighting breast cancer with Sharsheret, and serving on the Board of the National Medal of Honor Museum Foundation.

Mystery Writers Panel

Recorded on Wednesday, October 25, 2022

Katherine Hall Page taught at the high school level for many years before her career as a writer and she developed a program for adolescents with special emotional needs. This interest in individuals and human behavior later informed her writing. Her first mystery, The Body in the Belfry, won the 1991 Agatha Award for Best First Mystery Novel. The fifteenth in the series, The Body in the Snowdrift, won the 2006 Agatha Award for Best Mystery Novel. In 2016, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Malice Domestic. Visit Katherine's website for her most recent book, The Body in the Wake: https://www.katherine-hall-page.org/.

Kathryn Lasky is the author of over one hundred books for children and young adults, including the Guardians of Ga’Hoole series, which has more than eight million copies in print, and Faceless, a 2021 novel that follows young British spies on a secret mission in Germany in WWII. Her books have received numerous awards including a Newbery Honor, a Boston Globe Horn Book Award, and a Washington Post Children’s Book Guild Nonfiction Award. Kathryn is returning to writing books for adults. Published in the fall of 2022, her new adult mystery novel, Light on Bone, features Georgia O'Keeffe: https://www.kathrynlasky.com/.

William Martin is the New York Times bestselling author of twelve novels, a PBS documentary, book reviews, magazine articles, and a cult classic horror movie. His first Peter Fallon novel, Back Bay, established him as "a master storyteller." He has been following the lives of the great and anonymous in American history ever since, taking readers from the Mayflower in Cape Cod to Ford's Theater in The Lincoln Letter to the South Tower on 9/11 in City of Dreams. He was the 2005 recipient of the prestigious New England Book Award. Visit William's website for his most recent book, December '41, published this summer: https://www.williammartinbooks.com/.

Gregory Maguire

Recorded on Friday, July 29, 2022

Gregory Maguire is the author of Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, which was adapted into an award-winning Broadway musical, and a recently published children's book, Cress Watercress. This wide-ranging conversation covers his process writing both books, including a discussion of what first drew him to explore the nature of evil in Wicked, and the important role that literature plays in children's development.

So You Think This Is Fantasy?
with Kathryn Lasky

Recorded on Friday, April 1, 2022

Our guest this spring was multi-award-winning author Kathryn Lasky. Kathryn has written over 100 books, from historical fiction and informational books to the much-loved fantasy series Guardians of Ga’Hoole, which has sold over 4 million copies and was made into an animated film in 2010. All of Kathryn’s work, even that fantasy series, is grounded in rigorous research. Kathryn estimates that for every hour of writing, she does one hour of research. By studying in the bio labs of Harvard and helicoptering over polar bears in Manitoba, she’s able to faithfully create owls that forge iron into fierce battle talons and polar bears capable of computing mathematical equations concerning the dissolution of the polar ice cap. In this discussion, Kathryn described her process in detail.