Moderator: Lisa Lucas is the Executive Director of the National Book Foundation. Prior to joining the Foundation, she served as the Publisher of Guernica Magazine and the Director of Education at the Tribeca Film Institute.

Jacqueline Woodson is a four-time National Book Award finalist, a four-time Newbery Honor winner, a two-time NAACP Image Award Winner, and a two-time Coretta Scott King Award winner. Her memoir, Brown Girl Dreaming, received the 2014 National Book Award. Woodson has also been named the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature and the Young People’s Poet Laureate, and she is the recipient of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award and the Children’s Literature Legacy Award. Her latest novel, Red at the Bone, hailed as “exquisite” by Toni Morrison, was an instant bestseller.

Jean Kwok is the New York Times and international bestselling author of Girl in Translation, Mambo in Chinatown, and the hit novel Searching for Sylvie Lee. Her work has been published in eighteen countries and is taught in universities, colleges, and high schools across the world. Kwok’s numerous honors include the American Library Association Alex Award, the Chinese American Librarians Association Best Book Award, and the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award international shortlist. She received her bachelor's degree from Harvard University and earned an MFA from Columbia University.

Dani Shapiro is the author of the instant New York Times bestseller, Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love. Her other books include the memoirs Hourglass, Still Writing, Devotion, and Slow Motion, and five novels including Black & White and Family History. Along with teaching writing workshops around the world, Shapiro has taught at Columbia and New York University, and is the co-founder of the Sirenland Writers Conference in Positano, Italy. Shapiro can currently be heard hosting her popular podcast, Family Secrets.